Recognizing, remembering, and restituting Maqdala 1868: the sociopolitical meaning of the Maqdala Expedition through the lens of cultural restitution debates

Thesis

This thesis explores how the construction of historical narratives through cultural restitution debates has functioned to transform the collection of artifacts taken from Maqdala (Ethiopia) during a British military expedition into a mainstream and iconic ‘case’ of cultural restitution. Though artifacts from this collection have been present in British institutions for more than 150 years, they have recently undergone rapid and significant shifts in the representation of their history that align with the demands of decolonial frameworks, which are particularly evident in a renewed emphasis on their status as loot. I demonstrate, through an analysis of social and political framings, archival sources, curatorial praxis, and artistic interventions, that this shift was made both possible and predictable by the discourses that are produced within cultural restitution debates. Rather than contributing a moral or legal case in favor of the restitution of the Maqdala artifacts, the broader aim of this work is to offer insight into the ways that these debates – the international conversations about the legacies of historical injustices in the global heritage sector – shape the politics, salience, and relevance of the histories of contested collections through narrative devices. This thesis therefore traces the unfolding of a historical moment in the British cultural sector where high-profile cases like that of the Benin Bronzes have the power to determine the categories and terms through which other cases come into being. I pay particular attention to the tensions between the desire to acknowledge the specificity of individual cases and the demand for cases to fit within the accepted paradigms of the wider agenda for cultural restitution. In doing so, I open up the possibility of considering the ways in which various actors and institutional determinants interact to both entrench and resist these paradigms. I argue that restitution debates do not merely respond to objective historical realities waiting to be uncovered and that, instead, cases of restitution emerge as discursive outcomes of the production of historical knowledge, a process that is deeply entangled in the normative instruments and sociopolitical dynamics of the present.

Authors: Illiano, SM

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-ovpyv20dm
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: cultural restitution; Benin Bronzes; loot; repatriation; Maqdala; museum representation; restitution debates; restitution; imperial history; decolonial frameworks; narratives; colonialism; imperialism
• Subjects: Religious articles; Cultural property--Repatriation; Anthropological museums and collections; Politics and culture; Decolonization--Africa; Imperialism--History--19th century; Discourse analysis, Narrative; Magdala, Battle of, Āmba Maryam, Ethiopia, 1868; Restitution