Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation: Negotiating Decolonisation in Latin America and the Caribbean (The Latin American Studies Book Series) 3031377478, 9783031377471

Table of contents :
Contents
Editors and Contributors
Introduction to Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation
References
Paths of Decolonisation
Current Times, Critical, and Future Thinking
1 Introduction
2 On Current Times, Critical, and Future Thinking
3 Rights-Led Approaches to Dissonant and Contested Heritage
4 Conclusion
References
Caring for Black Monuments
1 Introduction: The Coloniality of Heritage in Havana
2 “¡Túmbenlo!” (Tear It Down!): The Restoration of the Monument to José Miguel Gómez and the Garden of Fallen Monuments in Havana
3 Caring for Quintín Bandera: Callejón de Hamel and the Public Celebration of Blackness
4 Conclusion: Heritage as a Site of Affective and Embodied Encounter
References
Negotiating Decolonisation?
1 Introduction
2 Heritage, Politics, Identity: Imagining the Community
3 Museums, Exhibitions, Politics of Representation: Cultural Governance in Postcolonial Contexts
4 Case Study: Envisioning Independence in Casa de la Libertad, Sucre, Bolivia
5 Memories, Places, Genders: Negotiating Decolonisation?
6 Concluding Remarks
References
Restitution and Repatriation of Culture
(De)colonially Negotiating the Past
1 Introduction
2 Theoretical Framework
3 The Quimbaya Treasure
3.1 1890: Excavation and Circulation—From the Subsoil of Colombia to the Enthrallment of Europeans
3.2 1892–1893: State Acquisition, Exhibition and Gift—Colonial Heritage Diplomacy from the Colombian Creole Elite in Search of External Projection
3.3 1970 to the Present: Restitution Requests—Colombian Decolonial Heritage Diplomacy in Search of Affirmation
3.4 2018 to Present: Unambiguous Intention to Retain—The Spanish Official Responses Based in a Legalistic Perspective of Cultural Property
4 Final Considerations
References
The Reason for the Artifact
1 Introduction
2 Indigenous Cultural Heritage as a Tool
2.1 The Importance of Indigenous Cultural Heritage
3 International Standards on the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples on Cultural Heritage and Repatriation
3.1 The Hague Convention of 1954
3.2 The UNESCO Convention of 1970
3.3 The UNIDROIT Convention of 1995
3.4 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007
4 The Repatriation of Cultural Goods and Human Rights
5 The Cultural Reappropriation of Repatriated Cultural Goods
5.1 Human Rights: Cultural Reappropriation as an Attribution of the State
6 Concluding Remarks
References
Repatriation of Cultural Heritage and Their Museographic Use from a Decolonial Perspective
1 Introduction
2 Heritage, Decolonization, and Restitution
3 Why Should Demands for Restitution and Repatriation of Cultural Property Be the Subject of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies?
4 Dispute and Return of Archaeological Heritage of Machu Picchu
5 About the Permanent Exhibition “Recovered Heritage: Assets of Our Peruvian Identity”
6 How to Make Demands for the Return of Cultural Heritage of Historical Reparation?
7 Conclusion
References
Restitution of Indigenous Cultural Objects in Latin America
1 Introduction
2 NAGPRA
2.1 Origins and Content
2.2 Effects
3 Restitution of Indigenous Cultural Objects in Latin America
3.1 A Brief Overview
3.2 Brief Reference to Experiences in Regulation and Practice
4 Beyond Participation: Considering Indigenous Rules and Practices
5 Discussion
References
The Veins of Latin America Remain Open
1 Introduction
2 The Tragedy of Colonialism and Coloniality: Material and Intellectual Dispossession
3 Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies
4 Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD) and UNESCO World Heritage Sites
5 The Farce: Cultural Goods Trade and the Veins that Remain Open
5.1 Trade in Cultural Goods
5.2 A Crime that Pays Off: The Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Properties
6 Conclusion
References
Museums, Discourse, and Power
Entangled Heritage
1 Introduction
2 An Overseas Museum for Portugal
3 “Collection Trips”—Ethnography as a Collection Practice
4 From Africa to Portugal, from Portugal to the (Civilized) World
References
Denaturalization and Occidental Narrative to the Detriment of the Materiality of Moche and Tupinambá
1 Introduction
2 Homogeneous Time to the Detriment of “Indigenous Archaeological Artifacts”
3 The Tupinambá Mantle
4 The Huacos Moche and Their Avatars
5 The Moche Subject
6 The Subject Tupinambá and His Postcolonial Agency
7 Conclusion
References
Andean Colonial Paintings
1 Introduction
2 Medieval Ethos and Modernity
3 The Novissimi and the Church of Carabuco
3.1 The Last Judgment, San Francisco Convent
4 Conclusion
References
Decolonial Approaches and Narratives in Latin America and the Caribbean and European Museums
1 Introduction
2 Power, Coloniality, and Decoloniality
2.1 Decoloniality in the Museological Context
2.2 Return, Restitution, and Repatriation
2.3 Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe
3 Methodology
3.1 Data and Methods
3.2 Sample
3.3 Latin America and the Caribbean Cases
3.4 European Cases
4 Results
4.1 Legal- and Object-Centred Narrative
4.2 Silenced Stories and Discomfort
4.3 Communities and Reclamation of Human Rights
5 Concluding Remarks
References
Frontiers of Decoloniality
“A Symbol of Alliance and Peace Among American Nations”
1 Introduction
2 The Construction of the Columbus Lighthouse and the Pan-American Flight
3 The First Inter-American Education Ministers Meeting: A Proposal for Valuing the Americas
4 Conclusions
References
Decolonialism, Paulo Freire and the Triangular Approach
1 Introduction: Historical Context
2 Paulo Freire and Arts Education
3 Congress on Teaching/Learning the Arts in Latin America: Colonialism and Gender
3.1 A Participatory Congress
3.2 Preparation for Debates
4 The Triangular Approach
4.1 Contextualisation
4.2 Art Making
4.3 Reading Works of Art
4.4 Individual and Collective Readings of a Work of Art
4.5 The Tree (2018/2020)
5 Conclusion
References
The Mirror of Modernity
1 Introduction
2 The Modern World Heritage: Considerations on the Emergence of a New Field in the World Heritage Scope
3 Brasília and Pampulha Modern World Heritage Sites
3.1 Conjunto Urbanístico De Brasília (1987)
3.2 Conjunto Moderno Da Pampulha (2016)
4 Final Considerations
References
Coloniality, Race, and Indigenous Knowledge in Reports of Nineteenth-Century Explorers in Southern Brazil
1 Introduction
2 Naming and Classifying Indigenous People
3 The Empire of Laws
4 Conclusion
References
Correction to: Denaturalization and Occidental Narrative to the Detriment of the Materiality of Moche and Tupinambá
Correction to: Chapter 11 in: C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_11

Citation preview

The Latin American Studies Book Series

Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki Naomi Oosterman Rodrigo Christofoletti   Editors

Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation Negotiating Decolonisation in Latin America and the Caribbean

The Latin American Studies Book Series Series Editors Eustógio W. Correia Dantas, Departamento de Geografia, Centro de Ciências, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil Jorge Rabassa, Laboratorio de Geomorfología y Cuaternario, CADIC-CONICET, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

The Latin American Studies Book Series promotes quality scientific research focusing on Latin American countries. The series accepts disciplinary and interdisciplinary titles related to geographical, environmental, cultural, economic, political and urban research dedicated to Latin America. The series publishes comprehensive monographs, edited volumes and textbooks refereed by a region or country expert specialized in Latin American studies. The series aims to raise the profile of Latin American studies, showcasing important works developed focusing on the region. It is aimed at researchers, students, and everyone interested in Latin American topics. Submit a proposal: Proposals for the series will be considered by the Series Advisory Board. A book proposal form can be obtained from the Publisher, Juliana Pitanguy ([email protected]).

Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki · Naomi Oosterman · Rodrigo Christofoletti Editors

Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation Negotiating Decolonisation in Latin America and the Caribbean

Editors Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki Institute for Cultural Inquiry Utrecht University Utrecht, The Netherlands

Naomi Oosterman Department of Arts and Culture Studies Erasmus University Rotterdam Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Rodrigo Christofoletti Department of History Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora Juiz de Fora, Brazil

ISSN 2366-3421 ISSN 2366-343X (electronic) The Latin American Studies Book Series ISBN 978-3-031-37747-1 ISBN 978-3-031-37748-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023, corrected publication 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Introduction to Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation . . . . . . . . . . . Rodrigo Christofoletti, Naomi Oosterman, and Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki

1

Paths of Decolonisation Current Times, Critical, and Future Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inês de Carvalho Costa

17

Caring for Black Monuments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . María A. Gutiérrez Bascón

31

Negotiating Decolonisation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . María Lois

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Restitution and Repatriation of Culture (De)colonially Negotiating the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vitória dos Santos Acerbi

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The Reason for the Artifact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nathan Assunção Agostinho

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Repatriation of Cultural Heritage and Their Museographic Use from a Decolonial Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Kathia Maurtua Espinoza and Rodrigo Christofoletti Restitution of Indigenous Cultural Objects in Latin America . . . . . . . . . . 121 María Julia Ochoa Jiménez The Veins of Latin America Remain Open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Ana Cristina Pandolfo and Jaisson Teixeira Lino

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Contents

Museums, Discourse, and Power Entangled Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Márcia Chuva Denaturalization and Occidental Narrative to the Detriment of the Materiality of Moche and Tupinambá . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Jeremy Gibran Dioses Campaña Andean Colonial Paintings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Letícia Santos Decolonial Approaches and Narratives in Latin America and the Caribbean and European Museums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki and Naomi Oosterman Frontiers of Decoloniality “A Symbol of Alliance and Peace Among American Nations” . . . . . . . . . . 227 Hevelly Ferreira Acruche Decolonialism, Paulo Freire and the Triangular Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Ana Mae Barbosa and Lucia Gouvêa Pimentel The Mirror of Modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Walkiria Maria de Freitas Martins Coloniality, Race, and Indigenous Knowledge in Reports of Nineteenth-Century Explorers in Southern Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 Daniele Weigert Correction to: Denaturalization and Occidental Narrative to the Detriment of the Materiality of Moche and Tupinambá . . . . . . . . . . Jeremy Gibran Dioses Campaña

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Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry of Utrecht University. She holds a Research Master (MSc) in the Sociology of Culture, Media and the Arts. Her research interests include cultural heritage, colonial legacies, decolonisation, inequality and social justice. She is currently working on a research project on negotiating colonial legacies and social justice in cultural heritage. She has participated in several research projects in Chile and The Netherlands, mainly focusing on issues concerning heritage processes, decolonisation, social stratification and inequality, cultural participation and consumption, and arts education. Rodrigo Christofoletti holds a PhD in History from the Fundação Getulio Vargas— CPDOC. He is a full professor of Cultural Heritage in the History Department at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) and teaches in the Graduate Program at the same university. He is a researcher at LAPA—UFJF Heritage Laboratory and a collaborator at CITCEM—Center for Transdisciplinary Research, Culture, Space and Memory of the Faculty of Letters of University of Porto (FLUP). He is the leader of the research group CNPq—Heritage and International Relations. He has experience in the area of Political History and Cultural Heritage with an emphasis on Cultural Heritage, working mainly on the following topics: heritage—cultural assets—heritage education and world heritage.

Contributors Hevelly Ferreira Acruche Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil Nathan Assunção Agostinho Department of Social Sciences, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil vii

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Editors and Contributors

Ana Mae Barbosa Graduate Program in Design, Art and Technology, University Anhembi Morumbi, São Paulo, Brazil Jeremy Gibran Dioses Campaña Graduate Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil

Program

History,

Universidade

Rodrigo Christofoletti Cultural Heritage, Department of History, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil Márcia Chuva Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro - UNIRIO, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Inês de Carvalho Costa Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal; Group of Tangible and Intangible Heritage, Transdisciplinary Research Center «Culture, Space and Memory», Porto, Portugal Walkiria Maria de Freitas Martins Colégio de Aplicação João XXIII, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil Vitória dos Santos Acerbi Global Contact Research and Consulting, Paris, France Kathia Maurtua Espinoza Graduate Program History, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil María A. Gutiérrez Bascón Department of Cultures, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Jaisson Teixeira Lino Department of History/Department of Sociology, Universidade Federal da Fronteira Sul, Chapecó, Brazil María Lois Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands María Julia Ochoa Jiménez Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, University of Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia; School of Political and Juridical Sciences, Loyola University, Seville, Spain Ana Cristina Pandolfo Tribunal Regional do Trabalho da 12ª Região, Florianópolis, Brazil Lucia Gouvêa Pimentel Department of Visual Arts, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil Letícia Santos History of Art Graduate Program, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Daniele Weigert Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Introduction to Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation Negotiating Decolonisation in Latin America and the Caribbean Rodrigo Christofoletti , Naomi Oosterman , and Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki

Abstract Recent widely publicised debates about the return of (colonially) looted heritage have furthered the discussions of decolonisation and have changed the discourses surrounding “heritage”. The mapping of other actors in the production and management of heritage, with a growing presence of themes that address “Latinities” and “decolonialities”, has gained greater visibility as new challenges arise. With this volume, we focus on the Latin America and Caribbean context in relation to decolonial practices and cultural heritage. The authors in this volume provide novel theoretical and empirical analyses on a variety of Latin America and the Caribbean cases that are contesting colonial heritage. Keywords Cultural heritage · Colonial legacies · Coloniality/Decoloniality · Negotiation · Contestation

I called it ‘The School of the South’ because, in reality, our north is the south. There must be no north for us, except in opposition to our south. So now we turn the map upside down, and then we have a true idea of our position, not as the rest of the world wants.

R. Christofoletti Department of History, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] N. Oosterman (B) Department of Arts and Culture Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] C. A. Malig Jedlicki Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_1

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R. Christofoletti et al. America’s point, henceforth, forever, points insistently to the south, our north. (Torres García 1935)

In 1943, the Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres García drew an upside-down map of the South American continent, which he would call América Invertida (Inverted America) (see Fig. 1). In Latin America, this image is hailed as a socio-political artistic work aimed at combating cultural imperialisms and other cartographic norms rooted in the European colonisation of the Americas. Torres García thus highlighted a fundamental flaw concerning “traditional” maps: why do these maps have a top and a bottom, if a direction like this does not exist in the universe? Additionally, he questioned the (in)direct hierarchisation of maps, where countries positioned in the northern hemisphere are deemed more important than those on the southern. By turning the map of South America upside-down, he therefore displayed that the ideas of “top-down” and the difference between “important and less important” are nothing more than socially constructed dichotomies that can be reconstructed and reconsidered (Torres García 1944). Despite the criticism of Torres García on the socially constructed hierarchisation of continents and peoples, in present-day writing, we still find plentiful instances of these types of distinctions. Terms such as Global North and Global South, used to differentiate between what some call “developed and developing” countries. But also terms as “the West” and “Western” still indicate clear differentiations and distinctions placed upon peoples, communities, and even continents, where “the West” is traditionally placed in the centre of power. These divisions and processes however are never merely geographical; they are inherently political and cultural. Within this hierarchisation, expressions of, for example, visual art, music, literature, cinema, and so on, are equally understood from a “top–down” perspective. Expressions of culture are starkly positioned within a “centre-periphery” structure which is often rooted in so-called universality: a term that, despite its appearance, is synonymous to centring European and North-American indicators of quality and understanding through the “universal spirit of man” (Kilgore 1954, p. 303). This similarly happens when talking about cultural heritage, where heritage is often considered an almost material manifestation, a “thing” needing conservation and preservation. However, as Starrenburg (2023) points out: the construction of universality in cultural heritage is paradoxical, as universality cannot be achieved without reference to its inherent particularity, namely through its context, place, time, and peoples (p. 42). Discussing legitimisation and delegitimisation of forms of cultural heritage, Smith (2006) developed the concept of “Authorised Heritage Discourse”, where she argues rightfully so according to us, that heritage is not a thing, but instead an “inherently political and discordant” process (p. 38) that “privileges expert values and knowledge about the past (...) which in turn dominates and regulates professional heritage practices” (p. 4), predominantly through European and North American notions of class, science, and nation state. Today, cultural heritage is still understood as an essential vector that comprises different instances of power and as such, heritage is still understood and

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Fig. 1 América Invertida (1943) by Joaquin Torres García. Image used under CC BY-NC 04 licence. Source Fundación Torres García, Montevideo

evaluated through an authorised heritage discourse. As such, we considered it appropriate to develop a volume that discusses these issues of universality, hierarchisation, and global inequality in understanding cultural heritage through colonial legacies. In heritage thus undisputedly lies power. It reflects political ideas, local identities, and can contribute to both equality and inequality. Recent widely publicised debates on the return of colonial heritage have further deepened discussions on colonial legacies and decolonisation in discourses surrounding heritage. As such, the mapping of “other” actors in the production and management, with a growing presence of themes that address “Latinities” and “decolonialities” have gained greater visibility as new challenges arise. With this volume, we therefore focus on the Latin America and Caribbean context in asking if cultural heritage can be read as a metaphor of

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colonisation and enslavement? If it has the ability for socio-economic emancipation? Increase cultural protagonism, dignity, and rectify imbalances related to social identities?. This volume contributes to a broader understanding of how cultural heritage, and its intersection with coloniality and decoloniality, may reproduce and uncover (de)colonial logics of domination. We observe this through different paths traced by decolonial processes through politics and city landscapes, through the mobilisation of physical manifestations of culture, and through the discussions of restitution and repatriation of these, and in the discourses and powers that prevail in heritage institutions. The discussion of colonial heritage, power, and contestation shows that even in independent nation states, despite conceiving a post-colonial understanding of the world, mechanisms of power remain with coloniality and imperialism acting through soft power mechanisms. Through the different perspectives presented by the authors, this volume allows to draw a picture of how issues surrounding cultural heritage continue, in a certain way, to “bleed” Latin America and the Caribbean (as posed by Pandolfo and Lino in this volume) and as such enrich individuals and (cultural) institutions in Europe and North America. Agreeing with the authors’ analyses, we put forward that heritage shows how “foreign” powers still control the region, contributing to the continuous exploitation of Latin America and the Caribbean. In this area of revisionist perspectives, our authors take a political stance to denounce Eurocentricity, and question the centrality or predominance thereof. According to Porto-Gonçalves (2005), these epistemic geopolitics produced an inclination to treat knowledge produced outside hegemonic centres and written in non-hegemonic languages, as local or regional knowledge. Although this book, in a way, reproduces the almost oligopoly of the English language, the proposal of this book understands that it is also in linguistic diversity that the veneer of resistance regarding cultural centralities is located. This relationship would contemplate the colonial difference (Mignolo 2008); it would mean understanding the specificities— the policies and sensitivities—of the territories marked by the colonial experience, introduced by violence in the capitalist world system, making it modern/colonial. In this sense, it launches other interpretative bases and categories of reality from Latin America and the Caribbean experiences, without abandoning subsidies from some thinkers, but pointing out its Eurocentric limitations (Mignolo 2008). A way of thinking is directly or indirectly based on authors such as the Cuban José Martí, the Peruvians José Carlos Mariátegui and Aníbal Quijano, and the Brazilians Guerreiro Ramos, Abdias do Nascimento, Darcy Ribeiro, Paulo Freire, and Conceição Evaristo, among others. This, then, is the so-called Decolonial Turn: the distinctive turn of this network of researchers in relation to researchers conventionally treated as postcolonial. According to Luciana Christina Cruz e Souza (2018), the concept of Decolonial Turn was coined by Nelson Maldonado-Torres during a 2005 meeting at the University of Berkeley called Mapping the Decolonial Turn: Trans/Post Continental Interventions in Philosophy, Theory, and Critique, where several Caribbean and Latin American philosophers convened. The Decolonial Turn does not break the

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dialogue with modern/colonial Eurocentric knowledge but considers that this episteme, still hegemonic, does not account for the complexity of the different social formations in each place and region of the world. In other words, they propose an analysis of the whole, but also of its parts. There is an epistemological legacy of Eurocentrism that prevents us from understanding the world we live in and from the episteme that are proper to them. As Walter Mignolo explained, the fact that the Greeks invented philosophical thought does not mean that they invented thought (Souza 2018; Mignolo 2008; Porto-Gonçalves 2005). But when talking about America’s experience in the capitalist world, Quijano (2005, 2010) makes strong criticisms of the interpretations made by modern currents. According to him, structuralism, functionalism, and structural-functionalism have in common the idea that society is organised around a limited set of historically invariant patterns. For the author, it is about perceptions of the conjunctures that consider historically homogeneous, linear and unidirectional elements, in time and space: a preferential option of Eurocentrism in the production of historical knowledge. A Decolonial Turn assumes that the Latin America and the Caribbean experience has produced alternative ways of knowing that are questioning the modern/colonial character of the social world, calling into question Modernity as a universal civilisation model. In the field of preservation of world cultural heritage, this issue has been increasingly at the centre of debates. Using the synthesis elaborated by Ballestrin (2013) about what post-colonialism would be, two ideas are evoked about the production associated with it: the first relates to the historical time after the decolonisation processes of former colonies, that is, to the independence, liberation, emancipation, mainly, of Asian and African societies; and the second refers to a set of theoretical contributions that gained strong expression in literary and cultural studies in the 1980s, from English and NorthAmerican universities (Ballestrin 2013, 2014), which made English emerge as a referenced language on the theme (Grosfoguel and Bernardino-Costa 2016). According to Ballestrin, there is a heterogeneity of influences in the production of different post-colonial authors, largely defenders of a decolonial approach, such as Fanon, Said, Spivak, Guha and Bhabba, and Appadurai, whose theoretical contributions marked critical openings to a peripheral geography. An attentive genealogy of post-colonial production does not allow for such an emphasis of departure from Marxist criticism. Franz Fanon and Ranajit Guha, the main exponents respectively of the “French” and “sacred” triads of post-colonialism, were strongly inspired by Marxist writings. The thinking of Gramsci can be seen in Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Stuart Hall (Ballestrin 2014, p. 195). It is visible within decolonial studies that scholars operate with notions of “structure” and “long duration”, dear to certain debates held in disciplines that make up the curriculum of the Humanities. There are also influences on post-colonial reflections articulated by Europeans, such as Boaventura Sousa Santos, whose discussions about excluding hegemonic knowledge structures inspire debates about new possibilities through the Epistemologies of the South (Santos and Meneses 2010). For Boaventura, there would be an “abyssal line”—visible and invisible distinctions that divide social reality between existing and non-existent. It is along this line that the

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domain of science, politics, and law would be organised, for example, where the invisible side would not have its reality recognised. On the other hand, Quijano (2005, 2010) understands the Eurocentric perspective, regarding the Latin American historical experience as a mirror that distorts what it reflects: although Latin America has many [important] European traits, it is nevertheless profoundly distinct. In this sense, the real particularities of the problems of this territory are not identified, making it difficult to build specific solutions for it. From this perspective, this volume understands that it is possible to think of heritage as a product and production element of coloniality, considering its intrinsic relationship with the nation-state, and its instrumentalisation for the functioning of material and symbolic dynamics that do not contemplate the diversity of peoples and of knowledge in various forms of existence. Here, it is necessary to highlight the perspective of heritage: it is understood as a result of institutional relations marked by (inseparable) political, economic, and cultural issues. Themes connect the topics of power, conflict, negotiation, and contestation, which are central in this volume to understanding decoloniality. To account for such diversity, this book was divided into four parts that seek to establish a discussion on the thematic plurality that presents itself and that, therefore, maps themes that have gained visibility in recent decades. To match the plurality of perspectives, we were eager to present authors from different regions, communities, stages of career, and disciplines. We are happy to have been able to include work from a wide range of Latin America and the Caribbean countries, such as Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Cuba, Peru, and Venezuela, and on a wide range of Latin America and the Caribbean contexts such as the Columbus Commemorative Lighthouse (Dominican Republic), La Casa de La Libertad (Sucre, Bolivia), Callejón de Hamel (Cuba), the Quimbaya Treasure (Colombia), Andean art, Moche and Tupinambá (Peru and Brazil), and African diasporic heritage (Brazil). We present chapters from various academic disciplines (e.g., cultural studies, history, sociology, criminology, law), as well as work from (heritage) practitioners. We pride ourselves furthermore with presenting a balanced number of early career researchers, PhD candidates, as well as postdoctoral fellows and advanced researchers based at universities from all over the world. The first part of the book: Paths of decolonisation, presents chapters that suggest different trajectories of decolonisation processes and provides context for decolonial theories and applications, especially in the context of cultural heritage. Inês de Carvalho Costa, in Current Times, Criticism and Future Thinking: Contribution to Rights-Based Approaches to Heritage, provides a literature review on decoloniality and how it can be understood from the perspectives of History of Current Times, Critical Heritage Studies, and the field of Heritage and the Future. The chapter focuses on understanding both present-day and future scenarios of societies dealing with interconnections between heritage and human rights. She does this with a critical reflection of the main tenets of these three intellectual disciplines, providing an overview of the strengths and limitations of each of them, and a critical reflection on how they can influence approaches to heritage based on Human Rights.

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In Caring for Black Monuments: Decolonial Heritage Practices in Havana’s Callejón de Hamel, María A. Gutiérrez Bascón analyses how, coinciding with the economic crisis of the 1990s, the main heritage institution in Havana, Cuba, launched an ambitious program to restore the city’s colonial sites. Heritage conservation then became a strategy not only to rescue the decaying historic centre of Havana but also to attract international tourism, which was needed to boost the Cuban economy. Inevitably, this market-driven process resulted in the displacement of marginalised residents. In addition, the picturesque landscapes produced by the program neglected Afro-Cuban heritage, nostalgically celebrating colonial legacies, while erasing stories of black enslavement for the comfort of tourists’ eyes. In a different variation on the case study provided by Gutiérrez Bascón, María Lois concludes the first part of this volume with a study centring on the concept of heritagisation, referring to the processes in which identities, practices, memories, and voices of multiple communities are made visible. In her chapter, she focuses on heritagisation in relation to the resistance against colonial narratives, most prominently in discussing politics of representation in the Casa de la Libertad, one of the most important national monuments of the plurinational state of Bolivia. Part II of this volume focuses on very specific manifestations of coloniality, that became a prevalent, and central, discussion within the field of decoloniality, furthered by increasing debates around cultural loss, repatriation, and the ownership of cultural heritage. Part II of this volume is therefore exclusively dedicated to the Restitution and repatriation of culture. Vitória dos Santos Acerbi opens this part of the volume by discussing the historical dimensions of coloniality and decoloniality in the disposition and narratives of the Colombian and Spanish states regarding a collection of 122 pre-Columbian gold pieces currently in the Museum of the Americas in Madrid. (De)colonially negotiating the past: the Quimbaya Treasure between the gift and the return requests from Colombia to Spain evaluates the colonial–decolonial spectrum present in different perspectives of heritage and cultural assets in the collection. It focuses on the processes of excavation and discovery, acquisition, and donation, in relation to calls for its restitution. Dos Santos Acerbi examines their underlying values, how they emerged and mobilised, and the different points of view of legal and legitimate rights to the collection. She also analyses the international relations underlying the case, a unique demand for the restitution of pre-colonial heritage donated by the colonised country to its former coloniser, in the light of inter-American and international legal developments, both increasingly sensitive to questions of indigenous, cultural and identity rights, as well as the return of heritage. Nathan Assunção Agostinho provides a broader discussion of issues concerning repatriation of illicitly trafficked cultural objects, especially those that are currently held in European museums, and who belong to indigenous communities. In The reason for the artefact: Paths for the repatriation of indigenous cultural assets, using Brazil as a case study, Assunção Agostinho discusses how, during the Latin American colonial period, Europeans looted various cultural artefacts which in the last two decades, by use of cultural diplomacy, restitution claims, and the repatriation and return of heritage have gained prominence as a form of historical reparation, as

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well as a decolonial mechanism to safeguard the collective memory of historically subordinated communities. However, there is little information on how this reality is presented and discussed in Brazil today and, therefore, this chapter presents an overview of existing leglistation concerning restitutions and of the return of trafficked cultural heritage from the perspective of colonialism. Kathia Maurtua Espinoza and Rodrigo Christofoletti discuss in Repatriation of cultural heritage and their museographical use from a decolonial perspective the museographical use of cultural heritage recovered through demands for restitution and repatriation, from a decolonial perspective, that questions the immediate association of these demands with the idea of “historical reparation”, in view of the return of the material in dispute. Although during the process of demand, return and, in some cases, during its subsequent museographic use, behaviours are observed that question the ability of original communities to take care of their own cultural heritage, minimising, in some cases, their importance within the museographic narrative built around these objects. In this order of ideas, they approach the museographic exhibition, physical and virtual, of cultural goods recovered through these demands. Thus, these exhibition spaces invite us to think about experiments by museums whose commitments in the fight against illicit trafficking in cultural goods go beyond mere exhibition, since their very composition depends on the success of their actions for the recovery of goods in their own right. María Julia Ochoa Jiménez critically evaluates if, and how, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) can serve as a legislative model for the Latin American context. In Restitution of indigenous cultural objects in Latin America: NAGPRA as a model?, she argues that it is necessary to observe the particularities of each country. Something relevant however, is that in Latin America, even in those countries where similar legislation as NAGPRA has already been implemented (using Argentina as a case study), the nation-state plays a dominant and nearly exclusive role in the process of building legislation, norms, and practices concerning cultural heritage, in that sense positioning indigenous peoples on the side lines. Part II of this volume ends with a chapter by Ana Cristina Pandolfo and Jaisson Teixeira Lino entitled The veins of Latin America remain open: The movement of cultural goods and colonialities. They propose that culture and art cannot escape the contradictions of the economic system in which we live and suffer the consequences of being treated as an object to be produced, reproduced, appropriated, and consumed. They perceive that the displacement of cultural objects is closely aligned to the paths imposed by historical colonialism, when the looting of cultural heritage was legitimised by the political-military supremacy of the coloniser. In the post-independence world, they argue, there are now other mechanisms of coloniality and imperialism, albeit now exercised as soft power. The authors argue that the trade of cultural objects, theft, looting, and unequal business acts continue to bleed Latin America and enrich collectors and museums in predominantly Europe and the United States, which is made possible by a relationship of dependence, still marked by colonial ideas. A direct corollary of the expansion of requests and claims for restitution and repatriation, the third part of this volume includes contributions discussing how

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museums, and similar cultural institutions, have become the scene of intermediation and power struggles. In Museums, Discourses, and Power, authors discuss different notions of decoloniality within these institutions and how discourses of coloniality and power hierarchisations still manifest, and manifold, themselves. Márcia Chuva in Entangled heritage: Path to decolonise museums and African objects in the diaspora argues the central tenet of this part, namely that museums and other cultural institutions have the power to organise social life through the imposition of cognitive structures and consensus on the meanings of the world. They are spaces with legitimacy for the construction and dissemination of interpretations of history, as arenas for the exercise of power and political control, as well as places for choices about what to present and represent. Chuva argues that, once removed from their contexts, they become museological objects, part of new power relations, and a network of circulation of knowledge, objects, and subjects. Chuva exemplifies this through an analysis of the Museu de Etnologia do Ultramar de Portugal, today the National Museum of Ethnology (MNE), around the African heritage that makes up its collection, based on the assumption that the stories of such objects are links to the continuity of the colonial conditions. However, they are also capable of producing decolonisations. Another chapter establishing a dialogue between different Latin American contexts is the contribution written by Jeremy Gibran Dioses Campaña and Marcos Olender. In Denaturalisation and Occidental narrative to the detriment of the materiality of Moche and Tupinambá, they present the trajectories of certain Brazilian and Peruvian indigenous artefacts appropriated by European nations in the period of colonisation of the American continent and which today are located in several European museums. They seek to understand how the relationship of enchantment of this cultural heritage is built from what we could call the epistemological perspective of the Tupinambás and the ethnicity of the Moche. With that, they took the opposition between the colonialist and indigenous perspectives of these artefacts to better understand their trajectory when they were expropriated from their producers and legitimate owners. Expanding the scope of the analysis to a more regional context, is the text by Letícia Santos, Andean colonial paintings: A space on negotiation? The chapter closely analyses two paintings from the Andean colonial period and understands from the peculiarities of these works, the negotiation between indigenous people and Spanish colonisers. This analysis challenges Eurocentric models of artistic canonisation, by focusing on novel approaches of both Historiography and Art History. Closing Part III of this volume, Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki and Naomi Oosterman discuss how cultural institutions around the world are trying to tackle challenges concerning decolonisation, especially within the context of museums. In Decolonial narratives and approaches in Latin America and the Caribbean and European museums, they explore how ideas surrounding colonial legacies in cultural heritage are interpreted in the narratives of museums in these two regions, and their different approaches to decolonisation. The study analyses publications by museum councils, museum associations, and museum exhibitions, identifying three distinct types of narratives. The authors show how, while all the selected

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museum publications try to create more inclusive heritage narratives, the way these narratives are constructed impacts their frame of action and alignment with either authorised heritage discourses or decolonisation processes, and discuss the main limitations and relevant perspectives to be considered when addressing colonial legacies. The fourth and final part of this volume presents texts that border the theme and teach us that the concept of decoloniality is indeed multi-interpretable. Frontiers of Coloniality presents the following chapters that seek answers to the question: what are the limits, if they exist, of decoloniality? Hevelly Ferreira Acruche opens this part with an analysis centring on collective identity and heritage-building. In “A Symbol of union and peace among American nations”: Memory, heritage, and history in the construction of the Columbus Commemorative Lighthouse, she presents an analysis about the collective heritage monument called the Columbus Commemorative Lighthouse in the Dominican Republic. Despite previous literature suggesting the construction of the Lighthouse being a one-directional colonial effort, Ferreira Acruche argues that Latin American countries were far from being “simply” instruments of United States imperialism. Rather, in her analyses, she focuses on dialogues and international cooperation from the perspective of South and Central American countries. Using post-colonial theory, Ferreira Acruche shows the existence of Latin American initiatives and voices in desire to create a unified and pacifistic relationship with the United States. Ana Mae Barbosa and Lucia Gouvêa Pimentel in Decolonialism, Paulo Freire and the Triangular Approach, provide a historical overview of cultural colonisation in relation to the execution of arts education in Brazil. Providing first a historical overview of arts education in Brazil and the (colonial) factors that influenced it, they subsequently discuss the Triangular Approach: an approach to arts education developed by Barbosa, based on the intellectual legacy of Paulo Freire. The chapter, in detail, describes the discussions that took place at a congress in November 2021, as well as a clear and visual example of how to apply the Triangular Approach in arts education. Walkiria Maria de Freitas Martins, in The mirror of modernity: The modern world heritage and its collection in Brazil, presents a historiographical analysis of the patrimonialisation processes of two Brazilian cultural assets that constitute the collection of modern cultural heritage in Brazil, recognised by UNESCO as World Heritage sites. These are the “Urbanistic Complex of Brasília” and the “Modern Complex of Pampulha”. Both are made up of buildings designed by the architects Oscar Niemeyer (Pampulha) and Lucio Costa (Brasília). Martins provides an analysis of how modernist architecture in Brazil gained prominence in the republican history of the country and how, through a decolonial lens, modernist architecture became a reflection of Brazilian national identity. The fourth part of the volume ends with a text by Daniele Weigert entitled Coloniality, race, and indigenous knowledge in reports of nineteenth-century explorers in Southern Brazil that presents an analysis of discourses used in texts written by Brazilian and foreign explorers who encountered indigenous peoples, particularly the Kaingang people, in Southern Brazil. Additionally, she provides an overview of

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the law in place in the nineteenth century to control relationships between colonisers and indigenous peoples. Weigert uncovers a discourse relating to “coloniality of power”, and using the framework developed by Quijano, that racial ideologies by the colonisers legitimised the continuity of colonialism, and the expansion of the Brazilian empire over indigenous territories, in addition to justifying the domination over indigenous peoples in a period in which emancipationist legislations were intensifying processes of liberation. ∗ ∗ ∗ The idea proposed here in this volume is that decoloniality is more than an approach, a way of seeing the world, from the periphery to the centres of power. Cultural heritage and its diversity have been configured as one of the favourable terrains for the decolonial perception not only because of the very nature of the changes that the world has been going through, but above all because of the observance of actions, narratives, and methods that make Latin America and the Caribbean an exemplary context for analysing such changes. The first decades of the twenty-first century have been consolidated as a privileged stage for the reconfiguration of thoughts and worldviews. Eight decades after Joaquín Torres García’s drawing was published, perhaps we are better able to reorder the position of Latin America and the Caribbean on the geo-political board. Hailed as a socio-political artistic work aimed at combating cultural imperialisms and other cartographic norms rooted in the European colonisation of the Americas, today it finds fertile ground to be a light of a beacon to guide new incursions. In the same way that cultural heritage has gone from supporter to protagonist, understood today as an essential vector in the instances of power, decoloniality is placed today as an imperative need that will make the looks and customs not only diversified, but, above all, respected. After all, the world has become increasingly pluri-centric and its borders increasingly redrawn. If the power of heritage lies in pushing boundaries and persuading changes in preestablished definitions, political ideas, local identities, and peripheral powers, such power can contribute to equality and to the notoriety of its reach. With this volume, we focus on the Latin America and the Caribbean context in relation to decolonial practices and cultural heritage. Studies in the fields of sociology, cultural studies, (critical) heritage studies, cultural policy, and related disciplines provide us with new perspectives on local, national, and regional views of decolonisation in Latin America and the Caribbean. For this reason, these chapters focus on a wide range of topics, ranging from colonial heritage and decolonisation to the decontextualisation of cultural heritage, themes that have increasingly populated debates about the role and strength of decolonial discourse and practices. We hope this effort finds receptivity among peers and counteracts the stereotypes that made Latin America and the Caribbean a space of mere reproducibility of external ideas. The Latin America and the Caribbean view of its own destiny in the world fits in the pages of decoloniality and thus guarantees space in the most important discussions on the world agenda, for the sake of diversity and decolonial strength.

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References América Invertida (Inverted America), in World History Commons. https://worldhistorycommons. org/america-invertida-inverted-america. Accessed 28 Mar 2023 Ballestrin L (2013) América Latina e o Giro Decolonial. Revista Brasileira De Ciência Política 11:89–117 Ballestrin L (2014) Colonialidade e democracia. Revista Estudos Políticos 5(9):191–209 Grosfoguel R, Bernardino-Costa J (2016) Decolonialidade e perspectiva negra. Revista Sociedade e Estado 31(1):15–24 Kilgore R (1954) The universality of art. Phi Delta Kappan 35(8):303–305 Mignolo W (2008) Desobediência Epistêmica: A Opção Descolonial e o significado de Identidade em Política. Cadernos De Letras Da UFF, Dossiê: Literatura, Língua e Identidade 34:287–324 Porto-Gonçalves CW (2005) Apresentação da edição em português. In: Lander E (ed) A colonialidade do saber: eurocentrismo e ciências sociais. Perspectivas Latino Americanas. Colección Sur, CLACSO, Buenos Aires, pp 3–5 Quijano A (2005) Colonialidade do poder, eurocentrismo e América do Sul. In: Lander E (ed) A colonialidade do saber: eurocentrismo e ciências sociais. Perspectivas Latino Americanas. Buenos Aires, Colección Sur, CLACSO, pp 107–130 Quijano A (2010) Colonialidade do poder e classificação social. In: Santos BS, Meneses MP (eds) Epistemologias do sul. Editora Cortez, São Paulo, pp 73–119 Santos BS, Meneses MP (eds) (2010) Epistemologias do Sul. Editora Cortez, São Paulo Smith L (2006) Uses of heritage. Routledge, Abingdon Souza LCC (2018) Patrimônio e Colinialidade. A preservação do patrimônio mineiro numa crítica decolonial. Dissertation, Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro Starrenburg S (2023) The genealogy of ’universality’ within cultural heritage law. In: Strecker E, Powderly J (eds) Heritage destruction, human rights and international law. Brill, Leiden, pp 42–67 Torres García J (1935) Estructura. Biblioteca Alfar, Montevideo Torres García J (1944) La Escuela del Sur. In Poseidón (ed) Universalismo constructivo. Buenos Aires, pp 213–219. https://icaa.mfah.org/s/en/item/1245960#?c=&m=&s=&cv=3& xywh=-1334%2C-195%2C4367%2C2444. Accessed on 27 Mar 2023

Rodrigo Christofoletti holds a PhD in History from the Fundação Getulio Vargas—CPDOC. Full Professor of Cultural Heritage of the History Department at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), and teaches in the Graduate Program at the same university. He is a researcher at LAPA—UFJF Heritage Laboratory and a collaborator at CITCEM—Center for Transdisciplinary Research, Culture, Space and Memory of the Faculty of Letters of University of Porto (FLUP). He is the leader of the research group CNPq—Heritage and Inter-national Relations. He has experience in the area of Political History and Cultural Heritage with an emphasis on Cultural Heritage, working mainly on the following topics: heritage—cultural assets—heritage education, and world heritage. Naomi Oosterman holds a PhD in Sociology from City, University of London, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Cultural Heritage at the Department of Arts and Culture Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She is specialised in (the policing of) art and heritage crime, the illicit trafficking of antiquities, and contested heritage in general. She is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies since December 2022, and Cluster Manager of the research group Heritage under Threat of the Centre for Global Heritage and Development. She is furthermore a member of ICAHM’s working group on Illicit Trafficking.

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Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry of Utrecht University. She holds a Research Master (MSc) in the Sociology of Culture, Media and the Arts. Her research interests include cultural heritage, colonial legacies, decolonisation, inequality and social justice. She is currently working on a research project on negotiating colonial legacies and social justice in cultural heritage. She has participated in several research projects in Chile and The Netherlands, mainly focusing on issues concerning heritage processes, decolonisation, social stratification and inequality, cultural participation and consumption, and arts education.

Paths of Decolonisation

Current Times, Critical, and Future Thinking Contribution to Rights-Led Approaches to Heritage Inês de Carvalho Costa

Abstract Heritage has been the subject of different fields of research that work with various periods. From an obsession with the past to “presentism” (Hartog 2015), and recent demands for “future thinking” (Holtorf and Högberg 2021), some perspectives toward heritage seem incompatible but might be complementary. This chapter aims to explore how the History of Current Times, Critical Heritage Studies, and the field of Heritage and the Future may help contemporary and upcoming societies dealing with the interlinkages between dissonant, contested assets (Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996; Silverman 2011), and Human Rights. It also addresses how heritage approaches may differ according to the country, its history, present, and future ambitions. The methodology of this chapter includes a comparative and critical analysis of the three disciplines, their most eulogized and criticized characteristics, and how they may contribute to the consideration of rights-led and decolonial approaches to heritage. The research questions are developed diachronically through Brazilian and Portuguese examples. Keywords History of current times · Critical heritage studies · Heritage and the future · Human rights

1 Introduction Cultural heritage has been a topic of interest for various fields of research that end up exploring different chronologies and territories, like, the History of Current Times, Critical Heritage Studies, Heritage and the Future, Postcolonial and Decolonial theories. Throughout the years, we witnessed diverse positions toward time, the influences and transformations they unfold regarding how people approach heritage matters. I. de Carvalho Costa (B) Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] Group of Tangible and Intangible Heritage, Transdisciplinary Research Center «Culture, Space and Memory», Porto, Portugal © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_2

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These variations influenced normative and practical alterations of focus given to certain heritage categories (from monuments to cultural landscapes; UNESCO 1972a, 2008); scales of recognition (from the universal to the local; UNESCO 1972a, b), levels of “materiality” (first the tangible, then the intangible and their points of contact; UNESCO 1972a, 2003), as well as geographical spotlights (from the recognition of predominantly western sites and perspectives to the increasing representation of non-western ones; UNESCO et al. 1994; UNESCO 1972a, 2005). These progressive changes helped recognize the transformative potential of cultural heritage and motivated the interest of several disciplines in the matter. For a significant period, some theorists pointed out what they interpreted as an infatuation with the past (Cardoso 2012; Júnior 2012; Pereira and Mata 2012). Others claimed the present as hegemonic (Cezar 2012; Pereira and Mata 2012). More recently, some started advocating for future envisioning (Holtorf and Högberg 2021; May 2021). These postures may seem antagonistic. However, they may be intertwined and even complementary. By reviewing the precepts, potentialities, and inhibitions of the History of Current Times, Critical Heritage Studies, and the field of Heritage and the Future, this chapter aspires to understand how these fields contributed to the transformational power of heritage and its approach through the lens of Human Rights. Analyzing these lines of thinking can help determine which of them impact, and how, the attitudes toward dissonant and contested heritage. With this research, I also hope to explore how positionings toward heritage vary according to the country, its history, current, and prospective aspirations. To do so, I will support the study with Brazilian and Portuguese examples presented in a diachronic manner. This chapter follows a set of questions: What are the contributions of the History of Current Times, Critical Heritage Studies, and the field of Heritage and the Future for the (broader) heritage field? Are these areas influenced by Postcolonial and Decolonial theories, and how? Can these disciplines help dealing with contested and dissonant heritage, and by what means? Are these areas connected to rights-led approaches to heritage, and if so, can they add something to them? The methodology presupposes a comparative and critical analysis of the three disciplines, their most eulogized and criticized characteristics, and how they may contribute to the consideration of rights-led and decolonial approaches to dissonant and contested heritage. I will develop the research questions considering Brazilian and Portuguese examples. As a result, I will attest the complementary nature of these disciplines, their individual and collective input to the heritage field and, more precisely, for contemporary and forthcoming attitudes toward dissonant and contested assets, practices, and manifestations.

2 On Current Times, Critical, and Future Thinking At the turn of the millennium, there was a hike of interest in questions of temporality, the relations between past, present, and future, and how they influence people’s relationships with history and heritage (Benjamin 2017; Hartog 2015; Knauss 2012;

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Pereira and Mata 2012). In this framework, the History of Current Times—a discipline devoted to the study of “contemporary” events—gained renewed visibility (Fiorucci 2011). I opted for this denomination—instead of the “History of Present Time”—because it refers to a less ambiguous and shorter period. The field can help make sense of current events and facilitate heritage choices (Fiorucci 2011). For example, by considering the economic, sociopolitical, and cultural consequences of such options within a specific geographical and chronological context. Notwithstanding, some dimensions of the present and the unfolding of its ramifications may only be fully graspable in the future (Ferreira 2012; Fico 2012). Something understandable, for instance, relating to the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the heritage sector. As we know, the “temporary” nature of the knowledge produced by the History of Current Times results in the admission that it must be constantly reviewed and rewritten based on new findings (Ferreira 2012; Knauss 2012). I consider this selfawareness and “openness” for a change capable of being applied to heritage matters. In my view, by adopting this posture, heritage professionals will be more prone to (periodically) rethink their decisions and approaches. Beyond that, some of the limitations pointed at the discipline show contact points with the heritage field. Like, a potential lack of distancing and neutrality; the risk of relativism, moralism, and politicization; and the existing tensions between historical interpretation and testimonies (Ferreira 2012; Fico 2012; Fiorucci 2011). In this regard, I enhance the contribution of Cardoso (2012), which reflects upon the limits of testimonies related to “extreme events” (Cardoso 2012). An adequate expression, for example, in connection to the democratization process of Brazil. Cezar (2012) adds to this topic by suggesting creative methods to complement the shortcomings of historical representation (Cezar 2012). The series Bastidores (Backstage) (1997), by the Brazilian artist Rosana Paulino (1967–) addresses enslavement and its entanglements with gender discrimination, the silencing of colonial violence, and the perpetuation of racism (Paulino 2022). A clear example on how contemporary art may complement historical production. From a conceptual angle, I highlight the contribution of Ricoeur (2004), which introduces the expressions “limit-events” or “limit-experiences”—synonyms of the “extreme events” mentioned by Cardoso (2012)—but also the concepts of “abuses of memory” and forgetting, associated to historical manipulation, the enhancement or omission of some segments of the past (Ricoeur 2004). To give an idea, some far-right Portuguese political parties use sites linked to the country’s origins—like Castelo de Guimarães (Guimarães, Portugal)—as a background for their ultranationalist speeches (e.g., abuse of memory; RTP 2021). Instead, there is a lack of debate about the afterward of the decolonization process of African countries and the absence of sentences regarding war crimes (e.g., abuse of forgetting; Buettner 2016). Following this line of thought, I recall how Júnior (2012) claims that Portugal and Brazil have different approaches to memory—and I add, heritage—because of their history as ex-colonizer and ex-colonized, respectively (Júnior 2012). In the next paragraphs, I will provide two examples that show how some segments of these societies have divergent viewpoints about the colonial past. The cases in point also

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demonstrate two different positionings concerning education and historical debate with younger generations. The so-called World of Discoveries: Interactive Digital Exhibition (Porto, Portugal), inaugurated in 2014, is an educative space for children that “[...] reenacts the fantastic odyssey of the Portuguese navigators, crossing oceans to discover a previously unknown world [...]” (World of Discoveries no date). The institution sustains a predominantly “favorable” interpretation of the country’s imperial past, which undermines its violent implications for native populations. By comparison, Museu do Ipiranga (São Paulo, Brazil) has several educational materials to help youngsters understand the conflicts between colonizers, catholic missionaries, and indigenous communities, namely, Territórios em Disputa (Disputed Territories) (Museu do Ipiranga no date a). In Uma História do Brasil (A History of Brazil), the museum also rethinks historical creation and the former instrumentalization of its collections to prolong racist narratives (Museu do Ipiranga no date b), an example that it is possible to debate difficult historical events with younger generations. In the twenty-first century, Critical Heritage Studies—a field responsible for rethinking heritage, among others, through the critical analysis of (geo)political, identitarian, and economic relations—expanded worldwide (Winter and Waterton 2013). The interdisciplinary nature of this area of knowledge is behind the plurality of its production but also its challenges (Harrison 2013; Winter 2013a, b). The field is essential to reflect upon past, present, and future heritage choices; their social, economic, political, and environmental implications (Harrison 2013). It is equally relevant to rethink what to preserve or capitulate, who has the legitimacy to make that selection, and how to guarantee that it is done ethically (Apaydin 2020). In this sense, one of the contributions of the discipline I want to focus on is the examination of experts’ discourses (Almansa-Sánchez and Corpas-Cívicos 2020). Here I open a parenthesis to enhance the input of Smith (2021), which conceptualizes the expression “authorized heritage discourses” as a set of (inter)national norms that shape heritage’s professionalization, management, and safeguard with the purpose of transmitting it to future generations (Smith 2021). Although the expression is widespread, I would like to stress how the term “authorized” is particularly pertinent if we consider that this set of rules defines which approaches to heritage are legal or illicit and the consequences associated with their violation. If we think of the term not from an institutional or legal viewpoint but from the public sphere’s perspective, it can acquire a new significance. To illustrate this thought, I recall how the protection of some Portuguese traditions is used as an argument to perpetuate dissonant practices— such as bullfights—and that those who openly question them can end up being called unpatriotic, culturally illiterate, and suffer direct threats. On the other side of the spectrum, there is an example of how local authorities may facilitate cultural manifestations from “minoritarian” groups in public spaces, like the organization of several urban markets and parades devoted to Brazilian food and music in Porto (Portugal) (Alves 2018), from which the percussion of Batucada Radical—an NGO created in 1994 to promote Brazilian culture and music—is guaranteed (Batucada Radical no date).

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Another topic explored by the discipline is the differences in heritage approaches among what Harrison (2013) denominates “settler” and “non-settler” societies like, for example, Portugal and Brazil (Harrison 2013). To prove this point, I recall how during the presence in Brazil, Portuguese colonizers used culture for the socalled “civilizing mission”, namely through Catholicism and the Portuguese language (Buettner 2016). However, the individuals and groups oppressed by the colonizing power created and maintained their cultural manifestations also as a form of individual and collective struggle. One of the most well-known examples is one of quilombolas; communities formed by people escaping enslavement, who took refuge in quilombos— spaces commonly located in remote areas (but not exclusively)—and used oral memory, economic, cultural practices, and social movements to transmit cultures of African matrix (French 2007; Schmitt et al. 2002). In a similar logic, I stress how Apaydin (2020) claims heritage and memory as resistance in oppressive contexts (Apaydin 2020). One may think, for instance, how the music of the Portuguese Zeca Afonso (1929–1987) or the Brazilian Chico Buarque (1944–) became symbols of the fight against the dictatorial regimes that ruled the countries during the twentieth century. Winter and Waterton (2013) explore the other side of the coin—or what the authors designate as “abuses of heritage”— meaning it’s manipulation for political, economic, or even warlike purposes (Winter and Waterton 2013). To exemplify, I recall how Portugal dos Pequenitos (Portugal of the little ones) (Coimbra, Portugal)—a “pedagogical” park inaugurated in 1940— used the small-scale reproduction of architectures to educate children and adults on national heritage. Created during the New State’s regime (1933–1974), the space—which results from a private initiative—includes pavilions that represent the culture of the former colonized territories (Portugal dos Pequenitos no date). Another example in which heritage was used to legitimize a nationalistic and colonial discourse among the youth (Buettner 2016; Pires et al. 2020). Currently, the team responsible for the park is rethinking its content. Among the discipline’s less eulogized characteristics is the excessive focus on dissonant assets versus a lack of examination of past choices (Harrison 2013). I interrupt the analysis to clarify some concepts. First, I recall the contribution of Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996), which recognizes that all heritage encompasses “[...] ideas of discrepancy and incongruity […]” and that “dissonance in heritage involves a discordance or lack of agreement and consistency [...]” (Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996, p. 20). The authors develop the notion of “dissonant heritage” by creating several categories based on different forms of dissonance. For this chapter, I opted to use the wider term. Another expression that needs to be clarified is “contested heritage”. In this case, I remit to Silverman (2011): “[...] cultural heritage is an ever-present venue for contestation, ranging in scale from competitively asserted to violently claimed/destroyed [...]” (Silverman 2011, p. 33). Even though these expressions may appear as synonyms, in this chapter I will distinguish them. As a way of explanation, when I use the term “dissonant heritage”, I mean assets, practices, and manifestations whose values, significances, and understandings have divergent interpretations by different communities, groups, and individuals. Meanwhile, by “contested heritage” I refer to assets, practices, and manifestations whose origins,

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guardianship, ownership, or use become disputed among individuals, groups, and communities. Some believe that the critical essence of Critical Heritage Studies can aggravate the gap between the sector and other areas, but also among specialists and local communities (Winter and Waterton 2013; Winter 2013b), thus, making communication harder and potentiating eventual conflicts by using technical terminology or superimposing international interests over local ones. Despite these limitations, Winter (2013a, b) and Harrison (2013) celebrate the impacts of the field on heritage preservation and the consideration of non-western perspectives which challenge universalism, the focus on material assets, and the dualism between cultural and natural heritage (Winter 2013b; Harrison 2013). This paradigm shift led to other alterations in heritage practices by calling attention to power relations, the need to democratize decision-making and foment inclusivity, diversity, and representation (Almansa-Sánchez and Corpas-Cívicos 2020; Harrison 2013). According to Harvey (2012), this tendency derives from Postcolonial—may I add, Decolonial—theory in heritage conceptualization and its processes (Harvey 2012). Before explaining how Postcolonial and Decolonial theories influenced heritage matters, I must clarify some concepts. For Chuva and Peixoto (2021) postcolonialism consists of “[...] the deep effects of historical colonial relations, expressed after the end of the colonial period, not as continuities but as translations, exchanging and connecting views from different sides and actors” (Chuva and Peixoto 2021, p. 100). When looking for a specific definition of Postcolonial theory, I found a simplified proposal by Ashcroft et al. (2006) which describes it as the study of European colonialism and its consequences (Ashcroft et al. 2006). Meanwhile, the term decolonial represents: “[...] the need to question structural inequalities, latent and persistent racism, the silencing of publicly visible invisibilized bodies that remain in a re-enchanted post-colonial reality” (Chuva and Peixoto 2021, p. 100). If we conjugate this idea with the work of Oliveira and Lucini (2020), we can define Decolonial theory as a body of knowledge that reflects about the social consequences of colonialism and their perpetuation after the independence of former colonized countries. The difference from Postcolonial theory also lies in the use of terms and categories developed within South America (Oliveira and Lucini 2020). In my perspective, Decolonial Studies represent a qualitative step because of this “inventive” posture that goes beyond the appropriation of western terms. I support Amaral (2015) regarding the potentialities of a decolonial approach to heritage, to promote the due recognition of previously marginalized histories, idioms and knowledges, to reduce social disparities, and—may I add—to foster Human Rights (Amaral 2015). Chuva (2020) states that an integrated conception of heritage must encompass decolonial and rights-led positionings (Chuva 2020), a notion I will further develop throughout this chapter. As an example, I recall that Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP; São Paulo, Brazil) has a project entitled Arte e Descolonização (Art and Decolonization; 2018) that organizes seminars about the decolonization of museums and their collections (MASP 2020). The field of Heritage and the Future—responsible for studying societal perspectives about what’s to come, its consequences, and possibilities for heritage

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processes—is relatively new, which may justify the scarcity of its production within the Brazilian and Portuguese contexts. Notwithstanding, its scope of action is increasing thanks to the need to see heritage as a “future-making practice”—a concept used by May (2021) to express the attempts to control upcoming events— and to consider various futures as real and co-present (Harrison 2021). An interesting example of “future thinking” is the one of Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow), located in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The institution has several activities devoted to the imagination of possible futures from which I highlight Festival Revide! (2022). The initiative includes exhibitions, speeches, performances, DJ sets, roundtables, and craft markets devoted to the topic (Museu do Amanhã 2022). This critical area of knowledge can contribute to counteracting the “axiomatic” attitude toward heritage preservation—meaning its almost exclusive perception as something positive and, therefore, almost unquestionable—by enquiring what may or not be beneficial for the next generations, by accepting constant revision; and by proposing shorter timespans for heritage choices (Harrison 2021; Holtorf and Högberg 2021). Besides, it can train heritage actors to perform in ever-changing contexts by developing “future thinking” and “future-literacy”; in other words, by teaching them to anticipate and plan for future challenges, such as new forms of imperialism or totalitarianism (Gorman and May 2021; Holtorf and Högberg 2021). In Spenneman’s (2007) perspective, the field can also help consider new forms of heritage—including the ones produced by non-humans—and their ethical ramifications (Spenneman 2007). When talking about artificial intelligence and assets created by non-humans, the author highlights the need to anticipate new forms of discrimination, for example, due to “species-based” racism. In other words, prejudice among humans and non-humans, more precisely, “sentient robots” (Spenneman 2007). When thinking about the topic, I considered multiple (and potential) new forms of intolerance based on different levels of technological development, the progressive expansion of bionic prostheses, the substitution of human labor by artificial intelligence, and the transformations in the concept of “human”. Although I am not aware of Portuguese or Brazilian examples, there is already one case in the Iberic Peninsula that can illustrate these problems. Spanish Manel de Águas identifies as “transspecies” and “cyborg” after implanting two winged prostheses in the head. Project Cyborg, as called by the artist, intends to explore the limits of the human body through new “organs” which expand the senses (after the surgery, Águas claims the capacity to hear the temperature). As a result of these physical alterations, Manel experienced different forms of discrimination (Observador 2022). In a similar logic, Gorman and May (2021) highlight how we must think about how heritage is going to be found by other entities, including extraterrestrial ones (Gorman and May 2021). Taking the discussion a step further, Holtorf and Högberg (2021) reflect upon possible future (mis)interpretations and (mis)treatments of heritage, more concretely concerning nuclear waste (Holtorf and Högberg 2021). This observation is relevant for present heritage actors to consider different forms of communicating the values, significances, benign and potentially nefarious uses of some assets; how to protect them or restrict their use by “distant” generations or species.

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Despite its contributions, the field of Heritage and the Future is pointed as mostly academic, focusing on problematizing social issues instead of practical strategies. According to Sandford and Cassar (2021), this limitation can be surpassed by engaging with other areas (Sandford and Cassar 2021). Another potential danger concerns its manipulation to “colonize” the future (González-Ruibal 2021; Sandford and Cassar 2021). González-Ruibal (2021) explores this issue, stating that societies use different instruments to dictate the future. Although the author sees some perils in this attitude also recognizes that to reduce risks, we may need to perform some forms of “future colonization” (González-Ruibal 2021). One may think in the example given by Holtorf and Högberg (2021) regarding the preservation of seeds, genes, and their use in the population of other planets (Holtorf and Högberg 2021). If we consider the (highly probable) increase in wildfires, we can state that Portugal and Brazil should create these repositories, for example, to guarantee resources for the restoration of biodiversity in burnt lands. After introducing the three fields of study and some of their contributions to heritage theory and practice, I will compare and see how they complement and differ from each other. Based on how the three fields treat time, we can affirm that the History of Current Times has a more “presentist” nature—once it deals with the present—while the discipline of Heritage and the Future is inherently prospective, meaning that it focuses on what’s to come. Meanwhile, Critical Heritage Studies offer a middle ground by questioning past and present heritage choices and thinking about how they may influence the future. The similarities between the three areas are also significant. Critical Heritage Studies and the History of Current Times share a lack of distancing from the object of study, criticisms regarding impartiality and their potential coerciveness for sociopolitical purposes. Regarding methodology, both the History of Current Times and Heritage and the Future admit the temporary nature of their knowledge production and its consequent need for recurrent revision (Ferreira 2012; Högberg and Holtorf 2021; Knauss 2012). Finally, when it comes to Critical Heritage Studies and its affinities with Heritage and the Future, we feature their shared-critical posture and the need for further cooperation with other fields (Ferreira 2012; Knauss 2012; Winter and Waterton 2013; Winter 2013b). In the next paragraph, I will explore how these three areas can contribute to rights-led approaches to dissonant and contested heritage.

3 Rights-Led Approaches to Dissonant and Contested Heritage The international doctrine on Human Rights—not only in connection with heritage— has faced criticism, among others, due to its ‘pretensions’ of universality and purported incompatibility with several cultures (Kapchan 2014; Logan 2007; Silverman and Ruggles 2007). Another drawback highlighted by its critics is the superposition of individual rights over collective ones, seen by some as a sign of the

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predominance of western viewpoints (Kapchan 2014). Bueno (2021) develops this critique by stating that normative instruments promote Eurocentric perspectives over the heritage of ex-colonized countries to justify the denial of restitution requests and the rights of non-western communities to write their History (Bueno 2021). Although the author develops a solid argumentation on the topic, the binding nature of these documents is only applicable if they are ratified, which means that, the countries that do not agree with their premises are not forced to follow them. Concerning restitution, these norms can hinder but also foster these processes (depending on the interest of the current guardianship). Ifversen (2021) also claims that European nations used development agendas—equally linked to the evolution of Human Rights (Benavides 2007)—to camouflage their continued influence over former colonized territories (Ifversen 2021). Despite their limitations, Human Rights reflect the hope of a fairer future (Cureau 2019; Soares and Cureau 2019). In other words, this doctrine was created to reduce inequalities, violence, and to improve living standards across the globe. That is why heritage—seen as a repository of memory and identity—is linked to them. As a manifestation of one’s values, beliefs, ways of being and relating to others, heritage has significant importance for the development of one’s personality and sense of belonging regarding a specific group or community. In the last decades, calls have been made for further research on the linkages between Human Rights and cultural heritage (Logan et al. 2010; Silverman and Ruggles 2007). As I mentioned earlier, even though heritage preservation, interpretation, and mediation are seen as essentially positive, they also have the potential to start and worsen conflicts. In some cases, heritage is even an argument to inflict, justify, or underestimate Human Rights violations (Kapchan 2014; Silverman and Ruggles 2007). Notwithstanding, heritage preservation and transmission also warn future generations of what not to forget, repeat and do differently in forthcoming times (Cureau 2019). Hence, I believe rights-led approaches to heritage—the safeguard, management, interpretation, and communication of heritage having in mind the compliance, respect, promotion, and full exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms—can help contemporary and upcoming societies dealing with dissonant and contested heritage. For example, by mediating conflicting interests of different individuals, groups, and communities regarding these assets; by guaranteeing that all the involved parties understand their duties toward others and discuss the multiple layers of meaning and history associated with the heritage in question; and, ultimately, by ensuring that no heritage choice results in the restriction or violation of Human Rights. Even if one has the liberty to demit its fundamental rights, it is also each one’s responsibility to respect the ones of others. I believe that, as heritage professionals, we must guarantee that—both in the present and the future—heritage and cultural relativism are not used to justify new episodes of discrimination, subjugation, violence, exploitation, and genocide over humans but also upcoming sentient beings (Courtis 2019; Logan 2007; Silverman and Ruggles 2007). Moreover, a rights-led and decolonial approach to heritage in a future context in which humans and other conscious beings coexist may require the creation of international norms devoted to protecting and promoting the rights and duties of these entities, for instance, concerning their

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artistic and scientific productions. If so, it will be equally necessary to establish rules of possession, circulation, and appropriation of these new assets. Once Decolonial Studies use Human Rights as an emancipatory base, in the future they may help us navigate these questions. When talking about Portugal and Brazil, dissonant and contested assets, the issue of colonial heritage is almost mandatory. For purposes of conceptualization, and from a Brazilian perspective, by “colonial heritage” I mean assets produced during the occupation of the country by European forces. Meanwhile, from a Portuguese viewpoint, the term can be remitted to the heritage produced overseas and, indirectly, to the one created in the “metropole” to exalt and uphold imperialism and colonialism. From the perspective of a rights-led approach, preserving this heritage is challenging. Although the education of upcoming generations on the human atrocities previously committed and the need to avoid similar events is generally seen as a justification for safeguarding these assets, the answer may not be as linear. Considering the difficulty in transmitting the assets’ history, meanings, and values today, we can imagine how challenging it will be to do it with societies yet unknown. What if we do not have a common communication platform? Which consequences may accrue if we fail to transmit our message? Will our “followers” perceive these assets as an incentive to foster intolerance and menace human dignity? Colonial heritage and its contemporary and future management are recurrent issues in the History of Current Times, Critical Heritage Studies, and Heritage and the Future. Several authors call attention to how heritage approaches vary according to a country’s history, present, and upcoming aspirations. One may think how excolonizers (Portuguese) and ex-colonized (Brazilians) respond divergently to these matters. Logan et al. (2010) acknowledge the existence of numerous monuments that glorify colonialism and the lack of those proclaiming its condemnation (Logan et al. 2010). The authors’ observation applies to the Portuguese case since several monuments spread around the country honor navigators, missionaries, and colonizers but almost none recall the victims of colonialism. Is this an indication that the country aspires to propagate the imperial imaginary? The denial of its past role both as oppressor (ex-colonizer) and oppressed (under the regime of the New State; 1933–1974)? Or maybe a symbol of the acceptance of this dual past? For the last hypothesis to materialize in a critical and integrated approach to heritage—which does not omit nor superimpose specific historical layers—it may be necessary to start producing more assets that represent multiple viewpoints, for instance, with the collaboration of descendants of formerly colonized communities. Thus, Heritage and the Future can help the heritage sector predict new forms of colonialism and imperialism that may appear (even beyond the Earth). In the Portuguese and Brazilian frameworks, these future-realities seem highly plausible, for instance, regarding coastal erosion, the advance of the oceans, the rise of temperatures, the progressive scarcity of resources, and the deterioration of living conditions. If these scenarios are confirmed, how will upcoming heritage professionals ensure that heritage—of arrival and departure—is not instrumentalized by totalitarian forces for their legitimation? (Logan et al. 2010; Orser 2007; Silverman and Ruggles 2007).

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Can heritage professionals help in conflict solving if the fight for resources escalates? Will they be targeted and seen as inadequate guardians of these assets? Even though we may find it hard to believe in new eras of authoritarianism, the latest political situation in Portugal—with the invocation of some of the mottos of the military dictatorship (“God, Homeland, and Family”)—shows how some segments of society may be dissatisfied with democracy. In this case, the History of Current Times can continue to be a powerful instrument in the perception and communication of contemporary events and the prosecution of eventual crimes against humanity (Ferreira 2012). There is also the possibility of new forms of governance in which all decisions will pass through digital voting. Maybe there will be other territorial frontiers or even none. In this case, which functions will heritage assume? Will it become redundant with the—again hypothetical—end of nationalism? And if so, should we preserve something in the name of nostalgia even if it loses its pertinence and may consume limited resources? The History of Current Times, Critical Heritage Studies, and Heritage and the Future, Postcolonial and Decolonial studies can continue to guide us in these matters.

4 Conclusion Throughout this chapter, I exposed how the History of Current Times, Critical Heritage Studies, and Heritage and the Future, Postcolonial and Decolonial theories are complementary and can support contemporary and upcoming societies handling the relationships between dissonant, contested assets and Human Rights. By exploring the most valued and criticized characteristics of these areas of knowledge, I exemplified how they contribute to the (wider) heritage field. Besides, by illustrating the research questions with Brazilian and Portuguese examples, this chapter clarifies how heritage approaches vary according to the country, its historical background, current and future aspirations. The methodology allowed me to reflect on how these disciplines can foment rights-led and decolonial positionings toward heritage to enhance its transformative potential. Notwithstanding, the subject matter would benefit from a deeper analysis, for which I invite other researchers to consider addressing the issue from their national viewpoints. Finally, I believe this study innovates by proposing the collaboration between these fields and by using their potentialities and challenges as examples for heritage actors on how to handle adversities within their practice. Acknowledgements This publication is supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the European Social Fund, the Transdisciplinary Research Center «Culture, Space and Memory», and the Brazilian Laboratory of Cultural Heritages from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, through Ph.D. scholarship number 2021.07318.BD. I thank the editors and professor Maria Leonor Botelho for their valuable insights.

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Pires RP, Delaunay M, Peixoto J (2020) Trauma and the Portuguese repatriation: a confined collective identity. In: Eyerman R, Sciortino G (eds) The cultural trauma of decolonization: colonial returnees in the national imagination. Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham, pp 169–203 Portugal dos Pequenitos (No date) Tudo é minúsculo para nós – mas grande para as Crianças – e tudo é verdadeiro. https://www.fbb.pt/pp/historia/. Accessed 9 Nov 2022 Ricoeur P (2004) Memory, history, forgetting. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago RTP (2021) Comício de André Ventura junto ao Castelo de Guimarães interrompido por novo protesto. https://www.rtp.pt/noticias/politica/comicio-de-andre-ventura-junto-ao-castelode-guimaraes-interrompido-por-novo-protesto_v1290232. Accessed 8 Nov 2022 Sandford R, Cassar M (2021) Heritages of futures thinking: strategic foresight and critical futures. In: Holtorf C, Högberg A (eds) Cultural heritage and the future. Routledge, London, pp 245–263 Schmitt A, Turatti, MCM Carvalho MCPD (2002) A atualização do conceito de Quilombo: Identidade e Territórios nas Definições Teóricas. Ambiente & Sociedade (V) 10:1–6 Silverman H, Ruggles FD (eds) (2007) Cultural heritage and human rights. Springer-Verlag, New York Silverman H (2011) Contested cultural heritage: a selective historiography. In: Silverman H (ed) Contested cultural heritage. Springer International Publishing, New York, pp 1–49 Smith L (2021) Desafiando o Discurso Autorizado de Patrimônio. Caderno Virtual de Turismo 21(2):140–154. https://doi.org/10.18472/cvt.21n2.2021.1957 Soares IVP, Cureau S (2019) Introdução Direitos Culturais e Direitos Humanos. In: Soares IVP, Cureau S (eds) Bens Culturais e Direitos Humanos. Edições Sesc, São Paulo, 23–24 Spennemann DHR (2007) Of great apes and robots: considering the future(S) of cultural heritage. Futures 39(7):861–877 Tunbridge JE, Ashworth GJ (eds) (1996) Dissonant heritage: the management of the past as a resource in conflict. Wiley, Chichester UNESCO (1972a) Convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage UNESCO (1972b) Recommendation concerning the protection at national level, of the cultural and natural heritage UNESCO (2003) Convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage UNESCO (2005) The convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions UNESCO (2008) Operational guidelines for the implementation of the world heritage convention UNESCO, ICCROM, ICOMOS (1994) The Nara Document On Authenticity Winter T (2013a) Going places; challenging directions for the future of heritage studies. Int J Herit Stud 19(4):395–398. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2012.695509 Winter T (2013b) Clarifying the critical in critical heritage studies. Int J Herit Stud 19(6):532–545. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2012.720997 Winter T, Waterton E (2013) Critical heritage studies. Int J Herit Stud 19(6):529–531. https://doi. org/10.1080/13527258.2013.818572 World of Discoveries (No date) About us. https://www.worldofdiscoveries.com/museu/quemsomos. Accessed 8 Nov 2022

Inês de Carvalho Costa is a Ph.D. Candidate of Heritage Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto (FLUP, Portugal) supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the European Social Fund, the Transdisciplinary Research Center «Culture, Space and Memory», and the Laboratory of Cultural Heritages from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (Minas Gerais, Brazil), under the scholarship 2021.07318.BD. Inês has a master’s degree in Art History, Heritage and Visual Culture and a bachelor’s degree in Art History, concluded at FLUP. Previously, Costa attended the first year of the bachelor’s degree in TheaterActing at Porto’s Superior School of Music and Performative Arts. The author is also one of the co-founders of the Informal and International Network of Young Heritage Professionals, the Heritageeks.

Caring for Black Monuments Decolonial Heritage Practices in Havana’s Callejón de Hamel María A. Gutiérrez Bascón

Abstract In the 1990s, Havana’s leading heritage institution rolled out a program to restore the city’s colonial sites. This market-driven process resulted in an intense touristification of the city’s central areas. Moreover, the picturesque urban landscapes produced by the official heritagization program mostly sidelined Afro-Cuban heritage, nostalgically celebrating colonial legacies while erasing histories of Black slavery for the comfort of tourists’ eyes. In this chapter, I analyze a community intervention that took place in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Centro Habana, and that foregrounded Afro-Cuban history in ways that advanced an alternative heritage practice. Particularly, I focus on Havana’s Callejón de Hamel—a two-block alley filled with Afro-Cuban themed murals and sculptures. In 2011, the Callejón art collective restored the nearby statue of Black independence hero Quintín Bandera, which had been excluded from official restorations plans. I argue that the Callejón’s grassroots restoration of Bandera’s statue constitutes a decolonial heritage practice that provides an alternative option to the dominant heritage order by mobilizing gestures of care and community forms of commemoration, advocating for a more modest monumentality, recovering a Black memory suppressed by official restoration agendas, and doing so in tension with market imperatives and state institutional logics. Keywords Decolonial heritage practices · Callejón de Hamel · Grassroots restoration · Black memory · Gestures of care

1 Introduction: The Coloniality of Heritage in Havana With the onset of the Cuban economic crisis in the 1990s, the Office of the Historian (Oficina del Historiador)—Havana’s leading heritage institution—rolled out an ambitious program to restore the city’s colonial sites. Early in the decade, the collapse M. A. Gutiérrez Bascón (B) Department of Cultures, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_3

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of the Soviet bloc brought about an unprecedented economic downturn to the island, which the Cuban government sought to tackle through the opening of the country to foreign investment and international tourism. As decaying palaces were rebuilt and colonial plazas freshly painted in bright colors, tourists started to flock in by the thousands. Heritage conservation then became a strategy not only to rescue Havana’s crumbling historic center, but to attract the much-needed hard currency required to refloat the Cuban economy. From the 350,000 tourists that visited the island in 1990, the number rapidly rose to a million in 1996 and to two million by the end of the decade.1 In 1993, Cuba’s Council of State authorized the creation of Habaguanex, a system of enterprises built in collaboration with foreign capital and consisting of restaurants, bars, gift shops, hotels and museums managed by the Office of the Historian in the historic district of Old Havana. Steered by the charismatic Eusebio Leal, the Office of the Historian began to command both the conservation project of Old Havana and a growing business portfolio, merging heritage restoration with economic development. As I have argued elsewhere when analyzing the production of heritage in Plaza Vieja, colonial heritage in Havana was inevitably assembled for the visual consumption of international visitors in line with market logics (Gutiérrez Bascón 2018). In fact, scholars in the field of heritage studies have long pointed out a prevailing dependence of heritage practices on commercial imperatives. Nezar Alsayyad notes that “[i]n this global era, the consumption of tradition as a form of cultural demand and the manufacture of heritage as a field of commercial supply are two sides of the same coin” (2001, p. 15), while Maria Gravari-Barbas has critically questioned the assumed “anteriority of heritage” in “the heritage-tourism chain,” highlighting “the fact that tourism is not just a heritage ‘epiphenomenon,’ but that it can be an essential player in heritage production” (2018, p. 5). Inevitably, the market-oriented aspect of the heritagization process carried out by the Office of the Historian in Old Havana led to the displacement of a number of local residents and an intense touristification of the city’s central areas. Joseph L. Scarpaci has called attention to the fact that while Habaguanex transformed old structures into lavish hotels and tourist venues, “ordinary citizens wait[ed] for improvements in their residences” (2000, p. 295) and became uncomfortably “inundated with tourists” (2000, p. 296). In addition, the picturesque urban landscapes produced by the official heritage program mostly sidelined Afro-Cuban heritage, nostalgically celebrating colonial legacies while erasing histories of Black slavery for the comfort of tourists’ eyes.2 Undoubtedly, the place occupied by Black Cubans within these heritage economies is a precarious one, both symbolically and financially. 1

Immediately after the Cuban Revolution in 1959, tourism ceased to play a central role in the island’s economy. In 1975, Cuba barely registered 25,000 civil (non-military) visitors (Scarpaci 2000). Tourism only became a crucial economic sector again in the 1990s. The centrality of tourism during this decade is attested by the creation of a Ministry of Tourism in 1994 and the designation of Old Havana as “Zona de Alta Significación para el Turismo” (Area of High Significance for Tourism) in 1995. In 1997, tourism substituted sugar as the first industry in the country. 2 I have argued that the Office of the Historian recreated a very specific colonial image in the restoration of Havana’s Plaza Vieja: what I call “la arquitectura colonial-sacarocrática” (“the colonialsaccharocratic architecture”), that pertaining to the mansions of “sacarócratas” or wealthy sugar

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While the historic contributions of Afro-Cubans are silenced within the “authorized heritage discourse”—to borrow Smith’s (2006) conceptualization,3 Black citizens are frequently excluded from the lucrative tourist economy or offered, if at all, the lowest-paying jobs.4 In some instances, as Zurbano (2023) has noted, Afro-Cubans are made to function as props within a carefully manufactured tourist scenography through costumes that allude to racially charged stereotypes, thereby reproducing the subordination of Blackness within the hegemonic heritage order (Fig. 1).5 This enforced subordination is also materialized by way of racial profiling, police harassment and the denial of admittance of Black Cubans to tourist (whitened) spaces (Fernandes 2008, p. 79).6 It is thus apparent that Havana’s restructuring as a heritage space under the auspices of global investment engenders forms of dispossession that force AfroCubans to the periphery of the economy and to the margins of history. However, while the “heritage machine” (Gravari-Barbas 2018) continues to advance processes of social differentiation along class and racial lines in Havana, there has been a dearth of public discussion on the issue. Instead, the mobilization of a “fuzzy and generally feel-good notion of heritage” (Harvey 2015, p. 578) has become commonplace in Cuba’s public sphere. Local media frequently lionizes Eusebio Leal and his office’s work, supported by UNESCO’s glowing assessments of the restoration efforts and aristocrats of nineteenth-century Cuba. The reenactment is performed without any critical acknowledgement to the material dependence of this grandiose architecture on the plantation economy (Gutiérrez Bascón 2018). Similarly, Zurbano (2023) has commented on the erasure of Black history from projects carried out by the Office of the Historian, such as the historical mural on Mercaderes Street, from which important Black figures of the past were conspicuously excluded. 3 In her book The Uses of Heritage, Smith (2006) posits the existence of an Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD), which works “to construct a sense of what heritage is—and is not” (p. 6). As Smith explains, this AHD “focuses attention on aesthetically pleasing material objects, sites, places and/or landscapes that current generations ‘must’ care for, protect and revere so that they may be passed to nebulous future generations for their ‘education,’ and to forge a sense of common identity based on the past” (p. 29). Within national narratives, the AHD operates by excluding “the historical, cultural and social experiences of a range of groups”—including women, non-white ethnic groups, indigenous communities, and working class peoples, while also working to “constrain and limit their critique” (p. 30). 4 As de la Fuente (2011) has explained, “Afro-Cubans have been denied opportunities in some of the most lucrative sectors of the economy, particularly in tourism” on the basis of “racially charged notions such as ‘good presence’ and ‘cultural level’” (p. 329). Benson (2016) clarifies that this “requirement for buena presencia (good appearance)” is racially encoded language used to suggest “that you needed to have fair or white skin to qualify for lucrative hotel positions in the growing tourist sector” (p. 19). 5 Zurbano (2023) describes these garments and their implication as follows: “we see small groups of Black women… exhibiting the colonial uniforms required by the tourism labor market: florists, card readers, hairdressers, escort girls to take pictures with tourists, etc. (…) Their role as an object of farce neutralizes the real story of rapes and sexual negotiations faced by enslaved Black women. Its characters, brimming with joy and colorful enthusiasm, prevent a critical look at the colonial past and its horrors” (translated by the author). 6 In her book Antiracism in Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution, scholar Benson (2016) recounts a telling incident in which she and her husband, both African-American, were refused entrance into Hotel Habana Libre (p. 242).

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Fig. 1 Costume alluding to racially coded stereotypes historically associated to Black women. Photo taken by the author in Old Havana

by a string of national and international awards. Havana’s official heritage program has therefore remained largely uninterrogated. In this sense, there emerges a need to problematize established forms of heritage production that contribute to the symbolic and material dispossession of traditionally marginalized communities. Departing from Aníbal Quijano’s decolonial critique, I suggest that it might be productive to question globally dominant heritage practices today through the concept of “coloniality.” For Quijano, coloniality denotes

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a specific configuration of power originating with the Eurocentric colonial/modern project but still structuring contemporary societies on racial, social and epistemic orders. The notion of coloniality thus emphasizes the ways in which the legacies of colonialism expand beyond the strictly historical colonial period and continue to assign value to certain people, forms of being and feeling, and systems of knowledge while discarding others (Quijano 2000, p. 192). Following Quijano’s suggestion that there exists a coloniality of power, knowledge and being (colonialidad del poder, del saber y del ser), I argue that there is a coloniality of heritage as well, which can be conceptualized as referring to the forms of heritage production that uncritically approach the past to position the material and cultural creations of Europe and its descendants as desirable, “civilized” and worthy of praise and conservation, while devaluing or altogether erasing the tangible and intangible legacies of colonized peoples. More so, to speak about the coloniality of heritage means to speak about heritage practices that silence not only the material and cultural patrimony of non-white communities, but the colonial violence with which hegemonic heritage objects and buildings are often entangled. The violence of the past is frequently naturalized and seamlessly incorporated into present heritage regimes, which often maintain the wealth accumulated through the institutionalization and commercialization of heritage out of the reach of historically oppressed communities. Therefore, the coloniality of heritage can be thought to have two intertwined dimensions that co-constitute each other: a material side, by which the tangible legacies associated to historically hegemonic communities are preserved, while the heritage of the colonized is made to fall into disrepair and oblivion, and by which capital generated from heritagization processes is often retained by the economic elites; and an epistemological aspect, which produces the hierarchical notions and classification systems that buttress and sustain hegemonic heritage practices. Approaching existing heritage landscapes through a decolonial lens helps both analyze the ways in which dominant heritage narratives and practices are bound up with a colonial project of dispossession, and identify alternative forms of collective commemoration that work against the grain of the established heritage order. Within this framework, heritage ceases to be a depoliticized feel-good notion to become a contested site of struggle over material resources, memory and meaning for minoritized peoples. In this chapter, I echo the concern expressed by a growing critical literature in decolonial heritage studies over the fact that authorized heritage actors are closely imbricated with systems of power and often implicated in the reproduction of coloniality within their epistemological configurations and material-discursive practices (Onciul 2015; Winter 2014; Lacarrieu and Laborde 2018; Kølvraa and Knudsen 2020; Knudsen et al. 2022). Particularly, I concur with this specific strand of critical heritage studies in that building a truly decolonial global future entails the necessary task of both dismantling the colonial matrix in which Eurocentric notions of heritage are grounded and envisioning decolonizing modalities of producing heritage that rupture the limited paradigms currently privileged. It is in this double gesture of critique and proposal of new imaginings that I situate my discussion of heritage practices in Havana. First, I briefly survey the debate stirred by the restoration of the

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controversial monument to José Miguel Gómez in Havana to argue that the Office of the Historian’s program of monumentality reproduces a coloniality of heritage in public spaces, while foreclosing discussions about the conflictive legacies of racial injustice and their material resonances in the urban environment. I then focus on Havana’s Callejón de Hamel collective and its grassroots restoration—in 2011— of the nearby statue of Black independence hero Quintín Bandera, a monument that had been excluded from the official restoration program. The practices of care deployed by the Callejón de Hamel and its surrounding community reached beyond the strictly material repair of the site to include a spiritual and embodied dimension through the performance of African-derived song, dance and ritual. I argue that these gestures of material and spiritual care extended to a neglected monument associated to Black history provide a decolonial alternative to the dominant heritage order by way of mobilizing bottom-up forms of commemoration,7 advocating for a more modest monumentality, recovering a Black memory suppressed by official restoration agendas, and doing so in tension with market imperatives and state institutional logics.

2 “¡Túmbenlo!” (Tear It Down!): The Restoration of the Monument to José Miguel Gómez and the Garden of Fallen Monuments in Havana Over the years, Eusebio Leal and the Office of the Historian expanded the initial scope of Havana’s restoration project from colonial heritage to buildings and monuments erected during the Republican era (1902–1958). A move that would have been ideologically unthinkable in the 1990s, Leal managed to launch rehabilitation efforts—at the turn of the twenty-first century—in sites belonging to the pre-Revolutionary capitalist past, an epoch generally derided by the official socialist ideology. Among these 7

For Casey (2000), one of the main features of commemoration as a particular form of remembering, as opposed to private or individual memory, is related to the fact that commemoration is a “thoroughly communal” matter (p. 217), thus necessitating from the presence of others to materialize. “Whenever commemorating occurs,” Casey explains, “a community arises” (p. 235). Crucial to the participatory nature of commemoration is the centrality of the body of commemorators in space, which produces a type of memory that goes beyond the disembodied psyche (p. 252) and that “is not separable in the end from body memory—or from place memory either” (p. 253). Finally, Casey points out that acts of commemoration have the function of bringing past events into the present while also carrying them into the future, thus “empower[ing] the past to gain an increased futurity” (p. 256). I am building on Casey’s exploration of commemoration to suggest that there are forms of remembering by which a group of people gather in space to remember a past event and narrativize it in a way that brings forward the suppressed histories of traditionally marginalized communities. These acts of remembering can be articulated and performed in a relatively autonomous manner from the disciplining capabilities of institutionalized power, which has often privileged perspectives and histories consistent with the modern colonial project. Throughout this article, I refer to this particular form of counterhegemonic collective remembering as bottom-up, alternative or decolonial forms of commemorating.

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sites was the lavish monument to José Miguel Gómez (Fig. 2), the controversial second president of the Cuban Republic notorious for ordering the massacre of thousands of Black Cubans in 1912. Presiding over the elegant Avenue of Presidents in the upscale neighborhood of El Vedado, the monument to Gómez was inaugurated in 1936. The site consists of a number of figures cast in bronze and a surrounding structure richly carved in marble, which make it compatible with the grandiose forms of monumentality typically favored and deemed worthy of protection by Leal and his Office. Shortly after the advent of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the statue of Gómez was removed for embodying values thought to be inconsistent with those of the new social regime. It was not until 1999 that Eusebio Leal managed to return the bronze figure back to its original location. The reinstatement of the sculpture was followed by a series of maintenance actions performed at the site, of which the most recent was undertaken in 2021. The attention and resources afforded by the Office of the Historian to a site monumentalizing a historical figure responsible for the violent repression of Black Cubans fueled a debate over the presence of monuments entangled with histories of racial oppression in public spaces. Notably, the AfroCuban hip hop duo Obsesión penned a response in the form of a protest rap song in 2011. Titled “Calle G” but most widely known as “¡Túmbenlo!,” the verses ask for both the defacement through graffiti and the ultimate removal of Gómez’s statue for “glorifying racism” and “represent[ing] the deaths of so many innocent Black people

Fig. 2 Monument to José Miguel Gómez in Havana. Photo taken by the author

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(author translation).” The chorus of the song fiercely exclaims “Don’t tell me that’s heritage!,” challenging the frequent use of the notion of “heritage” to shield spatial inscriptions of coloniality from anti-racist critiques. Other responses from within the Afro-Cuban community prompted by Leal’s rehabilitation of the controversial site included those of anti-racist intellectuals Quiñones (2012) and Fernández Robaina (2012), who argued that the monument should be reframed and resignified by means of a plaque that critically exposes the atrocity committed by Gómez. More recently, Guanche (2020) has advocated not so much for a politics of removal but for erecting new statues to Black historical figures that will fill the obvious monumental voids existing in the city. Avoiding explicit mention to the debate around Gómez’s statue, Eusebio Leal seemed to obliquely address the criticism in a 2011 episode of his television show Andar La Habana, in which he showcases highlights of his restoration actions for Cuban viewers. Under the title “Let us take care of monuments,” the episode in case is devoted to the statues in the Avenue of Presidents and their purported value as national heritage landmarks.8 With one of the monuments in the grand avenue in El Vedado as a background, Leal energetically defends his stance against the removal of problematic statues: “I have always believed that it is easier to tear down than to build.” Immediately after, a voice-over asserts that attacking monuments equals the “desecration of history” and “the loss of national memory,” thus foreclosing attempts at questioning whether monuments linked to a problematic racist history should occupy prominent public spaces. The episode ends with Leal recounting an anecdote according to which he heroically salvaged, with the help of a few assistants, 75 tons of marble fragments belonging “fallen monuments” out of some forgotten landfill in the outskirts of Havana, to later place them in a park located in the city’s historic district. Regardless of the veracity of the story, the final takes of the television broadcast are filmed in the Garden of Fallen Monuments, where a handful of scattered portions of marble can be observed across the ground, interspersed with vegetation (Fig. 3). It is worth noting that the Garden, situated in the crowded Old Havana, is fully fenced and closed to the public.9 What could have become a much-needed green area to be enjoyed by neighbors in Havana’s old quarters is rendered inaccessible by a politics of heritage that mobilizes an all-monuments-matter narrative while narrowing public space. Leal concludes his disquisition by hyperbolically urging us to safeguard even the “splinters” of shattered monuments. This narrative around the supposed sacredness of all monuments obscures the fact that heritage is always a deliberate selection of a specific past that is socially manufactured (AlSayyad 2001). In this sense, the process of heritage production inevitably entails the discarding of certain voices, subjects and discourses that do not tightly fit official narratives of nation-state formation, whose whitening ideologies generally forced indigenous 8

The episode is available on YouTube under the title “Andar La Habana. Volumen 1 Artesanos del tiempo. Cuidemos los monumentos.” It can be accessed on the following link: https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=b4XRJ5Tpt1U. 9 The park is located at the intersection of Amargura and Cuba, in Habana Vieja. It is officially known as Parque Carlos J. Finlay.

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Fig. 3 Marble fragments in the Garden of Fallen Monuments in Havana. Photo taken by the author

and Afro-descendant populations—across Latin America’s diverse political landscapes—to subordinated modes of belonging within national frameworks and to narrow forms of citizenship. The use of an all-monuments-matter discourse by Leal also obfuscates the exclusions and omissions generated by his Office’s heritage agenda, which skipped the working class, predominantly Black district of Centro Habana—situated in between Old Havana and El Vedado—in its restoration efforts. In search of a magnificent monumentality that can attest to the greatness of the (whitened) Cuban nation, the Office of the Historian expanded its restoration actions from colonial times to the Republican era, while spatially moving from Old Havana to El Vedado, leaving Centro Habana virtually untouched by the heritagization program. It is in this district, neglected by official restoration efforts, that a practice of care toward a modest monument to a Black historical figure emerged.

3 Caring for Quintín Bandera: Callejón de Hamel and the Public Celebration of Blackness While the restoration of the monument to José Miguel Gómez in El Vedado was stirring up contentious demands for reframing and removal, acts of care toward a neglected monument to Black independence hero Quintín Bandera were taking

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place in the nearby Parque Trillo, located in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Cayo Hueso in Centro Habana. Disappointed with the prolonged absence of official maintenance to which the statue had been subjected, artist and district-resident Salvador González (1948–2021) took it upon himself to restore the monument in 2011. With the support of his neighbors, Salvador provided care for the monumental site in ways that went beyond the strictly material paradigm of heritage conservation. These acts of corporeal and affective attentiveness are consistent with the practice of re-emergence, described by Knudsen, Oldfield, Buettner and Zabunyan as transcending “the antagonistic dichotomies of removal and the domesticating pressures of reframing,” and instead making way for “a heritage practice that presents a lost opportunity from the past that returns to offer itself as a potential future horizon” (2022, p. 11). For Knudsen et al., re-emergence happens “in the form of new heritage actors, as well as new epistemologies, narratives and phenomenologies that come to the fore to take issue with and challenge the predominance of Eurocentric paradigms,” thereby presenting themselves as an “act of resistance that offers decolonial alternatives to official narratives” (2022, p. 12). As a practice of re-emergence, displaying gestures of material and spiritual attention toward an abandoned Black statue and its surrounding urban space can therefore be conceptualized as a form of contesting the disregard for Afro-Cuban heritage that underpins Havana’s officially sanctioned heritage program, and of advancing a preview of what a decolonial mode of commemorating could look like. Presiding over the lively Parque Trillo, the statue in question was first unveiled in honor of Quintín Bandera in 1948 and later substituted for the current one in 1953. Cast in bronze, the figure is modest in size and sits over an unassuming base encircled by a fence (Fig. 4). The monument is guarded by four ceiba (silk-cotton) trees majestically standing in each corner of the park. Situated in the heart of Cayo Hueso neighborhood, Parque Trillo is an animated meeting space for the community, whose predominantly Black neighbors live in nearby overcrowded solares or run-down tenements. As Nadine T. Fernandez aptly describes, “the few cracked and broken-down concrete benches” in Parque Trilllo become “the living room for many of the residents of the surrounding solares” (2010, p. 90). Due to racist stereotypes, Cayo Hueso has a poor reputation and is widely considered a marginalized space. Fernandez explains that “the dilapidated housing stock, the numerous solares, the largely poor and working-class population, … and even the thriving Afrocuban culture” all substantiate “the marginality of the space for many white and middleclass Habaneros” (2010, p. 83). In this sense, there is a no more apt figure to grace Parque Trillo than Quintín Bandera, Fernandez suggests (2010, p. 91). Having risen through the military ranks to become a general while fighting in Cuba’s war of independence from Spain, Bandera was stripped of his position in 1897 and forced to witness the end of the conflict from the sidelines. As historian Ada Ferrer puts it, he was “alone, rejected, and overlooked at the moment of rebel victory” (1998, p. 667). The “marginality imposed on Bandera” continued well after the island’s independence, as the former Black general “was denied full payment for his army service and routinely denied suitable employment” (Ferrer 1998, p. 667). For Fernandez, racism offers an explanation for the repudiation of the Black fighter: “Bandera’s dismissal

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was rooted… in issues of morality, civility, and refinement—all racially coded traits. He did not serve as an appropriate role model for the citizens of the emerging republic” (2010, p. 91). Fernandez continues her analysis by finding echoes of Banderas’s historical expulsion from the upper echelons of national heroism in the racialized stigma associated to the urban space where his monument still stands today: Exactly because of his history, [Bandera] is perhaps an all-too-appropriate icon for Cayo Hueso. Bandera’s past, his glory and subsequent banishment, can be read as a metaphor for the barrio itself. His self-proclaimed “rustic,” uneducated nature still accurately reflects the popular impressions of Cayo Hueso, where residents are thought to be tough and unrefined. How apropos that Bandera, a black national hero—first valorized, then maligned—should be ensconced as the central image in the barrio’s main public space. His history echoes the ambivalence toward the barrio and the park as decidedly black and reputedly dangerous spaces (2010, p. 91). In that regard, the crumbling materiality of Bandera’s monument in Parque Trillo is a testament to the persistence of racialized frameworks that erase and discount the contributions of Black Cubans to national history. As Martínez (2021) argues, monuments get devalued by institutional neglect through what he calls “the political work of disrepair” (p. 7). If monumental disdain and lack of maintenance of particular heritage sites can be considered, according to Martínez, as “an invitation to forget, or to remember badly” (2021, p. 2), what is being demanded of us in Parque Trillo is to experience the monument’s material decay as a form of memory coming undone. Countering this invitation to let certain monuments slip into ruination is Salvador

Fig. 4 Monument to Black independence hero Quintín Bandera in Parque Trillo, Havana. Photo taken by the author

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González’s refusal to forget by calling on the surrounding community to collectively perform the affective labor of commemoration. According to his long-term assistant Elías Aseff, Salvador grew tired of witnessing how other monuments—such as the one dedicated to José Miguel Gómez—got official attention, while Quintín Bandera’s statue was never restored (Aseff 2021).10 A native of the eastern city of Camagüey, Salvador had gain widespread social recognition as a painter, sculptor, muralist and community leader in Havana in the early 1990s, when he founded the renowned Callejón de Hamel as an art space and a meeting place for the community. A two-block alley filled with Afro-Cuban themed murals and sculptures, the Callejón de Hamel soon became, as Aseff explains, “an alternative space to the official invisibility thrown upon African-derived culture and those who we can refer to as ‘the people without history.’” For Aseff, the Callejón constitutes “an homage to our Black ancestors in a space that is to be enjoyed by everybody in the community.” Apart from arranging a variety of educational and artistic activities for neighbors in Centro Habana, the Callejón de Hamel sociocultural project organizes popular Sunday rumbas or convivial meetings where Afro-Cuban drum music, dance, spiritual traditions and oral legacies feature prominently. As Geoffroy de Laforcade explains, these weekly rumba events have been happening uninterruptedly since 1993 and have served as a space of encounter between “the working-class, majority black residents of Cayo Hueso” and “santeros, paleros, abakuás, rastafarians, musicians, dancers, artists, intellectuals, and tourists” (2017, p. 96). The consistent stream of tourists visiting the Callejón became one of the sources of income to support “a community project forged in spontaneity and experimentation rather than systematic design and implementation” (Laforcade 2017, p. 97). Partly, this strategic engagement with the tourist economy is what allowed the Callejón to maintain its “unofficial and autonomous character,” as it has been described by Laforcade (2017, p. 97). Invisibilized by official art critics, the Callejón project remained peripheral to established cultural institutions “in favor of ongoing informal encounters with luminaries of Afro-Cuban worship, song, dance, drumming, poetry, philosophy, film and storytelling” (Laforcade, p. 97). The partial reliance of the project on foreign visitors prompted some criticism on the purported commodification of Afro-Cubanness. In an article published in 2005, Roberto Zurbano critically painted the encounter of the neighbors in Centro Habana with international tourism at the Callejón de Hamel as one marked by commercial exchanges and the selling of Black identity (p. 80). In reaction to these critiques, Aseff points out that there is a clear asymmetry when it comes to judging the production and distribution of cultural outputs by working-class Black people, as opposed to the artistic expressions associated to the white Cuban elites: “when foreign tourists go the National Theater, they pay 20 dollars to see the Cuban National Ballet, and that is never criticized as the selling of a white identity.” Aseff further argues that admission to the Sunday rumbas has remained free of

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Personal interview with Elías Aseff on December 13, 2021. All quotes by Aseff belong to the same interview.

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charge for both neighbors and tourists alike throughout the years.11 In his view, the fact that rumbas were being organized well before foreign visitors started to drop by the Callejón additionally proves that the tourist gaze is not the structuring logic for these events: “the rumbas we used to put together before the arrival of tourists to Cuba are the same as the ones we do today.” Thus, the ambivalent proximity to the tourist economy functions, more than as an organizing or co-constitutive principle, as a tactical tool of survival to remedy the realities of material scarcity and lack of institutional backing imposed on a project that seeks to create a space where Afro-Cuban history and identity can be publicly celebrated. Crucially, Salvador started his vindication of Afro-Cuban culture and spirituality at a time when religious murals were not officially permitted, and when both rumba music and African-derived spiritual expressions were not openly tolerated. Kevin M. Delgado has identified a contradictory approach of the revolutionary government to Afro-Cuban religions since the 1960s, whereby these traditions have officially been celebrated by the state as national “folklore”12 while being rejected and proscribed as backward superstitions (2009, p. 54). Delgado further explains that the advent of a socialist, declaredly atheist regime in the 1960s meant that “restrictions were put on public Ocha (Santería) celebrations, which had to be registered with local authorities (a policy still in place today)” (2009, p. 54). In the still restrictive context of the early 1990s, the Callejón became a space for the unapologetic celebration of Blackness through “rumbas de solar,” as Aseff calls them, or “rumbas without sequins” as artist Jacqueline González–Salvador’s daughter and current director of the Callejón de Hamel sociocultural project since his passing in 2021—likes to refer to them. Eluding the cultural polishing associated to official institutions and its folklorizing filters, these drum celebrations honoring the orishas and Afro-Cuban traditions respond to community members’ tastes. “Neighbors that come to Sunday rumbas genuinely feel,” Jacqueline argues, “that their culture is respected, not looked down upon” (González 2021).13 A similar attentiveness to a labor of remembering—or a refusal to forget—sustains the work of care that Salvador initiated in Parque Trillo, situated three blocks away from the Callejón de Hamel. The beginning of the 1990s witnessed his first intervention to the space: planting a ceiba tree in one of the corners of the park. In santería and other Afro-Cuban spiritual traditions such as the abakuá fraternal secret society, the ceiba is regarded as a sacred tree and ritually honored with tributes (Fig. 5). “My father,” Jacqueline recounts, “planted that ceiba in Parque Trillo and he took care of it, he sheltered it.” The tree grew large and strong along the years, offering a protective shadow to Quintín Bandera’s humble statue. In 2011, concerned by the decaying 11 Since there is no entrance fee for Sunday rumbas, the Callejón de Hamel sustains its activities thanks to a small bar and restaurant area, and to an art gallery where visitors can purchase Africanthemed art pieces. 12 The relegation of Afro-Cuban religions to the realm of folklore also operates by politically deactivating the subversive potential these practices might carry when performed in community settings outside of the disciplining power of state cultural institutions. 13 Personal interview with Jacqueline González on December 14, 2021. All quotes by Jacqueline belong to the same interview.

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state of Bandera’s monument, Salvador recruited people in the community to care for the site remembering the Black hero. An electric crane was rented by the Callejón collective to provide access to the figure’s head, covered in dirt accumulated over the years and now thoroughly cleaned by members of the community. The crane also made it possible to install a Cuban flag next to Bandera, as a gesture pointing toward his reinstatement to the annals of national history. Finally, missing letters from the base of the monument were replaced and the surrounding fence was repaired and welded. These practices of maintenance and repair reveal an affective connection between neighbors in Cayo Hueso and the material world that they inhabit. As Steven J. Jackson has argued (2014, p. 232), acts of repair are often sustained by deep forms of attachment—we repair because we care. Feminist scholarship has also underlined the close relationship existing between the work of care and repair. As defined by Fisher and Tronto (1990), practices of care would include “everything we do to

Fig. 5 Afro-Cuban ritual charms placed on a ceiba tree in Havana’s Parque Trillo. Photo taken by the author

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maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible” (p. 40). Fisher and Tronto further explain that said world encompasses “our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web” (p. 40). Often undervalued and rendered invisible in a world dominated by a “Western and productivist imagination” (Jackson 2014, p. 225), the affective and material labor intertwined in practices of care and repair such as the ones displayed at Parque Trillo could also constitute, as suggested by Jackson, a site of epistemic advantage. By virtue of establishing an intimate caring connection with broken objects, fixers might develop unique understandings around breakdown, maintenance and repair (Jackson 2014, pp. 229–230), challenging institutionalized expert knowledges as the sole epistemological location from which to engage with the built environment. In fact, the insights developed through quotidian relationships of care with fractured materialities are generative of what Jackson has termed “broken world thinking,” described as a “provocation … towards new and different kinds of politics” (p. 223). Following Jackson’s proposal, actions of care and repair around Quintín Bandera’s statue in Havana could be conceived of as making way for a new politics that fundamentally rethinks the concept of heritage and its relations to institutional frameworks, market imperatives and expert views. In this regard, Elías Aseff defends the actions at Parque Trillo as “doing what he [Salvador] understood he had to do, and trying his best at it,” despite acknowledging that Salvador and the Cayo Hueso neighbors who participated in the grassroots restoration of the monument did not have any formal knowledge on heritage preservation techniques. In fact, Aseff explicitly challenges the status of conservation professionals and their disciplinary expertise as grounded in a colonial epistemological project. Through his contact with the Office of the Historian to complete a training program as an official tourist guide, he understood that for the authorized heritage agenda “everything revolves around colonial Havana through the vision of the colonizers, instead of the colonized.” In contrast, Aseff advocates for an “empirical approach” by which memories and affects come into close dialogue with the materiality of quotidian spaces. The epistemic location of the people extending care to Bandera’s statue is therefore rooted in a collective and connective creation of meaning that situates itself in tension with hierarchical forms of knowledge production tied up to heritage institutions and expert voices. Ultimately, Aseff views the grassroots rehabilitation of Bandera’s monument as “an alternative proposal to the actions assumed by the Office of the Historian, who never came to Parque Trillo to do anything.” The Callejón’s approach to the practice of collective commemoration in Parque Trillo also differs from the Office of the Historian’s hegemonic heritage program in that it embraces living forms heritage that emphasize the continuities between the past and the present. Instead of adopting a practice of conservation that creates discontinuities between monuments (purportedly belonging to the past) and the people of the present—a separation epitomized, according to Ioannis Poulios, by the World Heritage paradigm—Salvador and the neighbors in Cayo Hueso cultivate what Poulios has conceptualized as a “living heritage approach,” which fundamentally recognizes how the past becomes present for currently existing communities in

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quotidian ways (2014, p. 12). While heritage authorities seek to freeze urban landscapes as palimpsests of the past, the Callejón’s approach to Parque Trillo challenges the musealization paradigm typical of the Office of the Historian by activating urban space through the mobilizing force of Afro-Cuban music and dance. As Jacqueline recounts, “every year, on January 6, we do a pilgrimage from Callejón de Hamel to the ceiba tree planted by my father in Parque Trillo.” In a festive spirit, the Callejón collective and neighbors of Cayo Hueso sing and dance along the few city blocks that separate the Callejón de Hamel from the Parque Trillo (Fig. 6) until reaching the sacred ceiba, where members of the abakuá secret society perform honoring rituals (Fig. 7). “We turn the bad into the good,” Jacqueline asserts, “because everything needs to have joy; it is part of the ritual.”14

4 Conclusion: Heritage as a Site of Affective and Embodied Encounter As Micieli-Voutsinas and Person (2020) have explained, hegemonic modes of commemoration have strongly rested upon monumentality, frequently generating “graveyards of collective memory over time” (p. 1). There often exists what we could call a public forgetting of monuments, as physical sites of remembrance frequently become invisible to the eyes of everyday passerby. By contrast, the intervention at Parque Trillo diverges from dominant forms of remembering in that it produces heritage as a moment of encounter: the encounter of moving bodies in space, the embodiment of memory through African-derived music and dance and the corporeal and affective engagement of community members with the monument’s physical substance. As such, a decaying statue to a historically marginalized Black figure is rendered visible again through acts of care and repair, as well as through performative actions that activate the monument as a site of collective meaning. Rather than just relying upon representational modes of heritage, the experience at Parque Trillo makes space for other material—including beyond-human materialities, such as the ceiba—affective and bodily resonances in the creation of an alternative culture of remembrance. This diversification of materialities—the fractured monument, the body in space, the sacred ceiba—in the process of heritage-making at Parque Trillo is coupled with a pluralizing of narratives that seeks to correct, as Arregui et al. (2018) would phrase it, “the asymmetries of memory” (p. 7). The unfolding of Black 14 Besides January 6, these ritual processions led by the abakuá fraternal society can also take place in an unannounced manner, during other significant dates of the calendar. For instance, on November 28, 2021, neighbors in Cayo Hueso were taken by surprise when they saw a group of abakuá brothers parading down the street in unison to rhythmic chants from the Callejón de Hamel to Parque Trillo, calling on passerby to join the vivid march. The occasion was the commemoration of an often overlooked episode in Cuban national history: the assassination of five abakuá brothers by Spanish colonial authorities on November 27, 1871, as they attempted to save a group of young medical students accused of desecrating the burial place of a Spanish military man, and finally sentenced to death.

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Fig. 6 Ritual procession led by ireme (initiated abakuá brother) from Callejón de Hamel to Parque Trillo in Havana. Photo taken by the author

marginalized voices and stories in the urban landscape of Cayo Hueso serves as a decolonial counterpoint to the coloniality that has underpinned the official heritage regime in Havana, and it does so by challenging the “colonial cultures of display” (McCarthy 2007) which the Office of the Historian can be said to have mobilized while exhibiting Blackness as a subordinated “other” within the tourist scenography constructed in Old Havana. In the performative interventions and collective articulations by the Callejón project and its surrounding community, Afro-Cuban memory and identity are re-centered, bridging the gap between “self” and “other” that often constitutes the framework for much of colonial heritage and museums (Tolia-Kelly et al. 2017, p. 3). Ultimately, the Callejón de Hamel’s initiative carried out in Havana’s Parque Trillo constituted a form of memory activism that is not against monuments, but for them; in

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Fig. 7 Abakuá ritual performed at the ceiba tree planted by Salvador González in Parque Trillo. Photo taken by the author

particular, for the resignification of a crumbling monumental site as an emancipatory space for negotiating the centrality of Black historical figures and African-derived culture in Cuba’s past and present. Instead of engaging with grandiose forms of monumentality—either to ask for the removal of problematic statues or to propose the creation of large-scale traditional monuments to Black figures—the community members at Callejón de Hamel reclaimed a decaying space to produce a multilayered counter-narrative that centers Afro-Cuban history, art, religiosity and dance and places itself at a visible public urban space. All in all, I suggest that this intervention could be read as an instance of a decolonial heritage practice, in the sense that it displays community forms of care which extend beyond the material dimension of the site, which advocate for a humble sort of monumentality and for the recovery of a Black memory excluded from official heritage programs, and which showcase an embodied form of memory in space, doing so outside of institutional frameworks and decentering commercial logics.

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References AlSayyad N (2001) Global norms and urban forms in the age of tourism: manufacturing heritage, consuming tradition. In: AlSayyad N (ed) Consuming tradition, manufacturing heritage: global norms and urban forms in the age of tourism. Routledge, London, pp 1–33 Álvarez S (2012) José Miguel Gómez en Calle G. Negra Cubana Tenía Que Ser. https://negracuba nateniaqueser.com/debates/el-ciberdebate/jose-mig/. Accesed 15 Aug 2022 Arregui A, Mackenthun G, Wodianka S (2018) Introduction. In: Arregui A, Mackenthun G, Wodianka S (eds) Decolonial heritage: natures, cultures, and the asymmetries of memory. Waxman, Münster, pp 7–28 Aseff E (2021) Personal interview. 13 Dec 2021 Benson DS (2016) Antiracism in cuba: the unfinished revolution. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill Casey ES (2000) Remembering: a phenomenological study. Indiana University Press, Bloomington De la Fuente A (2011) A nation for all: race, inequality, and politics in twentieth-century cuba. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill de Laforcade G (2017) Fugitive and dissonant: memory, space, and the aesthetics of public art in Havana’s Callejón de Hamel. Afro-Hispanic Rev 36(2):95–108 Delgado KM (2009) Spiritual capital: foreign patronage and the trafficking of Santería. In: Hernandez-Reguant A (ed) Cuba in the special period: culture and ideology in the 1990s. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp 51–66 Fernandes S (2008) Cuba represent!: cuban arts, state power, and the making of new revolutionary cultures. Duke University Press, Durham Fernandez NT (2010) Revolutionizing romance: interracial couples in contemporary cuba. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick Fernández Robaina T (2012) Sobre excesos y rectificaciones: A propósito de la estatua del General José Miguel Gómez. AfroCubaWeb. https://www.afrocubaweb.com/coneg/desdelace iba5marzo12.htm. Accessed 17 Aug 2022 Ferrer A (1998) Rustic men, civilized nation: race, culture, and contention on the eve of cuban independence. Hispanic Am Historical Rev 78(4):663–686 Fisher B, Tronto JC (1990) Toward a feminist theory of caring. In: Abel EK, Nelson M (eds) Circles of care: work and identity in women’s lives. SUNY Press, Albany, pp 35–62 González J (2021) Personal interview. 14 Dec 2021 Gravari-Barbas M (2018) Tourism as a heritage producing machine. Tourism Manage Perspect 26:5–8 Guanche JC (2020) Tumbar una estatua es tan histórico como construirla. Comunistas. https://www. comunistascuba.org/2020/06/tumbar-una-estatua-es-tan-historico.html?m=1. Accessed 23 Aug 2022 Gutiérrez Bascón MA (2018) La reconstrucción patrimonial de la Plaza Vieja en La Habana: Monumentalidad colonial y turismo global en una isla (post)socialista. Pós-Limiar: Revista Do Programa de Pós-Graduação Em Linguagens, Mídia e Arte [PUC-Campinas] 1(2):103–116 Harvey DC (2015) Heritage and scale: settings, boundaries and relations. Int J Herit Stud 21(6):577– 593 Jackson SJ (2014) Rethinking repair. In: Gillespie T, Boczkowski PJ, Foot KA (eds) Media technologies: essays on communication, materiality, and society. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp 221–239 Knudsen BT, Oldfield JR, Buettner E et al (eds) (2022) Decolonizing colonial heritage: new agendas, actors and practices in and beyond Europe. Routledge, Abingdon Kølvraa C, Knudsen BT (2020) Decolonizing European colonial heritage in urban spaces—an introduction to the special issue. Herit Soc 13(1–2):1–9 Lacarrieu M, Laborde S (2018) Diálogos con la colonialidad: Los límites del patrimonio en contextos de subalternidad. Persona y Sociedad 32(1):11–38

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Martínez F (2021) Memory, don’t speak! monumental neglect and memorial sacrifice in contemporary Estonia. Cult Geogr 29(1):63–81 McCarthy C (2007) Exhibiting maori: a history of colonial cultures of display. Berg, Oxford Micieli-Voutsinas J, Person AM (2020) Affective architectures: an introduction. In: MicieliVoutsinas J, Person AM (eds) Affective architectures: more-than-representational geographies of heritage. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 1–16 Onciul B (2015) Museums, heritage and indigenous voice: decolonising engagement. Routledge, New York Poulios I (2014) The past in the present: a living heritage approach—Meteora, Greece. Ubiquity Press, London Quijano A (2000) ¡Qué tal raza! Revista Del CESLA Int Latin Am Stud Rev 1:192–200 Quiñones T (2012) José Miguel Gómez en Calle G. Negra cubana tenía que ser. https://negracuba nateniaqueser.com/debates/el-ciberdebate/jose-mig/. Accessed 17 Aug 2022 Scarpaci JL (2000) Reshaping Habana Vieja: revitalization, historic preservation, and restructuring in the socialist city. Urban Geogr 21(8):724–744 Smith L (2006) The uses of heritage. Routledge, Abingdon Tolia-Kelly DP, Waterton E, Watson S (2017) Introduction: heritage, affect and emotion. In: ToliaKelly DP, Waterton E, Watson S (eds) Heritage, affect and emotion: politics, practices and infrastructures. Routledge, London, pp 1–11 Winter T (2014) Heritage studies and the privileging of theory. Int J Herit Stud 20(5):556–572 Zurbano R (2005) Vengo del mercado del silencio. La Gaceta De Cuba 1:80 Zurbano R (2023) La plantación invisible: Un tour por La Habana negra. Cuban Stud 52 (forthcoming)

María A. Gutiérrez Bascón has a Ph.D. in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Studies from The University of Chicago. From 2019 to 2022, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the John Morton Center for North American Studies, University of Turku (Finland). Currently, she is an Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Cultures of the University of Helsinki, with a project on urban redevelopment and spatial justice in Havana. She recently edited a collection of articles on Havana’s heritage, gentrification and new architecture for the journal Cuban Studies. She writes, edits, and produces the podcast Trama urbana, which critically examines urban issues in Latin America.

Negotiating Decolonisation? Memories, Places, and Gender Identities in Casa de la Libertad Sucre, Bolivia María Lois

Abstract Heritage has become an area to dispute and display memories of other voices in state-building, citizenship and official history. In postcolonial contexts, heritagisation may encompass memories, places, voices of multiple collective subjects bringing up a frame to make visible diverse identities and different practices of resistance to the colonial system other than the hegemonic narratives. This chapter discusses a case of recent heritage-making around independence, decolonisation and nation-building in Casa de la Libertad (Sucre, Bolivia), the first historical monumental place of Bolivia in a UNESCO World Heritage City. Understanding the museum as a site of negotiation, the aim is to underline the cultural governance and politics of representation around diverse narratives and identities in Latin America. Keywords Heritagisation · Decolonisation · Independence(s) · Post coloniality · Bolivia

1 Introduction Bolivia‘s declaration of independence was signed on 6 August 1825, in Sucre, its capital city. The space where this happened, known as Casa de la Libertad (House of Liberty/Freedom), is commonly considered to be the birthplace of the nation (Sobrevilla 2011, p. 227). Originally constructed in 1621 as a Jesuit chapel and as the Auditorium of the University, today it is a museum of Bolivian history. The museum was sanctioned as the first national monument, by the Law on National Monuments (1927) and by the Supreme Decree 5918 (1969), and it was listed as UNESCO World Heritage in 1991 (Menchero 2022, p. 61). Since 1995, the House is financially dependent on the Foundation of the Central Bank of Bolivia (FBCB). The building has become a repository of historical relics, political documents, paintings and objects, collections of newspapers, military equipment, maps and a wider variety M. Lois (B) Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_4

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of materials considered Bolivian heritage. In October 2022, the Bolivian president, Luis Arce, visited the House to inaugurate expansion works already carried out, in terms of new exposition spaces, deposits, children’s areas and so on. During the ceremony, the President highlighted that “the civic temple of all Bolivians, common home of the peoples and nations that make up the Plurinational State of Bolivia, represents the unity of the Bolivian people” (Agencia Boliviana de Información 2023, author translation). This new enlargement of the museum is another step towards the reconfiguration of the place that started in 2011. As the President Arce states and will be argued below, the place has been consecutively affected and remodelled in the context of political changes of a country that transitioned from Republic of Bolivia to Plurinational State in 2009 with the approval of a new Constitution. Using as case study this national musem (Casa de la Libertad in Sucre, Bolivia), this chapter presents a discussion on heritage-making as a process of political visibilisation.1 Considering some of these changes—particularly, those inside the museum’s main hall which is devoted to independence—my aim is to discuss the heritagisation of memories, places and peoples as part of a new reading of the national history of Bolivia. This rewriting of the official history to be displayed in the museum is a public policy decision that changed the politics of exhibition and representation of decolonisation, national heroes and independence fathers in an emblematic museum located in the capital city of the country. The text begins with a theoretical framework centred on Critical Heritage Studies. Next, I will present the case study, and complement it with an exploration of memories, scales and gendered identities of the new musealised narrative around Bolivia’s independence exhibited in the Casa de la Libertad. Some concluding remarks about museums as spaces of possibility for marginalised heritages in postcolonial contexts will close the chapter.

2 Heritage, Politics, Identity: Imagining the Community The emergence of the idea of heritage is associated with the creation and consolidation of European nation-states, particularly since the end of the eighteenth century (Muriel 2016). The making of a political community sharing a transversal time and a common space is expressed in practices of resignification and reconstruction of cultural elements and references (Espacio y Poder Research Group 2019). In that sense, the shaping of patrimonial forms became an expression of the construction of the nation-state (Shannan Peckham 2003, p. 2). The culture and the cultural (García García 1998) was transformed in state cultural heritage, that is, in a feature regulated and implemented through public policies, where the production of heritage gets materialised in different forms of representation and imagination of the cultural forms of political identities. In this text, heritage is assumed to be a mode of cultural 1

Referring to the specific visibility that can be made, or not, of political actors in heritagisation and/or in other political processes.

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production (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998, p. 149). In this sense, the materialisation and final formal aspects of heritage are not as relevant as the process of valorisation and negotiation of the imagination and representation of a community. In postcolonial contexts, the material cultural forms that represent one community may invisibilise other cultural forms usually relevant for other social groups, transmitted through oral history, performing arts, living expressions and so on. Heritage-making then is also a symbolic process of expression, where the immaterial form of the cultural plays an essential role in shaping and allowing how a community is visibilised, affected and defined, usually related to marginalised voices. Our lens here focuses on heritagisation, that is, on the process through which spaces, individuals, objects, traditions, memories, are reassembled, reinterpreted and affected to become the heritage of a community, shaping a link between past and present (Lois and Cairo 2015). Heritage will be tackled, then, as a discursive construction (Smith 2006), with material and symbolic meanings for the representations of different social groups. In this process of heritagisation, that is, the arranging and displaying of meaning making, places and values performed as elements of cultural significance, in a constant negotiation of the spaces of representation and visibility of a community. Heritagisation, as the process of negotiation of the visibilisation of narratives, voices, memories, affections and emotions involved in heritage-making, displays the politics of a community’s representation and exhibition. As will be discussed later, the disruption of the authorised memories, places and gender identities associated to the representation of independence in a Bolivian national museum as a public policy delivers a scenario to deliberate the politics and the identities officially associated to decolonisation. This consideration assumes the political and central dimension of the processes of negotiation, discussion and legal sanction of heritage, outlining heritagisation as identity politics.

3 Museums, Exhibitions, Politics of Representation: Cultural Governance in Postcolonial Contexts In recent years, Critical Heritage Studies has become an innovative research area, by engaging in an approach to heritage policies and practices as a complex power relationship which is always subject to changes, negotiations and contestations. In that sense, concepts such as the authorised heritage discourse (AHD) (Smith 2006)— the process in which political actors, experts, international institutions, and cultural managers intervene to designate, manage, conserve, commemorate, forget, authorise, and standardise what is heritage—have opened the scenario for a political reading of heritage. At the same time, greater attention has been paid to the power relations intrinsic to heritage discourses and practices, and the possibilities of heritage-making as a practice to re-negotiate official political histories, especially in postcolonial contexts (Lois 2022a). Research focus shifted to the practices of social construction of heritage, disentangling its politics, and challenging its final form with a

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proposal of “democratising heritage by consciously rejecting elite cultural narratives and embracing the heritage insights of people, communities and cultures that have traditionally been marginalised in formulating heritage policy” (Association of Critical Heritage Studies 2012). Following this perspective, the institutions and forms of recreation and production of heritage will be set as places for the implementation of cultural governance (Shapiro 2004), that is, spaces where the forms of cultural expression would legitimise certain practices of sovereignty and statehood. Cultural governance not only pays attention to the cultural forms associated with a certain community, but also to how those forms are appointed. Cultural production spaces not only disseminate information, but also produce meanings, generating an order which determines who speaks and who is silenced, and who does so in a more qualified way, or from the margins. “In this sense, cultural governance is a set of historical practices of representation—involving the state but never fully controlled by the state—in which the struggle for the state’s identity is located” (Campbell 2003, p. 57). Cultural governance, as politics of representation in heritagisation processes, is the result of complex negotiations around the face-to-face forms of different actors in different contexts. To be precise, visiting the visibilities and invisibilities as patterns of the representational regimes becomes an exercise of revision of the forms historically allowed in the representations of political identities, and of their qualification in the narratives of state constructions. Considering the visibilities/invisibilities of M¯aori in New Zealand museums particularly according to their evolution in parallel to the state political recognition of the country as a bi-cultural nation in 1980–1990s (David 2007) may illustrate us about cultural governance in New Zealand, that is, the politics of representations of the allowed indigenous (Lois 2022a). If heritage-making is an expression of nation-state construction, museums were projected as sites of nation-state, colonial-state, and community imagination (Anderson 1991). Conceived as “formal places for heritage preservation and displays that connect us to history” (Iversen and Smith 2012, p. 126), museums have existed as “institutions for the formalisation and transmission of legitimate ancestry” (Anderson 1991, p. 164). By the end of the 1980s, the so-called new museology movement opened a space to question and discuss the authority and functions of museums, underlining the positionality and contextuality of their representational dimensions. Since then, museums have been significantly politically examined (Hooper-Greenhill 1992; Bennett 1995; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998; Luke 2002; Macdonald 2006; Tythacott 2010; Prokkola and Lois 2016; Message 2018; Brulon 2020) since museums are also sites of struggle for the recognition of identities, and as spaces of political enunciation of statehood margins. If historically conceived as political projects, museums and exhibitions may also be considered to be contested sites of experience (Zolberg 1996; Cameron 2003). Representational practices are established in a setting where cultural governance can be challenged, especially as minority groups and marginalised communities articulate and convey their specific representations. This way, “the very nature of exhibition, then, makes it a contested terrain” (Lavine and Karp 1991, p. 1; Prokkola and Lois 2016). Exhibitions and displays can be conceptualised as discursive sites, where issues of re-situation, renaming and

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recreation open up a space for political discussion and policies of representation. By qualifying people, memories and spatialities, the venue subsequently becomes an arena for the negotiation of power geometries. Working on heritage in postcolonial contexts becomes a particular way of approaching heritage-making, since decolonisation processes are central in the authorised history and heritage discourse of the previously colonised spaces. With a main hall devoted to independence, Casa de la Libertad is one example of how independence memories and nation-building walk together in the official history of the new independent states. Also, of the centrality of the independence re-vision when imagining a Plurinational State. This chapter proposes a reading of a gallery of national museum Casa de la Libertad (Sucre, Bolivia) in a Latin-American postcolonial context. By approaching the politics of exhibition and visibility of the decolonisation process as semantics of a political community, the assignation of meanings by framing discursive universes will be conversed. “[Representations] do not simply mirror or present an image: exhibition classification and hierarchies, discursive conventions and representational practices constitute subjects and, in the process, set out terms of action” (KirshenblattGimblett 1998, p. 80). In that sense, and particularly in the exhibition in the gallery to be approached, visual contents and displays are read as discursive practices (Rose 2007), by means of critical discourse analysis (CDA), usually applied in Critical Heritage Studies (Waterton et al. 2006; Smith 2006; Skrede and Hølleland 2018).

4 Case Study: Envisioning Independence in Casa de la Libertad, Sucre, Bolivia In the case of Latin America, “the establishment of national identities […] is ineluctably linked to a process of identification whereby the descendants of European-born people in America [creole/criollos] establish a differentiation with those born in the metropolis, resulting in the breakdown of the dominant discourse that constituted all inhabitants as subjects of the European kings and leading to the independence of the countries in the region” (Cairo forthcoming). In the emergence of the new states and imagined communities, “creole pioneers” and their own role in Hispanic colonial bureaucracy is essential to understanding the independence wave that runs between 1809 and 1829 (Anderson 1991). In fact, Bolivia is named after Simon Bolívar, founder of the Republic of Bolívar and one of the so-called Liberators of America, a classification that, depending on the source, refers to military leaders of independence, liberation and decolonisation battles, such as Francisco Miranda, Bernardo O’Higgins, José de San Martín or Antonio José de Sucre (Figueroa 2021). In 1825, the Act of Independence of the new Republic was signed in Sucre, the first Bolivian Constitution was drafted in Sucre and the Bolivian Congress assembled there. All of these foundational facts for Bolivian official statehood were materialised in the Casa de la Libertad, known as the Palacio Deliberante (Deliberative Palace) until

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the federal war (1898–1899), when executive and legislative powers were transferred to La Paz as a result of the political struggles between conservatives and liberals. Both political factions were supported by tin and silver mining oligarchies, respectively. After the conflict, legislative and executive powers remained in La Paz, headquarters of the liberal faction that won the war and the judicial power stayed in Sucre. In some ways, these political powers headquarters move and re-locations highlight the importance of the Casa de la Libertad and Sucre in the configuration of Bolivian political geography, as a symbol of a tradition that placed the city of Sucre at the political centre of the rising state, later displaced under the new order represented by liberalism. Disputes over where the capital of the country should be located, and the claiming of the building and the plaza where it is placed as central to the political scenario are transversal to the official history of Bolivia and re-created in times of political transformations. After the war, the building was abandoned until 1939, when a Supreme Decree endowed the Sucre Geographical Society with the custody and conservation of the site, in order to create a historical museum. In 1974, the premises were rehabilitated and launched as museum in 1977, since 1995 is part of the Central Bank of Bolivia Foundation that supports the institution. The building encompasses several halls and internal divisions named after epochal moments in Bolivian history. The Viceroyalty Hall (Sala Virreinal) offers a historical narrative from the pre-columbian Hispanic period and the colonial times until the Freedom Cry,2 which was also released in Sucre, in 1809, marking the beginning of the times for independence wars in the region. The Independence Hall (Salón de la Independencia) is the main hall of the House. It is devoted to independence and is the focus of this work. The Hall of the Guerrillas (Sala de Guerrillas) is dedicated to fighters against the vice royal troops such as Juana Azurduy—who ascended to the position of Lieutenant Colonel for Bolívar—and another independence fighter, her husband, Manuel Asencio Padilla. The Hall of the Signatories (Sala de los Firmantes) is devoted to the congressmen who subscribed and proclaimed the Act of Independence. The Hall of Marshal Sucre (Sala del Mariscal Sucre) was implemented in 1995 as a small room committed to Antonio José de Sucre y Alcalá, also known as Grand Marshal of Ayacucho, an independence leader who served as the second president of Bolivia, and one of Simón Bolívar’s generals, statesmen, and friends; the Hall of Honour is mostly an area to receive honourable visits. Finally, the Gallery of Presidents (Galería de los Presidentes), the former Senate, is now devoted to presidents of the country, starting with Sucre and ending with Luis Arce. A library, named after the local writer and first president of the Casa de la Libertad, Joaquín Gantier Valda, contains the bibliographic and cartographic records of the Sucre Geographical and Historical Society. Finally, the contiguous construction, known as Casa Alzérreca, was acquired by the museum as a space for itinerant expositions and events. 2 The Freedom Cry (grito libertario) is a foundational moment in the historical imagination of independence in Latin America. The cry was uttered against the government imposed by Napoleon in Spain and in favour of the king Fernando VII. The mentioned Sucre Geographical Society, that received the Casa de la Libertad as its repository, had an active role on the heritagisation of Sucre as a central place to glorify independence, but also as a leading space in the colonial period as an element to defend the city as Bolivia capital (Bridikhina 2019).

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All these halls and buildings compose the site of the Casa de la Libertad, a museum devoted to Bolivian historical heritage-making. The focus of this chapter is the main hall of the institution, the Independence Hall (see Fig. 1), a gallery completely devoted to the decolonisation of the country. The Hall is located in front of the main entrance, originally the Jesuits’ domestic chapel; then, it functioned as the University’s lecture hall, and later on it was the site of the first constituent congress, named Deliberative Assembly, which drafted and signed the Bolivian Republic’s Act of Independence. The chamber is divided by a wooden balustrade separating the seats of the Congressman and the seats occupied by the people. The main feature of the site is the frontal wall, where the portraits of the country’s national heroes oversee the space under a Mudejar coffered ceiling and a shopwindow with the Bolivian national emblem. At the centre of the wall, Simón Bolívar is portrayed by José Gil de Castro (1785–1841), a well-known artist who developed a style to portray winners (Gutiérrez Viñuales 2003, p. 1). “My painting made in Lima with the highest accuracy and likeness” can be seen in the picture, on the left-hand side. To his right is a painting of the previously mentioned Marshal of Ayacucho, Antonio José de Sucre. To his left is José Ballivián, also known as the Marshal of Ingavi, a Bolivian general of outstanding performance during the Peruvian-Bolivian War—winning the battle of Ingavi, which was crucial to understand Bolivia’s independence—and 11th president of the country.

Fig. 1 Independence Hall, Casa de la Libertad, Sucre, Bolivia. Photo taken by the author

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Two other canvases complete the frontal wall, atop the two Marshals. Above Sucre, a painting of Tupak Katari, Aymara leader of two legendary enclosures to the city of La Paz and other indigenous revolts against the colonial authorities who finally killed him by dismemberment in Peñas (La Paz), in 1781. His statement before his death “I may die, but I will be back in millions” (A mí me matareís, pero volveré y seré millones) is part of the political history of Bolivia not only as a rebellion cry, but also as a political prophecy (Lois 2022b, p. 28). On the right side of the wall, above Ballivián, is a depiction of Bartolina Sisa. Bartolina was also a leader of the indigenous fights, organising military camps and one enclosure to the city of La Paz with Katari. On the floor of the portrait gallery, a large table is covered in red cloth and close by a seat once occupied by the Archbishop in the University ceremonies. Today it is occupied by the President of the Plurinational Assembly or the Plurinational State for political events. The sidewalls of the Hall are also part of the Bolivian independence heritagisation, by holding two further illustrative pictographic representations. On the left side of the main wall, is a painting of Juana de Azurduy and on the right side, Tomás Katari. A cacique (indigenous chief) from the northern Potosí area, Tomás Katari led an indigenous revolt against the colonial tax increases and other abusive situations in 1781 (Thomson 2002), months before the Sisa and Tupak Katari rebellions. Several authors have already addressed the cycle of rebellions in colonial South America between 1780 and 1782 (Quispe 1988; Klein 2015). The Independence Hall also preserves the sword that Marshal Sucre used in the battles of Junín and Ayacucho, and the sword of Marshal Ballivián, used in the battle of Ingavi. Two national flags (Tricoloured and Wiphala) enclose the corners of the main wall. Finally, at the centre of the room, the Act of Independence is exhibited in an urn atop a stone column. The accompanying text contains a reference to the Libertarian Cry of 25 May 1809 emitted in Sucre which started the path to independence: “the world knows that Upper Peru [Bolivia in that time] has been in the continent of America the altar where the first blood of the free was shed, and the land where the tomb of the last of the tyrants is buried” (Casa de la Libertad 2022a, b, author translation). In sum, the Hall presents diverse textures of independence. Besides the Act, the swords, or the Congressmen wooden balaustrade as foundational signs of Bolivia, other rebellions, heroes and memories are evoked and commemorated. Heritagisation of independence as the mark of emergence of the nation-state is re-visited, turning out the museum as space to contemplate the allowed patterns of visibility of other voices in the national history of Bolivia. Practices of exhibition of decolonisation and state´s identity get negotiated.

5 Memories, Places, Genders: Negotiating Decolonisation? Bolivia lives a process of political change sparkled by a cycle of protests in 2000 which included the Water War (2000) and the Gas War (2003). These events were crucial in the lead up to the 2005 elections and for the celebration of a Constituent

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Assembly in 2006. This assembly, largely demanded by indigenous peoples, established a new constitution approved in 2009 as the legal base for structural and institutional changes on the country (Lois 2022b). One of these major transformations has been the centrality of the people Indígena Originario Campesino (IOC, Indigenous Originarian Peasants) in those political changes built around a refoundation of the country as a Plurinational State in order to reverse their historic marginalisation and to become also subjects of sovereignty (Lois 2022b, p. 71). Under this proposition, the Constitution inaugurated a framework of rights and competencies for the IOC, including a specific chapter on Rights of Indigenous Nations and Peoples. It recognises politically 36 peoples, 36 official languages, and endorses a transversal framework of interculturality for institutionality. This cultural governance assessment is also set down in chapter 2 of the Constitution, dedicated to principles, values and aims of the State, with article 9.3 of the text declaring that “the essential purposes and functions of the State, in addition to those established by the Constitution and the law, are […] to reaffirm and consolidate the unity of the country, and to preserve plurinational diversity as a historical and human heritage”. (CEPAL 2009, author translation). In that context, the Casa de Libertad ushered in a persistent transformation and amplification, visibilising other voices, values and memories to the heritagisation of the national history of Bolivia. The museum’s vision as presented on its webpage reads to “consolidate the entity’s integral structure and institutional framework by strengthening the vocation of the cultural centres that make it up, developing democratic, participatory and decolonising strategies to fulfil its mission of promoting and guaranteeing interculturality oriented towards Vivir Bien (live well)” (Casa de la Libertad 2022a, b, author translation). Vivir Bien replicates an indigenous cosmovision and political praxis of life that stresses living in harmony with nature and one another. In the same web, interculturality and equality are listed as institutional values of the institution. As already stated, heritage-remaking in the Independence Hall has become a visible exercise of negotiation around the national history, its heroes and its times, since “Casa de la Libertad is committed to society by working to include in its space the harmonious cultural and historical plurality that should characterise our country, orienting its research and educational work towards the active participation of the different nations of the Plurinational State” (Casa de la Libertad 2022a, b, author translation). Focusing on some interventions in the Hall may stress the cultural forms and practices to qualify the significances of state’s identity. It is the case of the paintings of Tupak Katari and Bartolina Sisa (see Fig. 1), by Gastón Ugalde, that were presented at the Independence Hall on 6th August 2014, on the 189th anniversary of the Bolivian Independence. Both Sisa and Katari had been declared as Aymara National Heroes of Bolivia in 2005. The pictures of Juan de Azurduy and Tomás Katari arrived at the Hall of Independence on 25th May of 2016, on the 207th anniversary of the Freedom Cry. Tomás Katari was declared a National Hero in 2014 (together with Kurusa Llawi, who led Quichua indigenous rebellions, managing to free mitayos in the north of Potosí, and was also Tomás’ wife). Other memories, other places, other

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gendered identities are assigned to the meanings of independence, decolonisation statehood and sovereignty in Bolivia. As stated in its institutional web “Casa de la Libertad is a space for legitimising, recognising and bringing together the cultures of Bolivia, supporting the re-reading of the history of the peoples who were oppressed or made invisible in the past, under criteria of inclusion, since the process of social and cultural change is of interest to all citizens, indigenous, creole, mestizo and afrodescendant on an equity basis” (Casa de la Libertad 2022a, b, author translation). Placing in the Independence Hall other political subjects of statehood, also leaders of decolonisation rebellions and politically and constitutionally recognised as subjects of sovereignty and national heroes re-write the hegemonic memories, places and identities of independence. To speak about memories, I will refer to Rivera Cusicanqui (2010)’s short and long memories horizons in order to contextualise the power geometry involved in the setting of the new paintings. Rivera frames the history of Latin America, and particularly of Andean societies and Bolivia, as shaped by internal colonialism. The short memory would be a more recently constituted substratum; the long memory, taking into account the Latin-American case, but also other postcolonial scenarios, would be shaped by a more extensive duration that would be linked to moments and practices of resistance to colonisation. These time frames are not mutually exclusive, and in practice would work as superimposed memories, with repertoires of action and collective subjects, often common. But the existence of (at least) these two referents, marks not only the hegemony in history of one over the other (Rivera Cusicanqui 2010, p. 79), but also the plurality and diversity of spaces, times, situations and agencies that are part of Bolivian society. The presence of Tupak Katari, Bartolina Sisa, Tomás Katari, and Juana de Azurduy (already at the museum, at the Hall of Guerrillas, but now in the Independence Hall) underlines the practices of rebellions against the colonial order, in a temporal line that coexists and intersects with the time of independence heroes, and tracing other memories and temporalities in the official history of Bolivia’s emancipation. I may also speak about other representation canons around Liberators and National Heroes. Gutiérrez Viñuales (2003, p. 3, author translation) asserts that they “are dressed up with pomp and elegance, decking them out in fancy dress uniforms and decorations, and loading them up with the typical, contrived packaging” and in an interior and formal setting, in the case of Ballivián, Bolívar and Sucre may be added. In the cases of Azurduy and Tomás Katari, even if their paintings embody them with arms (Tomás) and military uniforms (Azurduy), the pomp seems not to be part of the representation. In the cases of both Tupak and Bartolina, the background of their portraits is the wiphala. Solemnity is located in the Hall more than in the portraits. In any case, syncretism is part of the Hall’s representational regime, in terms of artistic canons and referential times for independence (s). At the same time, these new referential times do not necessarily appeal to colonial Vice Royal territorialities or Bolivian modern state limits as the only spaces to exhibit decolonisation and emancipation. In Casa de la Libertad, independence gets related to various commemoration places, breaking the homogeneous imagination around liberation areas or spaces. Since “heritage is an inherently spatial phenomenon”

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(Graham et al. 2000, p. 4), a spatial perspective plays an important role in approaching the diverse universe of heritagisation from the perspective of critical heritage studies (Harvey 2015; Lois and Cairo 2015; Prokkola and Lois 2016; Lähdesmäki et al. 2019; Lois 2019). Understanding the relationship between heritage and scale as a relational process would show us its dimension of continuous political negotiation, particularly in postcolonial contexts with multiple subjects of sovereignty (Lois 2022a). Focusing the reading of the Independence Hall on the scale of the exhibited narratives takes us to consider decolonisation referential geographies: those of the cycle of indigenous rebellions in South America between 1780 and 1782. La Paz enclosures, Northern Potosí or Peñas coexist with Ayacucho, Ingavi or Sucre as referential places of the official independence. All of them are commonly set in the colonial times as a moral space, but itineraries and places of memory of independence are as diverse as the collective subjects expressed in the gallery. Finally, the enactment of gender in heritage-making expresses another wider discussion (Reading 2015; Grahn and Wilson 2018). As already stated, heritagisation may modify the basic conditions of daily cultural and political referents, and it has already been argued that the content of gender roles and stereotypes depends on cultural values (Cuddy et al. 2015). Heritagisation is a gendered process, in all stages ranging from the decision-making of what has to be authorised as heritage to the management, preservation, and exhibition of it. In the case of the Casa de la Libertad, the scenario of a gendered heritagisation is complex. Woman show up as decolonisation figures, as declared National Heroes, breaking with the traditional male imagination of the Liberators and winners of Latin America and Bolivia. Some historiographic works have already underlined the role of women in Latin America Independencies (Guardia 2014, 2019). The female paintings located on the Independence walls are a recognition of their role in the emancipation of the Bolivian peoples. As an interesting fact, in 2009, the Argentinean president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner posthumously promoted Azurduy to general and replaced a statue of Columbus with one of Azurduy donated by the Bolivian Government. Cross-border heritage-making also envisions the role of woman in Latin American Independence and emancipation. But, at the same time, the historical narratives about the female presence underline their marital relationship with the male leaders (Bartolina Sisa and Tupak Katari; Tomás Katari and Kurusa Llawi; Juana de Azurduy and Padilla). Paradoxically, gendered stereotypes of masculinity based on braveness and aptitude for military organisation may become the standard to visibilise women’s participation in emancipation processes.

6 Concluding Remarks Since September 2022, the Senate of Bolivia has been processing a project by the name of Law on the Permanence and Preservation of the Portraits of National Heroes in the House of Liberty—Dignified History (Historia Digna). In the text of the law, National Heroes refers to “1. Liberator Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad

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Bolívar Palacios y Blanco 2. The Great Marshall of Ayacucho Antonio José Francisco de Sucre y Alcalá 3. The Marshall of lngavi José Ballivián Segurola 4. Tupac Katari Julián Apaza 5. Bartolina Sisa Vargas 6. Tomás Katari 7. Kurusa Llawi 8. General of Armed Forces of the Guerrillera Nation Juana Azurduy Llanos de Padilla” (Senado de Bolivia 2022, author translation). In that sense, Casa de la Libertad re-asses and corroborate the diversity of Bolivian national heroes, already politically recognised as we argued before, and now present in the walls of its Hall of Independence. A national museum becomes a space to visibilise the political recognition of officially marginalised narratives and a place to read the politics of representation and inclusion in a diverse political community. In that sense, this legal sanction to preserve national heroes’ portraits supposes one stage more in the heritagisation of the Bolivian official history. In the Hall of Independence, a gallery in the House of Liberty located in Sucre, cultural governance heritage-making assigns spaces for other identities in the process of independence and decolonisation of Bolivia and Latin America. Memories, spaces, objects, cries and individuals crucial to indigenous rebellions coexist with the independence liberators and narratives of the creole official winners. Plurinational state histories concur with Republican state foundational chronicles. A syncretic exercise around decolonisation that of negotiation of national values of interculturality and equity in official narratives, is performed in the Independence Hall. Independence (s) and emancipation cry (es) are enunciated and enacted in an AHD/UNESCO space in a postcolonial context. This heritagisation engages not only in a politics of representation but also in a representation of politics. The memoirs, scales and gendered identities interpreted and exhibited are part of a political performance, demarcating those particular collective memories and past events upon which communal values and political identities are grounded. Heritagisation is also identity politics, empowering the position of museums as spaces for contestation or negotiation of the vision of “imagined communities”. Finally, the Hall of Independence presents a debate around what heritage is updated and enhanced. Contemporary but also past Bolivian politics are the context in which to frame the Casa de la Libertad amplifications and transformations. The national heroes’ declarations of Katari, Sisa, Catari or Llawi, the Constitution of 2009 or the extension work of the museum recently inaugurated by the President are crucial to understanding the negotiation of independence interpretation and exhibition found at the site. It is another case for continuing to think on heritagisation in postcolonial contexts not from its final materiality, as a thing or a site, but as a representational policy and politics, in order to approach the allowed grammars of representation not only of Latin America decolonisation processes, but also of the languages to be used to represent other political identities, communities and values.

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María Lois is an Associate Professor of Political Geography at the University Complutense de Madrid (Spain). She is deputy editor of the journal Geopolítica(s) and Chair of the Research Committee in Political and Cultural Geography (RC15) of the International Political Science Association (IPSA-AISP). She has been a member of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS) since 2012.

Restitution and Repatriation of Culture

(De)colonially Negotiating the Past The Quimbaya Treasure Between the Gift and the Return Requests from Colombia to Spain Vitória dos Santos Acerbi

Abstract This text examines the trajectory of the “Quimbaya treasure”, a collection of 122 pre-Columbian golden pieces, from its excavation in Colombia in 1890 until its present, in Spain, as the object of a restitution request boosted by a 2017 sentence of Colombia’s constitutional court. Based on decolonial studies, the concepts of cultural heritage, cultural property and heritage diplomacy, the article analyses the shifts in values attributed to the collection across time by different actors. It concludes that the collection shifted from a colonial interpretation by elites, as pieces of cultural heritage that elevated Colombia as heir to a civilisation on par with ancient European cultures, to a decolonial valorisation by local communities, that treasure its symbolical meaning as testimony of the land’s past civilisations and continuing religiousness. Additionally, the collection went from an object of colonial heritage diplomacy of Creole elites in search of international projection to an object of decolonial heritage diplomacy of local communities in search of national affirmation. Finally, the core of the restitution disputes lies in the diverging consideration of the collection by Spain— as cultural property legally owned—and Colombia—as cultural heritage socially and historically tied to the land and the people. Keywords Archaeological heritage · Cultural heritage return · Heritage diplomacy · Postcolonial relations · Decoloniality

1 Introduction “We will not leave,” she said. “We will stay here, because we have had a son here.”/ “We still have not had a death,” he said. “A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground.”/ Úrsula replied with a soft firmness:/ “If I have to die for the rest of you to stay here, I will die.” (Marquez 1971, p. 13)

V. dos Santos Acerbi (B) Global Contact Research and Consulting, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_5

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On the 19th of October 2017, the Colombian Constitutional Court issued a judgement in response to a 2007 actio popularis—a petition from the people—demanding an order for Colombia to request from Spain the return of a set of 122 golden pieces known as “the Quimbaya treasure”. The Quimbaya ethnic group lived in Colombia alongside the river Cauca from the first century BCE until the beginning of the seventeenth century. The pieces in question—containers, jewels, statuettes, musical instruments—were produced by them between the sixth and tenth century and buried with group leaders in their tombs, where they were found and excavated by huaqueros (tomb excavators) in Filandia, a city in the department of Quindío, in October 1890 (Hinestrosa 1998, p. 19). In the nineteenth century, newly independent South American countries were attempting to build their national identities. Internally, this process meant to build the social cohesion based on a national “imagined community” (Anderson 1983). Externally, it served the aim of the new-born nationstates to differentiate themselves from the former colonisers and neighbouring territories, and to position themselves well in international politics and economy. In this context, the Quimbaya items were acquired by the Colombian State to represent the country in the 1892 Historical American Exhibition in Madrid. Afterwards, in 1893, the collection did not return to Colombia, but rather was given as an official gift to the Queen of Spain, allegedly as a token of gratitude for her favourable arbitration for Colombia of a difference with Venezuela over the borders between the two countries. Later, starting in the 1970s, local groups and institutions from the Quindío department as well as national authorities such as diplomats and presidents contested the permanence of the collection in Spain and started to demand its restitution. In 2017, the Colombian Constitutional Court ordered the Colombian government to carry out all the necessary procedures to bring back to the country the pieces from its current location: The Museum of America, in Spain. The sentence was received with praise by organised civil society, professors, historians and lawyers. They celebrated the recognition of the illegality of the gift of national property to another State without approval of the Congress or international treaty (Rengifo 2016), and of the illegitimacy of the donation of pre-colonial heritage that has a strong meaning to the cultural identity of Colombia (El Tiempo 2016). However, at the time of writing, in mid-2022, despite contacts of Colombian parties with Spain to fulfil the determination of the Court, the collection has neither been returned nor moved across borders in an alternative to restitution. The stalemate reached in this case sparked my interest. Conversations between the two countries over the return of the collection have been in a deadlock for 50 years, counting from the first Colombian political moves requesting restitution, and five years, counting from the latest Colombian judicial sentence demanding it. I wondered: what are the Spanish arguments for keeping the treasure in its soil? Has the Colombian discourse in the restitution demands changed over this half century? Do distinct groups/institutions within Colombia and within Spain have different points of view on the matter, or are they nationally homogeneous? What influence had political events/ contexts and theoretical developments over the positions sustained by the different parties in the dispute across this time? Are there any prospects for an agreement to be reached soon?

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Thus, inspired by Christofoletti and Acerbi (2021), this text examines the trajectory of the Quimbaya collection and the complex restitution dispute involving precolonial heritage gifted by an independent country to its former coloniser. I analyse the collection’s path in a chronological order. First, I investigate its excavation and circulation in Colombia, in 1890, discussing the first descriptions and transfers of it within the country. Then, I examine its acquisition by Colombia to exhibit in Spain, in 1892, and its donation to Spain in 1893, attentive to the alleged reasons given by the Colombian government for such decisions, the possible reasons not revealed by them and the repercussions of the collection’s travels in both sides of the Atlantic. Finally, I study the restitution requests and disputes, started in the 1970s and going on until the present day, looking at the permanencies and changes in positions of the various actors involved. The overall goal is to discern the values underlying the distinct perceptions of the collection that the different agents had in each of these periods, at the light of their broader international political, social, cultural context. The analytical lens used to conduct the study will be the theoretical concepts of “cultural heritage”, “cultural property” and “heritage diplomacy”, read in a colonial–decolonial spectrum, all of which will be explained in the following section, preceding the chronological analysis.

2 Theoretical Framework “Cultural property” and “cultural heritage” may sound like synonyms, but they project quite different values. “Cultural property” is a concept that privileges legal ownership and control. It originally comes from private (property) law, which aims to safeguard the rights of the possessor, including the rights to exploit, to alienate, to destroy—to dispose of it as one wishes. This perspective, thus, legitimises the possession of a cultural good from whoever has the legal title to it as its owner and protects whichever uses of it the owner makes (Prott and O’Keefe 1992, pp. 309– 310). From another perspective, “cultural heritage” encompasses “manifestations of human life which represent a particular view of life and witness the history and validity of that view” (Prott and O’Keefe 1992, p. 307). The term implies inheritance and handing on, entailing duties to protect and conserve for future generations, focusing on testimony and access to the detriment of ownership. These differences are complicated by their coexistence within the two different uses of the concept “cultural heritage”. On the one hand, it is understood in “a legalistic perspective, grounded in property, ownership and possession” (Christofoletti and Acerbi 2021, p. 156). In other words, the concept “cultural heritage” itself has also recently been employed in an angle closer to the aforementioned notion of “cultural property”, fundamentally based on ownership and defending the full control of the object by its possessor, allowing for relations of exploitation, commoditization, alienation and exclusion of access to others. In addition to that, “cultural heritage” is used in a “culturalist perspective, built on a notion of (human cultural) rights, on identity and social well-being” (Christofoletti and Acerbi 2021, p. 156), i.e. an

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interpretation closer to the aforementioned conceptualisation of “cultural heritage”, centred on the symbolic value of a cultural manifestation as an expression of a people and time, a witness to history, that should belong rather than be possessed, that must be cherished and protected so as to be passed on to future generations. With this theoretical background, I will evaluate if the discourses and narratives by the different actors in distinct periods concerning the collection use/reflect primarily a notion of “cultural property” or “cultural heritage” and, if the latter, if they are used in a sense more axed upon the legal aspect of possession or in a sense anchored in the cultural importance of the heritage in question as an identity symbol. The next theoretical tool of the study is the concept of “heritage diplomacy”. According to Winter (2015, p. 1007), it “can broadly be defined as a set of processes whereby cultural and natural pasts shared between and across nations become subject to exchanges, collaborations and forms of cooperative governance”. Despite these benign nomenclatures, heritage diplomacy can comprise exploitation or asymmetrical relations and be concreted in the utilization of heritage as a means for an end in diplomatic ties, exchanges, structures (Winter 2015, p. 1008). Concerning the colonial–decolonial spectrum which will permeate our analysis, it is based on decolonial studies (Quijano 2005). Heritage diplomacy, and any other value projected on the collection, will be described as “colonial” when it reproduces the colonial matrix of power—a multi-layered structure originated in the European colonisation of America in the sixteenth century that hierarchically ranks and socially classifies world peoples according to their race and geographical origin (Quijano 2005). In this structure, European colonial control of economy, authority, gender and sexuality, subjectivity and knowledge measures, inferiorises and colonises peoples. The more similar they are to the European model of power, being and knowledge, the more the colonised peoples are valued; inversely, the more they differentiate themselves from such ethno-racial, cultural, political European model, the least the colonised peoples are valued. In a formally politically independent State, “the colonial matrix of power was re-articulated in what has been described as ‘internal colonialism’: A Creole elite (e.g. white elite from European descent), took the power from the hands of Spanish and Portuguese monarchies re-enacted in their own hands” (Mignolo 2007, p. 155). As well as for other Latin American countries during the nineteenth century, this has been the case of Colombia during the processes here analysed. Conversely, decolonial heritage diplomacy put histories and stories from the margins in the centre of the heritage piece in question, repairing past invisibilisations and inferiorisations. It can be identified by two key characteristics: “the initialising influence of non-state agents whose activities spurs or forces politicians to act; and secondly, the mobilisation of knowledges and pluriverse epistemologies to create awareness and promote institutional change” (Clopot et al. 2022, p. 283). Thus, heritage diplomacy, and any other projection of values to the collection, will be henceforth described as “decolonial” when it seeks to break the political, cultural, economic, ethnic, social classifications and asymmetries based on the colonial matrix of power.

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3 The Quimbaya Treasure 3.1 1890: Excavation and Circulation—From the Subsoil of Colombia to the Enthrallment of Europeans In the nineteenth century, huaquería, the non-archaeological excavation of indigenous tombs and temples, was a legalised and widespread practice in the Andes that made a living for many families (Casanova 2016, p. 16). It was the activity around which many towns in the current department of Quindío were founded. The national law at the time entitled the huaquero to the riches found in the excavation, which gave rise to self-organised or subsidised companies of men who excavated and shared the profit of the sale of the items (Casanova 2016, p. 19). Following the Spanish legacy of mining the lands for minerals, the search practiced in this area of South America seems to have been boosted by the legend of El Dorado—a land of gold, supposedly located in the region—and by the extractive colonial narrative (that the myth represents) that an extraordinary wealth awaited the courageous, ingenious adventurer who was sly and lucky (Field 2012, p. 77). In the 1800s, two alternatives existed to the precious items found. The first is the colonial one: shipment to the foundries, where objects in gold, silver, copper were turned into Catholic religious items or into bars or coins to be shipped to Europe. The second marks the beginning of new relations with pre-Columbian gold in the nineteenth century (Field 2012, p. 78) and was the selling of intact items to collectors. From the start, the Quimbaya items excavated in the Huaca (tomb, underground burial chamber) La Soledad were considered a treasure, an exceptional collection that should receive the second treatment abovementioned. Newspapers talked of “the art wonders of the Aboriginals of the Valley of Vieja”, the “Great Treasure” of “Indigenous Antiquities” (Casanova 2016, pp. 17–19). Comments not only concerned the abundancy of gold (44 Ibs.) but also the precise technique in which it was worked (Casanova 2016, p. 18, author translation): “the treasure constitutes a great quantity of gold of high price, as a consequence of its quantity and also of its intrinsic and historic merit” (La Capital 1890 as cited in Casanova 2016, p. 18, author translation), “a great treasure has been found in the tomb of one of our most important caciques, we have been told the jewels are of great value for their merit, no such a thing has been seen in terms of antiquities” (El Telegrama 1890 as cited in Casanova 2016, p. 18, author translation). The treasure was not considered by huaqueros, collectors and the chroniclers of the time as undifferentiated property, which could be sold to whoever paid the most, to fulfil whichever purpose such a buyer decided upon. Rather, as these excerpts from the press commenting the collection’s finding indicate, the collection seems to have been understood as cultural heritage, a unique set of items, worthy of study and conservation for posterity, as representative materiality of a glorious time and a fine people no longer present. But that understanding was inscribed in the evolutionist, positivist reading of the epoch—which associated advancement of peoples to technical, scientific work and value to items that testified of national ancient roots

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(Schuster and Gómez 2020, p. 33). This is attested by the use, in the newspapers I have had access to, of the term “antiquities” to describe the objects, category of interest and valorisation based on a European historical classification of the pieces. Thus, at this stage, the collection seems to have been colonially read as heritage, its cultural importance untied to its character as an item of memory and identity of the territory where it was found, as a source of information on the cultural, social organisation of the people who shaped them (Restrepo and Ramírez 2018e). Hence, the values projected upon the collection seemed to seal its European destination. It is significant, in this sense, that its first catalogue was made by an Italian merchant living in Colombia, Carlo Vedovelli, originally in French, Catalogue de la Colection “Filandia”. Decouverte dans deux sepulcres prés de la ville de Cartago (République de Colombia) en novembre de 1890 [Catalogue of the "Filandia" Collection. Discovered in two sepulchres near the city of Cartago (Republic of Colombia) in November 1890] and sent to embassies in Colombia, as well as to foreign collectors in Europe and the United States (Hinestrosa 1998, p. 220), with a text which described and interpreted the pieces in light of Egyptian art, symbolisms and religiousness (Botero 2001, p. 188). From October 1890 to March 1891, the collection was exhibited across Colombia, seen by different collectors and salespeople (Casanova 2016, p. 20) and it was recommended “to the lovers of such curiosities to visit the exhibition before the masters go abroad” (El Heraldo 1891 as cited in Casanova 2016, p. 17, author translation) and suggested that “the exhibition of these objects in London or Paris would be a great novelty to the world of antiquities and object of great studies and enthrallment” (La Capital 1890 as cited in Casanova 2016, p. 17, author translation). The colonial perspective of Colombian’s archaeological heritage is reflected in how the elites estimated that the most honourable way to value and legitimise the collection was showcasing it in Europe, elevating it by means of its intended equivalence with Greek, Roman, Egyptian antiquities (Field 2012, p. 81). A European city would indeed be its next home, but not any city: the pre-Columbian treasure would be sent to stay in the capital of Colombia’s former coloniser, Spain.

3.2 1892–1893: State Acquisition, Exhibition and Gift—Colonial Heritage Diplomacy from the Colombian Creole Elite in Search of External Projection I had the good fortune of being able to buy the most complete and valuable collection, all in very fine gold, from the industry of the aboriginals of Colombia. However, I bought it with the special intent of giving it to the government of Her Majesty, as a little token of our gratitude for the service She has rendered us by serving as arbitrator in our dispute with Venezuela over the delimitation of our borders, in the hope that it will adorn some museum in Madrid. (Casanova 2016, p. 29, author translation).

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This is how, in an official letter to the council of ministers dated the 13th of December 1891, the president of Colombia Carlos Holguín Mallarino notifies his ministers about the acquisition of the Quimbaya treasure. The letter further indicates the projection of European values in the precolonial heritage, since “the industry of the aboriginals” as a collection of extraordinary quality should “adorn some museum in Madrid”. Moreover, it points to the instrumentalisation of the collection in an act of heritage diplomacy. States do not usually send gifts to judges in the context of arbitrations (Rengifo 2016). However, the two countries only established diplomatic relations in 1881, 71 years after the Colombian independence, and 10 years before this ruling on the dispute about the borders with Venezuela. Therefore, there was a need to oil up connections (Hinestrosa 1998, p. 222). In addition, it is possible that the gift was politically meant as a demonstration of support to the Spanish monarchy, then undergoing severe contestation (Rengifo 2016). The reign of the Queen who received the gift, Maria Cristina, saw much social turbulence and the political uprising of regionalisms, republican and anarchist revolts as well as a worsening of colonial relations, mainly in Morocco (Rengifo 2016). She was then acting as regent, on behalf of her son, between 1885 and 1902, succeeding her husband, Alfonso XII. In his turn, the former king had been restored to the throne in 1874 in a coup that finished the first Spanish republic but did not extinguish the wish for decentralisation, political reform and social justice that continued to move many republicans. Furthermore, there could be a personal dimension in this gift, as the Colombian president was close to the Spanish Queen. He had been, between 1882 and 1886, Ambassador of Colombia in Spain, and thus conducted the bilateral relations in their beginnings. Moreover, he had access to royal circles in another title, as he had been godfather of the son of the engineer responsible for the Canal de Suez alongside the former Spanish Queen (Hinestrosa 1998, p. 222). Compadrazgo (being co-godparent of a child with someone) in the Iberian world was a social mechanism that created a family relationship between those involved through a Catholic ritual, relationship generating rights and obligations as important as those stemming from blood relations or marriage ties (Mintz and Wolf 1950). Moreover, other public purposes were intended by the president for the collection. In 1892, Spain organised the Historical American Exhibition in Madrid, to mark the 400th year of the arrival of Columbus in America. American countries were invited to participate and project themselves in the court of great nations. The Quimbaya treasure was perfectly convenient to such an intent for Colombia. As previously analysed, it fitted the then dominant European standards of beauty and technical expertise, thus validating the high level of civilisation of the culture (and country) represented. It also allowed to highlight the present scientific advancements of Colombia: Colombian scholars interpreted the pieces in the catalogues of the exhibition, as well as in the congress of Americanists that took place as a side event, evidencing their archaeological knowledge (Schuster and Gómez 2020, pp. 33–41). The thesis projected outward was, hence, that Colombia was a great nation, heir to the “third civilisation of America, besides the Incas and the Aztecs” (Schuster and Gómez 2020, p. 35, author translation), with a glorious ancient past that matched

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Roman, Greek and Egyptian ones. Such a past was also carefully studied by the present country, blessed with natural riches and with a blooming scientific community, thus on the road to civilisation (Schuster and Gómez 2020, p. 39). No continuity was referenced between this distant, glorious, dead past civilisation and present indigenous peoples (Schuster and Gómez 2020, p. 33). The Spanish press seems to comment the collection in a different tone to the previously seen Colombian one: [...] nothing is more striking than the golden idols, jewellery, ornaments and vessels, the value of which […], probably exceeds 100,000 duros. And note that the material goes hand in hand with the workmanship. Positively among the primitive American tribes, those of present-day Colombia were the ones with the best-developed artistic feeling. (Restrepo and Ramírez 2018b, author translation)

This suggests that the comparison projected by Colombia of the Quimbaya treasure with other ancient Mediterranean civilisations was not reproduced by the Spanish official journal of the exhibition El Centenario. Rather, the value of the items was acknowledged, but as the best “among” American tribes—a particularly “primitive” group of productions. The items were not issued of their “industry”, as said the Colombian president, but of their “artistic feeling”. The items were not “antiquities”, as the Colombian press described them, but “idols”—as the Catholic priests would name (and destroy) them after the conquest (Field 2012, p. 78; Casanova 2016, p. 19). This is a very concrete illustration of the modus operandi of the colonial matrix of power. European commentators explicitly undermined the merits of native American creations, their symbolic complexity and technical achievement (Quijano 2005, p. 210). Above all, the Spanish chroniclers let very clear the colonial abyss that in their view separated European productions from native American ones—there could be no comparison between them. No matter how much nineteenth century Colombians tried to inscribe their heritage in a logic that obeyed European standards of historicity, technical advancement and beauty, native American productions could only be evaluated between themselves, in the separate, intrinsically and irreversibly inferior group of objects made by colonised peoples. Despite this apparent backlash in the reception of the collection by the Spanish press, it is possible to infer a colonial narrative and negotiation of the past in the Colombian heritage diplomacy carried out through the State acquisition, exhibition and gift of the Quimbaya collection. Concerning the exhibition, the State promoted the image of the country abroad, staging the Colombian past to position the nation well in the European colonial hierarchy which framed imaginaries at the time. Colombia presented itself, through the treasure, as technically advanced, scientifically flourishing, rich in minerals, and intellectually developed (Schuster and Gómez 2020, p. 33). And this in order to better the international credentials of a nation with a wild nature difficult to tame (as the region of Panama was seen) and a troublesome recent past of civil war (in 1876) (Schuster and Gómez 2020, p. 39). Hence, this gift may have been intended to elevate the Colombian creole Elite to the rank of the Spanish royals, by the formers’ self-proclaimed association with

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a Colombian national, rich past that was up to European standards of antiquity, science and technique, but independent of and differentiated from the colonial power. According to Fields (2012, p. 81, author translation): The fact of giving the golden Colombian heritage to the old imperial power should be seen as a mechanism which enabled the creole, aristocratic and mestizo elites to reify, fetichize and nationalize the pre-Columbian objects to benefit the national imaginary, still despising the pre-hispanic societies and cultures and cutting the cultural continuity of the indigenous societies in the present.

The gift certainly impressed: the Spanish Queen affirmed on the 11th of November 1892 “I always thought your country fabulous in artistic works, but I see that it is even more so in the nobility of its people”. The Spanish press described the collection as “the most valuable present that Spain has received to date from any of its daughters across the Atlantic” (Restrepo and Ramírez 2018c, author translation). This colonial negotiation of the Quimbaya collection and colonial projection of the pre-Columbian past was neither inevitable nor unanimous within the Colombian society. There seems to have been opposition by Rafael Pombo, Salvador Camacho Roldán and other liberal intellectuals (Rengifo 2016) to the gifting of the collection to Spain. One of the founders of Calarcá—a neighbouring municipality of Filandia, in Quindío, Román María Valencia, saw the collection and said “all of these things, which should be kept in our National Museum, get lost indistinctly. I am collecting them as much as I can” (Restrepo and Ramírez 2018a, author translation). Indeed, the National Museum of Colombia already existed, created in 1823 as a museum of natural and mineral history. The institution expressed interest in copies of some items of the collection, then already in Spain. In a letter dated 1894, the director of the National Museum, Fidel Pombo, complains about having received “only few, of the little ones and of weak merit” (Restrepo and Ramírez 2018a, author translation). The budget conferred by the Colombian State in the nineteenth century to the National Museum for it to acquire its permanent premises and collection was of $3.000, abysmally smaller sum than that spent on the acquisition of the Quimbaya treasure ($70.000), the Colombian exhibition in the 1892 Historical American Exhibition of Madrid and the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago (initially given $100.000, but added of $50.000 in 1892, $50.000 and later $80.000 in 1893) (Burbano 2003).

3.3 1970 to the Present: Restitution Requests—Colombian Decolonial Heritage Diplomacy in Search of Affirmation Requests for the return of the Quimbaya treasure started much before the Constitutional Court’s sentence of 2017. Since the 1960s, the “decolonial turn”, an intellectual/political movement in Latin America, has been proposing that the experiences and knowledge of peoples historically marginalised by colonisation should be considered to understand present-day oppressions and provide alternatives to them.

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This turn has brought about public reappropriations of African and Amerindian epistemological and material heritage in the region (Lima et al. 2022, p. 5). In this context, in 1974, the Bank of the Republic and its Museum of Gold, alongside the Ambassador of Colombia in Spain, Belisario Betancur, proposed a temporary exchange of pieces. In 1976, the Museum of America in Madrid denied it. In 1986, Betancur, as president of Colombia, requested a Commodatum—temporary loan for use—for the inauguration of the Museum of Gold in Armenia (capital of Quindío), known as “Museum of Quimbaya Gold” (Burbano 2003). Then, requests shifted from the national Colombian government and institutions to local actors. In 1992, the fifth Centenary of the Discovery of America prompted a request from the mayor of Armenia to the Spanish King for the return of the collection to the abovementioned local museum. In 2003–2004, the Quindío Academy of History (AHQ) petitioned the Spanish and Colombian governments for the repatriation and sent supporting documents to the UNESCO (Restrepo and Ramírez 2018e). In 2005, the Quindío local decree 015 created the high-level commission for the sensitisation, recovery and repatriation of the Quimbaya treasure (later modified by decree 026/2014), backed by the University of Quindío, the Society of Public Improvements—a non-profit organisation for the protection of cultural heritage, the Bank of the Republic and the archaeological community (Mejía 2018). Still in 2005, the AHQ received official support in its efforts for restitution from all Academies of History in Colombia (Restrepo and Ramírez 2018e). These past political requests have been recently complemented by a legal action. In 2007, the lawyer Felipe Rincón Salgado presented to the 23rd Administrative Court of Bogotá a request for an order to the Colombian government to seek the restitution of the collection from Spain “specifically by means of mediation under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Committee for Promotion of the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation (ICPRCP)” (Mejía-Lemos 2019, p. 123)—request accepted at first instance in 2009. In 2008, the AHQ requested the Colombian Ambassador in France for collaboration of the UNESCO in the repatriation. In 2010, this Academy asked the Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs, then María Ángela Holguín—great-niece of the president Holguín Mallarino, who donated the collection—to start the procedures mandated by the sentence (Restrepo and Ramírez 2018e). “The Colombian government appealed to the High Administrative Court of Cundinamarca, which reversed the first instance decision” (Mejía-Lemos 2019, p. 123) in 2011. In 2017, “The Constitutional Court reversed the appellate […] and largely upheld the first instance decision” (MejíaLemos 2019, p. 123). In the nineteenth century, the Colombian head of State gifted the collection to Spain. In late twentieth century, another Colombian head of State started requests for its restitution. Recently, the executive power of the country and its national cultural institutions have opposed the appeal from local actors to seek restitution. This was clear in the arguments of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Presidency and the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICAHN) before the Constitutional Court, affirming the legality and legitimacy of the 1893 donation and the impossibility to ask Spain to return the pieces (Corte

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Constitucional 2017). On the contrary, local communities and institutions, historians, lawyers, anthropologists seized the claim and pressed Colombian powers and Spanish counterparts (Lozano 2008, p. 137)—non-state initiative characteristic of decolonial heritage diplomacy (Clopot et al. 2022). The nature of the requests also metamorphosed when their main issuer changed. The State-led demands in the 1970s and 1980s aimed at an exchange of pieces or their lease. The civil society-led petitions, started in the 1990s, ask for the repatriation of the collection. Two axes seemed to structure these recent requests: the legal and the cultural one, both sustained in the actio popularis by Felipe Rincón Salgado and by the 2017 sentence of the Constitutional Court. The legal basis of the requests is the illegality of the past gifting, due to the violation of the article 76.11 of the 1886 Constitution of Colombia, which determined the need for authorisation of the National Congress to alienate national property, and of the articles 76.18 and 120.20, which determined the need of a treaty to transfer ownership of public patrimony (Corte Constitucional 2017). The collection was bought with public budget, and the president only informed the congress of the gift in the official Journal nº 8.868 on 22nd July 1892, when the collection was already in Spain— preventing any opposition to hinder the donation. Initiated on a violation of internal law, the gift is thus argued to be legally invalid (Lozano 2008; Corte Constitucional 2017). The cultural basis lies in the perception of the collection as an expression of Quindian identity. It underscores the social well-being its return would generate given the significance of the collection to Colombia: “thinking of the no-restitution is to accommodate the undermining of the Quindian community […] identity, and to damage its capital of cultural expressions [...]” (Robledo-Martínez 2015, p. 644, author translation). The Poporo Quimbaya—recipient used for the ritual consumption of coca leaves—represented Colombia in the 15th Bolivarian Sports Games in 2005, was in the coin of 20 pesos in the 1980s and is in the coat of arms of the town of Dos Quebradas (Londoño 2010, p. 29). Quimbaya Quindío is the name of a city of the region, and huaquería remains a source of livelihood for some and a reference of belonging for most, as it helped to found the region. It is significant that a high-level commission for the sensitisation, recovery and repatriation of the Quimbaya treasure was set-up by the Quindío department in 2005, even before the legal process had started in Colombian courts. This suggests an intention to bring back the collection not only for the sake of keeping it in Colombian soil, but also to promote access to it and its reappropriation by the local people, in the frame of a broader reactivation of collective memories and historical ties between objects-culture-territory-people. The Court has, in this sense, recognised the collection’s “spiritual and historical consciousness’ value” (Corte Constitucional 2017). This element points to a decolonial heritage diplomacy in the search for restitution as it concretes a fight for modern Colombians’ cultural rights of access to and decision about their heritage and past. A further significant element in this direction is how claimants highlighted in a 2016 public audience before the Court the links between the past Quimbaya

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culture that the treasure represents and the present culture of indigenous peoples in the Amazon region of Vaupés. The similarity between the position and attitude of characters represented in the Quimbaya golden pieces forged millennia ago and that of present-day shamans on their ceremonial wooden benches was evoked to suggest a shared religious/mythological thought and practice that must be preserved and valued (Ramírez 2017). Following Clopot et al. (2022), this cultural continuity element suggests the decolonial heritage diplomacy in the restitution requests given the inclusion of marginalised indigenous traditions in the repertoire considered as Colombian cultural heritage, history and memory, repairing the past injustice of their exclusion from them. The indigenous peoples of the Colombian Vaupés are in the World Heritage List as the Jaguar Shamans of the Yurupari. However, the ancient cultural objects that seemingly share their spiritual system are inscribed in the Spanish Cultural Heritage List (in fact named “Goods of Cultural Interest”), kept among many other objects from unrelated times/spaces, in the Museum of America—a name never known by the Quimbayas to describe their region, a construct of the continent crafted after their death, by Europeans (Mignolo 2005).

3.4 2018 to Present: Unambiguous Intention to Retain—The Spanish Official Responses Based in a Legalistic Perspective of Cultural Property The socialist government of Spain has been critical of colonial legacies, as in its refusal in 2019 to celebrate the fifth centenary of the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortéz (Riaño 2021, p. 286). However, contradicting expectations that it would recognise the belonging of the pieces in Colombia, the official Spanish responses to the restitution requests were firmly negative. The first official answer from Spain I know of concerning restitution requests dates of 30th April 2018 and comes from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who affirmed that: (1) The Quimbaya Treasure was donated to Spain in accordance with customary international law universally accepted in the nineteenth century, and has since belonged to Spain, in good faith; (2) the Quimbaya Treasure is cultural property protected by the Law of Spanish Historical Patrimony of 1985, and is, thus, ‘inalienable, non-seizable and imprescriptible’; (3) the Spanish government is willing to establish a dialogue to organize joint exhibitions; and (4) the Spanish government offers to make a replica of the Quimbaya Treasure, and bear the costs of making and sending it to Colombia. (Mejía-Lemos 2019, p. 127)

The second answer dates the 23rd February 2022 from Óscar López Águeda, cabinet manager of the presidency of the Spanish government, to Jaime Lopera Gutiérrez, president of the AQN, which reads: Spain maintains its offer of technical cooperation on the Quimbaya Collection […]. We are aware that the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History and the Museum of America in Madrid already work on coherent proposals and exhibitions. This cooperation does not

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prevent us from recalling the good faith shown by Spain in the possession and preservation of the collection, as well as that the collection belongs to the Museum of America and that its status as Property of Cultural Interest prevents it from being sold or exported. (Quindío Noticias 2022, author translation)

The arguments presented by Spain reveal firstly a legalistic perspective of cultural heritage as property, as Spain affirms the full right to keep it because it is its owner, given the legal donation from Colombia. On this issue, the emphasis put on the presumably lawful Spanish ownership of the Quimbaya objects based on the past donation hinders an agreement of the dispute. It stays far from the discussion of other aspects of importance in the case, such as the rights of present-day Colombians, descendants of the makers of the treasure, to access it, to have a voice over what happens to it, to produce knowledge from it, to show the Quimbaya treasure to their children and tell them histories and stories related to it (Campfens 2020, p. 262). Indeed, the Colombian arguments concerning the significance of the objects to the Colombian community, as symbols of identity, have not been answered by Spain. Secondly, the responses underline the correct “possession” Spain has exerted of the collection since its reception. The physical integrity of the pieces has certainly been preserved, first in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, where it was exhibited in the “Room of the Treasure”, then in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), when “the pieces were placed in sacks and placed outside the safe of the Bank of Spain, so they went unnoticed and were saved from looting” (Restrepo and Ramírez 2018d, author translation) and lastly in the Museum of America, created in 1941, where they have been ever since. Production of knowledge about the collection has also been assured, as attests the holistic 2016 book on it, financed by the Spanish government, assembling studies from archaeological, archaeometric, technical and iconographic perspectives (see Casanova 2016 and other chapters). Its production seems to have been carried out in a curious timing—when restitution requests were gaining momentum. However, the accessibility aspect of this custody can be questioned. It is worth mentioning that accessibility and cultural rights have been considered by the European Court of Human Rights as a legitimate basis to limit property rights concerning cultural items (Campfens 2020, p. 265). The Quimbaya collection was accessible to Europeans—visitors of the Spanish museum, of other exhibitions across Spain in the twentieth century, as well as of English and German museums, to whom it has been lent for exhibitions on the El Dorado in 1976 and 1994, respectively (Restrepo and Ramírez 2018d). Although pieces of the collection were lent to institutions in London and Berlin, the Museums of Colombia that requested the same temporary lease for exhibitions were never granted it. The collection was only ceded to Colombia for its National Pavilion in the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 in Seville and later in the Seville Expo 1992 celebrating the fifth centenary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas (Restrepo and Ramírez 2018d), both in Spanish soil, in events framed by a Spanish perspective. Thirdly, the Spanish stress the impossibility of a return due to the inscription of the collection among the Spanish National Property of Cultural Interest, which should not impede its return to Colombia. In a case concerning a piece of Maori

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cultural heritage, kept in Rouen, France, the French State initially claimed it could not return it to New Zealand because the item was protected by the law of national heritage and its principle of inalienability. However, “a special law was enacted to enable repatriation and the eventual ritual burial by the Maori. […] the interests of the French State in keeping its ‘national heritage’ (public collections) were outweighed by the interests of the indigenous community” (Campfens 2020, p. 276). Additionally, the disposition of Spain to promote access of Colombians to the collection in joint exhibitions or specially fabricated copies seems to reveal “the reproduction of colonial power relations, where community knowledge is relegated to the margins and institutional knowledge prevails”. (Clopot et al. 2022, p. 281). On the one hand, because the Colombian institution involved is not the local one that led efforts for restitution, but rather the central one that did not challenge the current location of the collection (Lozano 2008, p. 136; Corte Constitucional 2017). On the other hand, a colonial/paternalist dynamic of power seems to be continued because Spain dictates the potential terms of Colombian access to it. The UNESCO—that Colombian requests sought to involve in a mediation, process often “more oriented towards the satisfaction of the parties and the reconciliation of their interests in order to achieve fair settlements” (Labadie 2021, p. 142)—was not mentioned in the Spanish response. Rather, the bilateral path is signalled by Spain as the one possible to solve the issue.

4 Final Considerations The pieces that came to be known as the Quimbaya treasure were excavated in a huaca called La Soledad, Spanish for solitude, name given because of a wind musical instrument buried in these huacas that sounded like the bird Soledad, Momutus momota, native of the region (Academia de Historia del Quindío 2018). It seems an appropriate name to the source place of an ensemble of archaeological heritage that has been kept in a glass dome for more than a century, alienated from the people who inhabit their land by the action of the national colonial elites and the former foreign colonial power. I opened this chapter with a quote from the perhaps best-known Colombian novel, “One hundred years of solitude”, by the Nobel-winning author Gabriel García Marquez, where José Arcadio Buendía, the patriarch of the family, discusses with his wife, Úrsula Iguarán, whether they will stay in Macondo. For her, the reasons for belonging are life and the future—having a child, a descendant in the region. For him, the main link to land is given by death and past—having an ancestor buried there. Were this discussion applied to the Quimbaya treasure, both reasons would support its return to Colombia—the space where it was created and buried, where the pieces had a value of use, in the life of their owners, and a value of representation, in their deaths and tombs and in present-day public memory. This reflection dialogues with the understanding of the collection as cultural heritage, in that it is a witness to the past of Colombia, a cultural manifestation

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of a people no longer present and but also a mark of identity, a symbol of regional and national history. Moreover, it inscribed in a worldview that continues to have an importance to the inhabitants of the land today, representing traditions that still live, for instance among the indigenous peoples of the Colombian Vaupés. Hence, as cultural heritage, the collection has been an object of decolonial heritage diplomacy by Colombians seeking restitution. The mobilisations and negotiations for restitution are decolonial because they aim to recentre the narrative around the pieces to celebrate the aforementioned histories and present traditions and to give back to Colombians the right to have access to the collection. This much sought-after decolonial reparation can be facilitated if Spain shows a disposition to dialogue, and does not insist on its legal title as the owner of such cultural property—as their arguments characterise it. Decolonial heritage diplomacy could inspire both parties to a discussion that moves from legal to cultural and ethical terrains, focusing on concepts such as legitimacy and belonging, shared heritage, rights of use, multiple appropriations, reflecting on more inclusive, participatory, plural ways to administer or custody the pieces (König et al. 2018, p. 61). This would relativise the binary rigidity of the terms used by Spain now—possession, property, inalienability, sovereignty—that imprison the debate around the legality of the present ownership and the past gift. It remains to be seen whether, how and when a solution will be found to the contend, which will hopefully be solved in a manner that ends the solitude of the pieces in the Museum of America, its dead creators under the ground and their living Colombian heirs.

References Academia de Historia del Quindío (2018) Características de los yacimientos arqueológicos del Tesoro Quimbaya. La Crónica del Quindío. https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/ region/caractersticas-de-los-yacimientos-arqueolgicos-del-tesoro-quimbaya-segn-la-historiog rafa. Accessed 30 July 2022 Anderson BRG (1983) Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso, London Botero CI (2001) The construction of the pre-hispanic past of Colombia: collections, museums and early archaeology, 1823–1941. Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford Burbano CCM (2003) El Tesoro de los Quimbayas: estudio historiográfico y documental. Bachelor’s thesis, Universidad del Valle Campfens E (2020) Whose cultural objects? Introducing heritage title for cross-border cultural property claims. Netherlands Int Law Rev 67(2):257–295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40802-02000174-3 Casanova AV (2016) Biografía del Tesoro Quimbaya. In: Perea A, Casanova AV, Usillos AG (eds) El Tesoro Quimbaya. Subdirección General de Documentación y Publicaciones, Madrid, pp 15–62 Christofoletti R, Acerbi VDS (2021) Blitzkrieg against black magic. In: Oosterman N, Yates D (eds) Crime and art. Studies in art, heritage, law and the market (1). Springer, Cham, pp 153–172. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84856-9_10 Clopot C, Andersen C, Oldfield J (2022) New diplomacy and decolonial heritage practices, 1st edn. In: Knudsen BT, Oldfield J, Buettner E, Zabunyan E (eds) Decolonizing colonial heritage.

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New Agendas, actors and practices in and beyond Europe. Routledge, London, pp 274–291. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003100102 Corte Constitucional (2017) Sentencia SU649/17. https://www.corteconstitucional.gov.co/relatoria/ 2017/SU649-17.htm#_ftnref39. Accessed 20 July 2022 El Tiempo (2016) Ordenan rescatar el tesoro Quimbaya que fue obsequiado a España. https:// www.eltiempo.com/justicia/cortes/corte-constitucional-dice-que-el-tesoro-quimbaya-debe-reg resar-a-colombia-142768. Accessed 8 June 2022 Field L (2012) El sistema del oro: exploraciones sobre el destino (emergente) de los objetos de oro precolombinos en Colombia, Antípoda. Revista De Antropología y Arqueología 14:67–94 Hinestrosa PG (1998) El tesoro de los Quimbayas, un siglo después. Ensayos: Historia y teoría del arte 5:214–230 König V, de l’Estoile B, Caballero PL et al (2018) Les collections muséales d’art non-occidental : constitution et restitution aujourd’hui. Perspective.https://doi.org/10.4000/perspective.9059 Labadie C (2021) Decolonizing collections: a legal perspective on the restitution of cultural artifacts. ICOFOM Study Ser 9(2):132–146 Lima FC, Acerbi VDS, Correa IZN (2022) Alternative relations between nature and human rights: decoloniality and the inter-american court of human rights case law. Cadernos Eletrônicos Direito Internacional sem Fronteiras 4(1). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6783485 Londoño W (2010) Ficciones arqueológicas como orientadoras de biografías ciudadanas: por qué des-patrimonializar el patrimonio arqueológico nacional. Jangwa Pana 9(1):22–37 Lozano AJR (2008) Avances y perspectivas del derecho para la restitución de bienes culturales a sus países de origen el caso del patrimonio cultural Quimbaya. Prolegómenos 11(22):119–140 Marquez GM (1971) A hundred years of solitude. Avon Books, New York Mejía TP (2018) Jaime Lopera, en comité nacional de la repatriación del tesoro Quimbaya. La Crónica del Quindío. https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/region/jaime-lopera-encomit-nacional-de-la-repatriacin-del-tesoro-quimbaya. Accessed 30 June 2022 Mejía-Lemos D (2019) The “Quimbaya treasure”, judgment SU-649/17. Am J Int Law 113(1):122– 130. https://doi.org/10.1017/ajil.2018.106 Mignolo WD (2007) Introduction. Cult Stud 21(2–3):155–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/095023806 01162498 Mignolo WD (2005) The idea of Latin America. Blackwell, London & New York Mintz SW, Wolf ER (1950) An analysis of ritual co-parenthood (Compadrazgo). Southwestern J Anthropol Res 6(4):341–368. https://doi.org/10.1086/soutjanth.6.4.3628562 Prott L, O’Keefe P (1992) ‘Cultural heritage’ or ‘cultural property’? Int J Cult Prop 1(2):307–320. https://doi.org/10.1017/S094073919200033X Quindío Noticias (2022). España anuncia que no devolverá el tesoro Quimbaya a Colombia. https://quindionoticias.com/locales/c294-quindio/espana-anuncia-que-no-devolvera-el-tesoroquimbaya-a-colombia/. Accessed 28 July 2022 Quijano A (2005) Colonialidade do poder, eurocentrismo e América Latina. In: Lander E (Org) A colonialidade do saber: eurocentrismo e ciências sociais. CLACSO, Buenos Aires, pp 107–130 Ramírez RR (2017) La nueva etapa histórica y antropológica del Tesoro Quimbaya. La Crónica del Quindío. https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/region/la-nueva-etapa-histrica-y-ant ropolgica-del-tesoro-quimbaya. Accessed 10 July 2022 Rengifo AJ (2016) Llegó la hora de que Colombia reclame el tesoro quimbaya. El Espectador. https://www.elespectador.com/entretenimiento/gente/llego-la-hora-de-que-colombia-rec lame-el-tesoro-quimbaya/. Accessed 8 June 2022 Restrepo JHV, Ramírez RR (2018a) El Tesoro Quimbaya y su proceso de compra. La Crónica del Quindío. https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/region/el-tesoro-quimbaya-y-su-pro ceso-de-compra. Accessed 10 June 2022 Restrepo JHV, Ramírez RR (2018b) El Tesoro Quimbaya y la celebración del cuarto centenario. La Crónica del Quindío. https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/region/el-tesoro-quimbayay-la-celebracin-del-cuarto-centenario. Accessed 13 June 2022

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Restrepo JHV, Ramírez RR (2018c) El Tesoro Quimbaya y su obsequio a España. La Crónica del Quindío. https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/region/el-tesoro-quimbaya-y-su-obs equio-a-espaa. Accessed 13 June 2022 Restrepo JHV, Ramírez RR (2018d) El Tesoro Quimbaya en la España del Siglo XX. La Crónica del Quindío. https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/region/el-tesoro-quimbaya-en-la-espaadel-siglo-xx. Accessed 13 June 2022 Restrepo JHV, Ramírez RR (2018e) El Tesoro Quimbaya y sus reclamaciones. La Crónica del Quindío. https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticias/region/el-tesoro-quimbaya-y-sus-reclam aciones. Accessed 12 June 2022 Riaño PH (2021) Decapitados. Una historia contra los monumentos a racistas, esclavistas e invasores. Penguin Random House, Barcelona Robledo-Martínez FA (2015) Identidad cultural, salud social y estado social de derecho. El caso “Tesoro Quimbaya” Quindío. Colombia. Revista De Salud Pública 17:636–646 Schuster S, Gómez LAB (2020) Imaginando la “tercera civilización de América”: Colombia en las exposiciones internacionales del IV Centenario (1892–1893). Historia Crítica 75:25–47. https:/ /doi.org/10.7440/histcrit75.2020.02 Winter T (2015) Heritage diplomacy. Int J Herit Stud 21(10):997–1015. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13527258.2015.1041412

Vitória dos Santos Acerbi is a program manager at Global Contact—Research and Consulting, based in Paris. She holds a Master’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of Salamanca (Spain), with an Erasmus year at the Paris School of International Affairs (France). She is a member of the research group International Law without Borders, researching law and decoloniality. She holds a BA in History, with a specialization in Cultural Heritage Management, from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (Brazil).

The Reason for the Artifact Paths for the Repatriation of Indigenous Cultural Assets Nathan Assunção Agostinho

Abstract The objective of this chapter is to approach, from a material point of view through the intangible meanings around the concept of cultural heritage and its different definitions given by international instruments, to reflect on the notion of Indigenous Cultural Heritage, through the analytical study of conventions and seal and safeguard bodies under the tutelage of the United Nations. In addition, this chapter aims to identify and analyze the international legal framework for the protection, both of cultural heritage in general and of Indigenous Cultural Heritage in particular, given that indigenous communities in Brazil, and Latin America as a whole, increasingly claim isolated repatriation processes, self-managed and in collaboration with international organizations, with the invocation of precepts intertwined with soft power, also due to the good will of those European institutions which maintain the indigenous cultural heritage in their possession today. Keywords Cultural heritage · International relations · Human rights · Indigenous people

1 Introduction There are only two options in this life: resign yourself or be outraged. And I will never resign myself. Darcy Ribeiro (Lôbo 2001, p. 7, author translation)

In any case, human beings throughout their hundreds of thousands of years of existence organized in society have always been creators of culture. Whether through cave paintings in the early days of humanity or music in contemporary times, human groups have been shaping their existence determined by their creations, traditions N. A. Agostinho (B) Department of Social Sciences, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_6

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and beliefs. The creation of culture as a system led to the thesis that human activities and thought are involved in unconscious activities—Freud, Saussure and the anthropology of Marcel Mauss meet—and that culture is less the empirical manifestation of the activity of a group, as Tylor defined it as the set of principles that underlie these manifestations (Velho and Viveiros de Castro 1978). Thus, culture is unconscious, but social, insofar as these rules are not found in the “natural” psychic apparatus of each individual, but define a system that is common to the group. Thus, man finds himself more and more unintentionally linked to society. However, this process of permanent cultural creation and transmission was violently interrupted by the colonialist processes that took place all over the world, first and later, by professional archaeologists, explorers, tomb looters and private collectors, who, for whatever reasons, took possession of this patrimony, appropriating it, and allocating it to the most varied purposes in the illicit trafficking of cultural objects. The illicit trafficking of cultural goods is a problem of great magnitude that must be tackled in several spheres, as it requires cooperation and coordinated work between the public and private sectors. In Brazil, the Ministry of Tourism replaced the Ministry of Culture and underestimated its affiliated institutions, such as the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (IPHAN, Institute of National Historical and Artistic Heritage). However, more institutions joined the agenda, managing to form, even if informally, a national system of cooperation against the illicit trafficking of cultural goods. Inter-institutional cooperation has constituted by the Cultural Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Culture Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, in addition to private entities, worth mentioning the Itaú Cultural Foundation, or which act if there is a need to present processes for the repatriation of cultural assets that were illegally exported and intend to be recovered by the Brazilian State. In addition, as Oosterman and Yates (2020) point out, in Brazil, the Police Station for Repression of Crimes against the Environment and Historical Heritage (DELEMAPH) of the Federal Police is responsible for investigating crimes against property, while it has a central unit in Brasilia. And it has representations in each of the states, which, in the end, means the existence of a robust state apparatus capable of more incisive measures. Furthermore, Brazilian historiography points out that most of this lost heritage is now exposed in European museums (Christofoletti 2017a, b). There are countless institutions, private and public, that until today house heritage has extracted in the described context (Christofoletti and Agostinho 2020). The most paradigmatic case, or with greater notoriety in recent times, is that of the tupinambá mantle, which was removed from the northeast region of Brazil by Dutch colonizers more than 300 years ago and is now on display at the National Museum of Denmark. It is estimated that the indigenous artifacts that are in Denmark, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland left Brazil as a result of the Dutch invasion of Pernambuco and with the expulsion of the Dutch in the seventeenth century, the mantles ended up being taken to Europe, although it is not known exactly how they got to the museums where they are today.1 1

[Online] https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-42405892.

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It is assumed that this process of creation and permanent cultural transmission was violently interrupted by the colonialist processes that took place in Brazil; however, the academic efforts of decoloniality, in addition to self-generated community movements, are part of the repatriation mobilizations proposed by indigenous peoples from all over Brazil (Acerbi 2019). The world territory in the last decades, which, after all, has been favored by the greater recognition of rights by defenders of the recovery of cultural assets of great value to their cultures as signifiers of collective memory, through cultural diplomacy (Christofoletti 2017a, b). The growing international regulation of human rights recognizes the prerogatives of indigenous peoples, including cultural rights. Therefore, repatriation must be understood as an expression of cultural rights, as it guarantees indigenous people the recovery of a lost cultural identity that would otherwise make it impossible to transmit it to their descendants. Thus, the United Nations Organization recognized certain notions in its Conventions, which were included in the legal system in the light of the Constitution, which maintains in its Article 231 that “the Indians are recognized for their social organization, customs, languages, beliefs and traditions”, and the original rights over the lands they traditionally occupy, and it is incumbent upon the Union to demarcate, protect and ensure respect for all their assets” (Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil 1988, author translation). Cases such as the tupinambá mantle of Pernambuco were widespread and present in countless journalistic collections in Brazil and Latin America, worth mentioning the records of Folha de S. Paulo and O Estado de S. Paulo. Notwithstanding the foregoing, contrary to international actions, today the repatriation of indigenous cultural assets with a view to maintaining their identities in our country, despite having specific regulations, lacks applicability on the part of public agents. There are few legislative procedures that have sought to bring this issue to debate in the National Congress of Brazil, showing that the prospects of recovering the lost heritage of indigenous peoples in our country are not very encouraged by parliamentarians, who do not supervise the cultural actions of power executive when they are not convened by organized civil society. The few cases of repatriation experienced by indigenous communities in Brazil were carried out on the initiative of those affected through self-management, under the goodwill of the current owners of the cultural heritage that is intended to be recovered on the European continent and through the incisive action of the Directorate of Culture of the Ministry of State for Foreign Affairs (MRE). The causes of lack of protection can be varied, from the weak institutionalization in matters of indigenous rights, to the scarce legislation in matters of cultural rights, as well as mentioning the reduced constitutional recognition of the original peoples of the country. In this context, the constitutional changes that can be carried out in our country are a good opportunity to give indigenous communities the space that has been denied by centuries of ethnocide. The establishment of a plurinational State that recognizes them as actors and subjects of collective rights would lay the necessary institutional and legal bases for an effective protection of their cultural heritage that, ultimately, allows them to overcome the problem of lack of protection and lack of protection mechanisms or pathways to achieve the recovery of their culture. In

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this way, the present work seeks to carry out a normative analysis that allows us to establish the extent to which Brazil complies with the international norms in force regarding the safeguarding of Cultural Heritage, which will allow us to make visible the possible and eventual problems that involve the subject in Brazil.

2 Indigenous Cultural Heritage as a Tool It is worth noting the relevance of the mention of Indigenous Cultural Heritage within the scope of the United Nations in 1995, which was based on a report prepared by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Affairs, Professor EricaIrene Daes. In this report, the professor and diplomat emphasizes, first, that the heritage of indigenous peoples consists of all objects, places and knowledge, whose nature or character has been transmitted from generation to generation and which are considered the heritage of a people, group or territory. Thus, it is evident that Daes (1997) emphasizes the constitutive elements of the definitions of culture already seen, while specifying the notion that the heritage to be safeguarded is also intertwined with the specific concept “clan”. A clan is a group of people united by kinship defined by descent from a common ancestor. Even though the actual patterns of inbreeding are unknown, clan members still recognize a common founding member or greater ancestor. For example, the Talyáseri, as well as the other peoples of the Amazon region, hold a corpus of knowledge as the greatest legacy of their ancestors that, being transmitted from generation to generation, contribute to their physical and cultural survival until today. The “payekanipe” term used to indicate knowledge comprises: myths, worldviews, clan hierarchy, kinship relations, territoriality, understanding of fauna, flora, mastery of fishing techniques, hunting, cultivation, construction of a house, the use of medicinal plants, the use of analgesic substances, constellations, the floods and ebbs of rivers, the implementation and use of dance instruments, ritual objects, the manufacture of objects for domestic use, from clothing, to cooking, among others (Fontoura 2006). Then, corroborating what has been mentioned above, the report explains more specifically the assets that make up this heritage, adding that the heritage of indigenous peoples is understood as “all movable cultural assets, defined in the UNESCO conventions; all kinds of literary and artistic works, such as music, dance, chants, ceremonies, symbols and drawings, storytelling and poetry; all kinds of scientific, agricultural, technical and ecological knowledge, including crops and medicines and the rational use of flora and fauna; human remains, immovable cultural property such as sacred places, sites of historical value and burials; and the documentation of indigenous peoples’ heritage in films, photographs, as well as videotapes, expression, such as the inclusion of ceremonies, symbols and designs, as well as all significant elements of their traditions” (Daes 1997, author translation). Among the most prominent characteristics of indigenous heritage recognized by the special rapporteur which, in turn, differentiate it from the concept of original cultural heritage, it is possible to distinguish:

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Indigenous cultural heritage is a collective right and is linked to a family, clan, tribe or any other kinship group. In this sense, it considers that the distinction between cultural and intellectual property, from the point of view of indigenous peoples, is artificial and not very useful.2 That is why, she says, “it is easier and more appropriate to speak of the ‘collective heritage’ of each indigenous people, distinguishing between ‘cultural property’ and ‘intellectual property’”, and once they see their heritage as property, “they must decide, only that they have an owner and that they are used to obtain economic benefits, only in terms of individual and collective responsibility”.3 The estate can only be shared with the prior consent of the entire group, which must be granted through a specific decision-making process. Regardless of how consent is given, it is always provisional and revocable. The estate can never be alienated, delivered or sold, except for its conditional use. When heritage belongs to the community, there is usually one person who must qualify as guardian of all aspects of a people’s heritage. This does not mean that a property right rests with that person, but simply acts as a depository for the interests of the entire community. Nowadays, indigenous peoples in Latin America continue to fight intensely, with aggressive impacts when they find themselves in the situation of isolated majority and linguistic minorities. The very lack of knowledge about the diversity of these peoples, which today represents about 350 million people, that is, 4% of the world population, accentuates this situation even more. In the Americas, there are millions living in very different situations in each country. In Brazil, the census carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in 2000 surprised, when more than 700 thousand people declared themselves indigenous, covering a numerous indigenous contingent living in urban centers. But the biggest part of the Brazilian population considers that the indigenous people are still in the process of disappearance and delegates responsibility for their fate to the State. From this panorama, the concept of Indigenous Cultural Heritage becomes fundamental, considering that the academy must, necessarily, be committed to guiding a destination that is usually considered uncertain, recommending its preservation and protection through specific concepts and agendas.

2

Resolution E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/28 of the Human Rights Commission, “Discrimination against Indigenous Peoples”, Study on the protection of cultural and intellectual property of indigenous peoples prepared by Ms. Erica-Irene Daes, Special Rapporteur of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and Chairman of the Group, (28 July 1993), [Online] http://undocs.org/es/E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/28. 3 Resolution E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/28 of the Human Rights Commission, “Discrimination against Indigenous Peoples”, Study on the protection of cultural and intellectual property of indigenous peoples prepared by Ms. Erica-Irene Daes, Special Rapporteur of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and Chairman of the Group, (28 July 1993), [Online] http://undocs.org/es/E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/28.

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2.1 The Importance of Indigenous Cultural Heritage It is worth sustaining that respect for cultural diversity in the world necessarily involves respect for different cultural, individual and collective identities. Therefore, collective identities can be understood as the representation of “certain distinctive traits of a human group or community, which result from the vital process of culture, and which are capable of acquiring their own historical development as collective entities” (Muñoz 2018, p. 84, author translation). Cultural heritage, whether indigenous or not, “is related to a set of goods that are sufficiently transcendent in terms of symbolizing the life and cultural heritage of a group, community or people” (Muñoz 2018, p. 84, author translation). On the other hand, the constant process of globalization that is taking place today, together with the rapid process of change that nations are experiencing, has given rise to an increasingly important interest in safeguarding the cultural heritage of multiple peoples, insofar as this is a precept concerning liberal democracy. As indicated O’Keefe and Prott (1984) it is understood that the product of these processes generates a danger of “stereotyping and depersonalization” of the traditional cultures of the original peoples. In this regard, the Preamble to the UNESCO Recommendation on the Preservation of Cultural Heritage Threatened by Public or Private Works states that “Cultural Heritage is the product and testimony of different traditions and spiritual developments of the past and is an essential element of the personality of peoples of the world, it is essential to preserve it as much as possible, according to its historical and artistic importance, so that the meaning and message of the cultural heritage becomes part of the spirit of the people, who can also become aware of their own dignity”. Resuming this idea, the protection of indigenous cultural heritage becomes increasingly urgent, as it belongs to a human group that is clearly at a disadvantage in relation to other recognizable human groups in the world. As Erica-Irene Daes points out: The exploration and colonization of other regions by European countries, which began in the 15th century, quickly led to the appropriation, by the main European empires, of the lands and natural resources of indigenous peoples. But that wasn’t all they took. European empires also discovered new medicines and edible plants, such as corn and potatoes, that made it possible to feed the growing urban concentrations of workers needed to kick-start the European industrial revolution. As industrialization progressed, European states devoted themselves to the purchase of tribal art and the study of exotic cultures. Indigenous peoples were successively dispossessed of their lands, their science, their ideas, their art and their culture. (Daes 1997, author translation)

In this way, it is verified that for the establishment of full and effective citizenship, there must be a dynamism in the institutional and constitutional articulations in Brazil, that is, the State must act, making it possible for all Brazilians, without any form of discrimination, the citizenship condition. The full exercise of citizenship presupposes that in situations of violated rights, citizens can have access to repatriation and restitution mechanisms by public institutions to enforce their rights fundamental rights. Therefore, we understand that the State is a system of principles and procedural rules that should improve the legal system for safeguarding the Indigenous Cultural

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Heritage, as well as access to it through decolonial precepts. In fact, what is discussed through the problematization of the delay in claiming illicitly trafficked cultural goods is also the question of citizenship itself and, ultimately, it is democracy that is at stake when one disregards the critical theories that emerged in museums in order to question them in relation to the forms of representation of colonial power and the musealization of the other, more specifically in museums of anthropology and ethnology.

3 International Standards on the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples on Cultural Heritage and Repatriation Although the rights’ claims of indigenous peoples over their heritage began to manifest in the late twentieth century in response to growing international legislation on their human rights, different international human rights’ conventions and treaties some time earlier began to provide protection of the cultural heritage of peoples from a more generic point of view in terms of the nature of the goods involved (Christofoletti and Agostinho 2020), providing legal support that would allow years later to start discussing indigenous repatriation. Thus, through conventions aimed at the protection of cultural goods in times of war and the prohibition and prevention of their illicit trafficking, it begins to be understood in the world, due to the efforts of international organizations such as the United Nations and its various organizations, among them, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), that the Cultural Heritage of Humanity requires protection that until then was non-existent. Situations such as looting, the illegal excavation of archaeological sites and the misappropriation, export and import of indigenous cultural goods and human remains, previously seen as a common problem, show a weakness in the matter that is beginning to worry the international community consider these conducts as illicit conduct and that require concrete actions by the States to eliminate that fragility that characterized the Cultural Heritage.

3.1 The Hague Convention of 1954 The first of these is The Hague Convention of 1954, an initiative that arises as a result of the great destruction of Cultural Heritage during the period of two World Wars. In addition, granting a first definition of what should be understood as Cultural Heritage, as we have already mentioned, constitutes the first international effort to grant protection to cultural assets, both movable and immovable, within which archaeological sites, architectural and artistic monuments can be found to be found

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or historical, works of art, manuscripts and books. Although the Convention establishes obligations for States to contract only in times of war, the intention on the part of international organizations such as The Hague to protect cultural goods that have a relevant value for the culture of humanity is still important. Thus, after defining cultural property in Article 1 of the Convention, as we have seen, Article 2 establishes that the protection of cultural property, for the purposes of this Convention, implies the safeguarding and respect of such property. As noted, it is reported that respect for and the safeguarding of cultural property are the essential element of this regulation, an objective pursued by the Convention, maintaining that States parties, once occupying a territory during an armed conflict, must prevent the export of cultural property. Then, according to the same convention, it is established that the States must “respect the cultural property that is in conformity with its territory like none of the other Contracts of high obligation of the use of these goods, abstaining from systems of protection and his immediate quarter that can export such goods to the fin for exclusion or relation in case of armed conflict, and to refrain from any act of hostility in relation to such goods”,4 any act of theft, looting, concealment or appropriation of cultural property, in any of its forms, as well as any act of vandalism in relation to these goods. Thus, as we see, what is sought with the norm is the protection of cultural goods in all its aspects. On the one hand, the agreed States are obliged to refrain from doing any type of damage, and on the other hand, they are obliged to act against unlawful conduct of a third party through cultural damage or impediment of such conduct, all in accordance with the principle of this Convention, and the respect and safeguarding of material and material cultural property. It is worth mentioning that the 1954 Hague Convention, its implementing regulations and subsequent protocols were ratified by Brazil through Legislative Decree No. 32 of August 21, 1956.5 After its conclusion, what is clearly demonstrated, to a large extent, is a lack of interest on the part of national legislators. Therefore, as a corollary, if the aforementioned Convention does not refer anywhere to indigenous heritage in particular, it constitutes a first international effort to protect the archaeological heritage of indigenous peoples, which includes the Indigenous Cultural Heritage.

3.2 The UNESCO Convention of 1970 The UNESCO Convention on Measures to be Taken to Prohibit and Prevent the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, or more commonly called the UNESCO Convention of 1970, was signed in Paris on November 14 of 4

Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, The Hague, 1954, Article 2. 5 Approves, under the presidency of João Goulart in the Federal Senate of Brazil, the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Assets in the event of armed conflict, signed at the International Conference held in The Hague, from April 21 to May 12, 1954. Federal Senate, Brasília, 1956.

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the same year, and currently, this Convention is the most widely ratified international instrument in the world on the subject and, as its name implies, its main objective is to combat illicit trafficking in cultural goods. Again, as in the previous case, this universal instrument was approved by Brazil in 1973, that is, three years after its signature, which again shows the interest and attention that has been placed on this subject. UNESCO defines illicit trafficking in heritage assets as “the undue destruction, theft, theft and receipt, as well as the illicit import and export of heritage assets, that violate the law and cause irreparable damage to the cultural property of a country”.6 In this way, the Convention innovates in the sense that on the ground it protects the cultural property of territories occupied in times of war, such as The Hague Convention, which also seeks to protect cultural property, regardless of the political situation in which the countries enjoy this good moment. It is interesting to note that the Convention offers States Parties’ effective measures to prevent illicit trafficking, as among them, we find preventive measures such as the creation of inventories, export certificates and the imposition of criminal or administrative sanctions. In addition, it establishes measures leading to the restitution of goods stolen after the entry into force of the Convention, and only regarding those that have been inventoried by public institutions, excluding goods resulting from illegal excavation or stolen from a private home. More indirectly, and subject to national law, Article 13 of the Convention also contains provisions relating to restitution and effective cooperation. As we can see, it contemplates a series of interesting measures in general of the States Parties to protect the cultural heritage. These include a probate or religious obligation and found in a museum or similar institution, a part of an instance of civil property, an illegal or other obligation of acquired property, or a constitution by an instance of civil, a civil or other penalty of property acquired or constitution by an example of civilians, with prior reparation to the legal owner, as well as the possibility of supporting a part that is being requested internationally when its cultural heritage is requested in danger of looting or ethnological State. If, a priori, these measures must be effective for the protection of the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples, which are what interests us in this work, certain points can be found in the aforementioned provisions regarding which it is necessary to specify some ideas. First, the preventive measures provided for in the Convention are all provided for cases that arise after the entry into force of the Convention in the States Parties, since, as their name implies, they are “preventive” and, therefore, are intended to prevent cultural goods which are illegally trafficked in States Parties to the Convention. In this sense, the Convention lacks retroactive effect, which in my view is problematic in the sense that the Convention is not responsible for goods illegally acquired by museums or similar institutions prior to the Convention. In turn, the possibility of restitution upon request through diplomatic channels, which the Convention contemplates, is again only in relation to inventoried goods that have been stolen and imported after the entry into force of the Convention, being excluded from this request, a restitution 6

[Online] http://www.unesco.org/new/es/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/ 1970-convention/.

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of goods from illegal excavations, which is surprising if one takes into account the spirit of the Convention, which is effectively to prevent situations such as looting or illegal excavations of cultural and ethnological heritage from continuing to proliferate (Christofoletti and Agostinho 2020). In this way, with no heritage from the fact that the Convention represents institutions an important advance for the future of cultural says, other than the cultural heritage historically acquired by museums and the like, the legality of acquisitions is not questioned, nor is any intended to specify the mechanisms for looting cultural peoples’ cultural goods, something that is done, considering that a large part of it is displayed in the receiving countries and acquired through the looting of peoples by colonizing nations that, as a way of glorifying their victories, plunder cultural goods and human remains for later “appreciation” in national museums. Indeed, the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples aimed at recovery, whether in the hands of public institutions or held by private institutions, is protected under the 1970 Convention, although this does not refer to the cultural assets of ethnic minorities that lack guidelines and safeguard negotiation.

3.3 The UNIDROIT Convention of 1995 Created as a complement to the 1970 Convention, it focuses primarily on how to carry out the restitution of stolen or illicitly exported cultural property so that it can be carried out in an orderly manner between States Parties. Furthermore, it allows claims for restitution to proceed through national courts and not just through diplomatic channels. Article 3 stands out, which no longer only includes inventoried goods as an object of protection, but also expands the spectrum to all cultural goods and establishes as an essential element that all stolen cultural goods must be returned. The convention provides for a treatment for the return of goods returned stolen, as well as for the return of goods returned illegally, establishing deadlines for requesting a return or delivery, in addition to defining requests for the return of goods in legal compliance in another territory. Thus, in the case of stolen goods, the active subjects can be persons, entities or national States, and in the case of illicitly exported goods, the subjects will be exclusively the States, all the subjects that will file them directly before the authority of the States Parties or other competent competences. It is stated that cultural objects that have been illegally excavated must still be considered as stolen cultural excavations, which, for the purposes of the Convention, must be protected as such and compatible, if necessary, with the legislation of the State in which an excavation is to be carried out. In other words, if a State, according to its legislation, considers that the illegally excavated goods are the property of the State, it will have the legal authority to request their restitution against an owner located in another State. All the instruments of international law analyzed in this section provide us with a basic legal framework for indigenous repatriation, as they all recognize, directly or indirectly, the importance of this heritage, providing them with protection in

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different ways. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the protection has a very preventive character, in the sense of ensuring that future repatriations are not necessary. By failing to establish mechanisms to repatriate indigenous cultural heritage lost prior to the entry into force of its provisions, which is effectively the majority of stolen indigenous cultural heritage, they only help us to recognize the importance of their current protection, that ultimately and in the end, it provides a framework for the construction of protective legislation by the Brazilian National Congress.

3.4 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007 The approval of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 represents an important milestone in the defense of territories that have seen an important territory for so long, the advancement of man, groups that have always occupied and with this advance the extirpation of communities, their culture, their knowledge. This Declaration arises as a result of several years of studies and debates that gained strength in the 1990,7 within the framework of the United Nations. The declaration, divided into 46 articles, explains important values to be preserved and relevant objectives to be achieved. We could point out as preponderant the following guarantees addressed: (a) Right to enjoy, individually or collectively, human rights and fundamental freedoms.8 A true principle, the right to be a subject of human rights and fundamental freedoms is about support for the others, insofar as these would be an unfolding of the former. (b) Right to equality and not be discriminated against.9 The need to grant indigenous people the same fundamental rights available to the rest of non-indigenous populations, such as health and education, is recognized. As a reinforcement of the idea of isonomy, the Declaration demands that indigenous peculiarities are observed in the application of these important policies. (c) Right to self-determination.10 The indigenous population is recognized as having the right to be recognized as having at least relative independence, its internal organization, independent of external influences, including the National 7

According to Gilberto Marcos Antônio Rodrigues, the 90 was notable for the occurrence of several global conferences, with the United Nations Conference on the Environment held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The author states that: “Since then, as in no other time, the United Nations We will dedicate a debater, a breakdown, a negotiation and a broad action initiative and propose definitively alter the generation of public policies around the world”. Rodrigues, Gilberto Marcos Antônio. A organização das Nações Unidas e as políticas públicas nacionais. In: Bucci, Maria Paula Dallari (Org.). Políticas Públicas. Reflexões sobre o conceito jurídico. São Paulo: Saraiva, 2006, p. 201. 8 Art. 1º. 9 Art. 2º, Art. 15º. 10 Art. 3º.

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State under whose territory it is located.11 The self-determination of indigenous peoples implies, as a corollary, the right to legal self-organization,12 economically, politically, socially, culturally. (d) Right to a nationality.13 The indigenous person has the right to belong to a nationality. As a first corollary of this right, the Indian is guaranteed the right not to be considered stateless and, thus, excluded from the protection of the public power of the National States. (e) Right not to undergo forced assimilation or integration or not have their destroyed culture.14 Therefore, the approval of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has a double meaning. First, as a result of years of debate and study, it—as the kind of international document that incorporates it indicates—recognizes the general principles of human rights applied to the specific situation of indigenous groups. On the other hand, the formalization of an extensive list of rights in a document approved by the United Nations General Assembly has the power to make the defense of indigenous rights more tangible and, consequently, greater enforceability on States, and in this case, the Brazilian State, in the formulation of public policies aimed at that group. Finally, although the international human rights system is often criticized for an excessive universalization of Western values, the approval of the United Nations Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples represents a step in the opposite direction, since, in addition to highlighting the need to preserve the values of those groups, resulted from a great involvement and participation of indigenous communities around the world, that is, it is not a text created only by the national delegations for, but a declaration that had the participation of the interested parties in its formulation and approval.

4 The Repatriation of Cultural Goods and Human Rights Repatriation is understood here as a broad concept that encompasses the various forms of returning cultural goods that are outside their place of origin. Thus understood, repatriation can take at least the forms mentioned below. The first of these is the return that takes place within the framework of the UNESCO Convention of 11

CLASTRES, Pierre. A sociedade contra o Estado—pesquisas de antropologia política. São Paulo: Cosac Naifi, 2003, p. 35. For Clastres, “[…] the peoples without writing are therefore no less adults than literate societies. His story is as deep as ours, and except for racism, no there is no reason to judge them incapable of reflecting on their own experience and of giving solutions to their problems appropriate”. (Own translation). 12 9 SOUZA FILHO, Carlos Frederico Marés de. O Renascer dos Povos Indígenas para o Direito. 1.ed. Curitiba: Juruá, 2008, p. 193. No entender Marés Filho, “[…] da esta indígena Marés é diferente do exercício palavras integrais que significaria o fim da soberania estatal o território dado e, em outras territórios, a de recriação de um novo Estado”. 13 Art. 6º, Art. 9º. 14 Art. 8º.

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1970. This Convention, in direct application of its Article 9, can facilitate a negotiated repatriation—which happened, for example, with quipus who, originating from neighboring Bolivia, Brazil, were taken illegally to the USA—or served as a basis for the conclusion of agreements between States to control illicit trafficking between them, as was the case with the memoranda of understanding signed by the USA with several countries and the agreements bilateral agreements between several Latin American countries. Secondly, the term repatriation encompasses return by order, on the one hand, by a national judge of the receiving country, which may occur by application of the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention in national legislation, which, once signed and ratified, must be applied directly in the territory of the country that signed and ratified it, in this case Brazil, thus including return, in the case of stolen property, and restitution, in the case of goods exported in violation of the domestic law of the country of origin, established by this UNIDROIT Convention of 1995. On the other hand, this term also refers to the return that occurs on the occasion of a dispute, as in the International Court of Justice, before which cases of this nature can be submitted at any time. Finally, repatriation can take place in the context of processes based on negotiation between institutions in the country of origin and institutions in the country where the respective cultural property is located, without necessarily mediating legal norms that give them legal support. In this context, the negotiations end up being mediated by precepts of soft power, among which, important in this context, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007 (UNDRIP), which establishes in its Article 11 that these peoples have the right to practice and revitalize their cultural customs and traditions, as well as for States to return to them, under the terms established in a joint agreement, cultural property that was deprived of them without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs. Each process, as well as the actors that are part of it, varies in each of the types of repatriation. In a national judicial context, for example, the process will be a judicial process governed by the rules of the country in which it takes place, with the participation of an individual, either as an illegitimate owner or as a legitimate owner without possessor and, therefore, claimant of the return, without the participation of the State being essential as part of the referred process.

5 The Cultural Reappropriation of Repatriated Cultural Goods It was said that cultural reappropriation constitutes an obligation of the State of origin required by the fact of repatriation. This statement has several legal, academic and also practical implications, which we continue to analyze. It is, above all, an obligation of the State that arises when repatriation is demanded. The State that requires the repatriation of an asset is culturally convinced that its claim is legitimate,

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although this legitimacy is always based on positive legal norms, since there are many cases in which there are no legal norms that support them. And what is currently happening, just to cite an example of legitimate property, whose owner is the good of the nation, linked to a private group, for example, the indigenous people whose culture created the cultural object in question. In this sense, it is worth mentioning the inter-American system, through the evolving interpretation of the property right contained in Article 21 of the American Convention on Human Rights, in which the relationship between this right and the cultural identity of indigenous peoples was recognized. Indeed, recognizing that there is a corpus juris that defines the obligations of States to protect the human rights of indigenous property, traditional forms of property related to their cultural survival. In this order of ideas, the State cannot legitimately deprive the good of the general community or, as the case may be, of the particular group, which does not fail to happen when the cultural good confined to the windows of a national museum or the laboratories of an institute research university. Instead, having demanded the return of a cultural object and having been successful, it will be necessary for the community or, as the case may be, the origin group of the respective cultural asset to re-appropriate it, in this case the object from which was illegitimately deprived. Only in this way can the circumstances that were the reasons on which the State’s claim was founded stand up. In fact, an object that deserves to be taken into account, since we share it in its entirety, sees the return of cultural assets (especially, archaeological sites) to their place of origin as reparation, specifically as a post-colonial reparation that, from the need to “correct the colonial wound of possession of their own past and the preservation of the collective memory of peoples”, he considers it opportune that there is a “political project that recognizes the legitimacy of descendant communities in the possession and management of their own materiality with the same legitimacy of both first world and national institutions” (Aguilar 2011, p. 230, author translation). As can be clearly seen, this approach presupposes the existence of damage, of an injustice inflicted by one subject on another, in such a way that the need for correction or repair arises. Thus, it emerges that behind this approach is the Aristotelian idea of justice in its corrective or retributive dimension. Indeed, if access has occurred by a third party to the original cultural heritage of a given community without its consent, then there is certainly a harmful act of spoliation. This gives rise to the need for correction, that is, repairing the damage caused. Likewise, this approach considers the existence of historical obligation or historical debt that colonizing countries have, generally recipients of cultural goods of colonized peoples, compared to those peoples whose current living conditions were also shaped by conquest and colonization and by various successive circumstances produced as a consequence of such processes (Ochoa 2010). Along the same lines is the idea of “reparations for cultural losses” of indigenous peoples produced in a context of colonization, as mentioned by Vrdoljak (2008, 2011), as well as its specificities regarding symbolic integration with the notion of decoloniality, which offers interesting possibilities in the context of the debate related to cultural heritage, either through empowered claims for the return of cultural goods to their places of origin or even through

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reorganization of the discourses present in museums and museum exhibitions of indigenous artifacts.

5.1 Human Rights: Cultural Reappropriation as an Attribution of the State In the context described, it is important to consider certain legal bases that support the obligation that falls on the State and that must be implemented once it has produced the repatriation of a cultural asset. These legal bases are found in certain rights contained in human rights instruments: the right to participate in cultural life, in the sense of access to cultural heritage and its enjoyment, in its relation to the right to cultural self-determination and the principle of equality. Such rights will have to be seen, in any case, also taking into account the following rights: the right to participate in cultural life, the right of members of minorities to enjoy their own culture and the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination and to maintain, control, protect and develop cultural heritage, as well as the content of more general human rights, such as the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and religion, the right to information and the right to education. In this context, the content of the repatriation obligation is the creation and strengthening of certain conditions that will enable the effective cultural reappropriation of the repatriated property by the respective community or group. The conditions to which we refer are not limited to those necessary for the preservation of the cultural asset itself or cultural expressions that they appear, understood only as materialities. Nor do they refer to the conditions necessary for material access to assets repatriated by the community, for example by exhibiting it in a museum. These conditions have been well studied, and although their implementation is not an easy task, they are clearly established by law. What is at issue here is the need to guarantee the following two types of conditions. Firstly, the conditions that allowed the creation and development of the repatriated cultural property should be created or reinforced, whenever possible, that is, the conditions prevailing in the cultural group of origin at the time of the illegitimate extraction of the respective property, that is, original conditions. When this is not possible, the conditions that allow the creation or development of new goods or cultural manifestations that are somehow related to the repatriated property must be guaranteed, in the case of non-original conditions. This can help to better understand the idea that there are multiple cultural heritages, which is evident when looking at them from the perspective of human rights. Thus, the human dimension means that these are not only seen as materialities of outstanding importance for the world or for the country, but also as important cultural manifestations for a concrete community, especially when only in that community can the object fulfill its cultural function. This is especially important if we emphasize the fact that traditionally the task of defining what is cultural heritage has been hijacked, largely through legislation, by national and international official institutions, under

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a complex of power relations existing between different subjects: State institutions, local authorities, specialists, academics, entrepreneurs, public or private landowners, civil associations, communities and their members (UN Human Rights Council 2010, paragraphs 7 and 1015 ).

6 Concluding Remarks Brazil is not exempt from looting and illicit trafficking in cultural goods. This is a problem of great magnitude, which ends up affecting mainly developing countries that have great archaeological and ethnological wealth (Askerud and Clément 1999). The illicit trafficking of cultural goods threatened Brazilian culture, an important part of that cultural heritage as a nation. Claims and repatriation processes for illegally exported cultural goods must be understood as foreign policy actions to be prioritized by the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, guiding principles and views that do not refer to foreign policy if necessary are considered to be necessary for this topic. In this sense, it can be interpreted as a future policy for the international theme, which may not be important for the Brazilian State’s action on the international theme, which cannot be interpreted on the international theme in a real concern, at least of the Itamaraty, in giving it the importance that this problem deserves. However, in the topic space, there seem to be more possibilities to include the topic in the agenda. At the same time, there are problems as prioritized as drug trafficking and terrorism. This is how it would be difficult to think of prioritizing the topic in the foreign policy agenda coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Brazilian State. Furthermore, although Brazilian foreign policy is centralized, maintaining that one could think of foreign policy actions directed, for example, by the Department of Culture of the Ministry of Tourism in its area, since this apparatus also has the capacity to mediate most of the claims of repatriation, while it is essential to count on the support of the diplomatic service, managed and controlled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As presented above, the role of leadership and coordination of the Secretariat of Culture, with technical assistance from IPHAN, and the facilitation and bridge of communication with abroad carried out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, may end up allowing the real roles to be more influential reality when State agents act together. Therefore, it is important to maintain that: (a) according to the information analyzed, the real wear and tear in the claim and repatriation processes are found in the legal component, in addition to being exhaustive for institutions to seek and carry out legal strategies for each specific case; and (b) most agreements that serve as a 15

This is the Declaration on the right and responsibility of individuals, groups or organs of society to promote and protect universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms (human rights defenders), contained in Resolution 53/144 of the United Nations General Assembly of December 9, 1998. Available in: https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A% 2F%2Fwww2.ohchr.org%2Fenglish%2Fissues%2Fdefenders%2Fdocs%2Fdeclaration%2Fdecl arationPortuguese.doc&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK. Accessed in: 28 fev. 2023.

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multilateral framework on the subject, especially the UNESCO Convention of 1970, require that we complain and complaints are made through diplomatic channels. These listed points allow us to reflect on the level of improvisation that we have in the subject, especially in the participation of the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which can impute its obligations to a smaller institution such as IPHAN. With regard to the United Nations, a central point is to take into account the lack of a formalized standardized operating procedure, which generally specifies the steps to be followed by institutions, which would be a key point to avoid improvisation and unjustified compliance with obligations between them. Thus, as a real effect of this new decolonial vision, we would have a new topic on the agenda of most state institutions, as a central object of institutional learning for the construction of procedures that optimize their coordination in order to protect the indigenous populations historically destroyed by colonialism in Brazil.

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Culturais, Paris, 12–14 de novembro de 1970 - UNESCO Digital Library. Accessed in: 28 fev. 2023 UNESCO, Convention (1995) Available in: UNESCO. General conference; 28th; Declaração de princípios sobre a tolerância; 1995 (oas.org). Accessed 28 Feb 2023 UNESCO, Convention (2007) Available in: Convenção sobre a Proteção e Promoção da Diversidade das Expressões Culturais: texto oficial ratificado pelo Brasil por meio do Decreto Legislativo 485/2006 - UNESCO Digital Library. Accessed 28 Feb 2023 Velho G, Viveiros de Castro E (1978) O conceito de Cultura e o estudo das sociedades complexas: uma perspectiva antropológica. Artefato, ano I, nº I, Rio de Janeiro Vrdoljak F (2008) Reparations for cultural loss. Retrieved from http://works.bepress.com/ana_fil ipa_vrdoljak/1. Accessed 30 Oct 2022 Vrdoljak F (2011) Restitution of cultural properties trafficked during colonization: a human rights perspective. Retrieved from http://works.bepress.com/ana_filipa_vrdoljak/22. Accessed 30 Oct 2022

Nathan Assunção Agostinho Federal University of Juiz de Fora. Department of Social Sciences. Member of the Heritage and International Relations Research Group - CNPq. Researcher at the Cultural Heritage Laboratory (LAPA), working on the Sociology of Culture with an emphasis on Heritage and Memory.

Repatriation of Cultural Heritage and Their Museographic Use from a Decolonial Perspective Kathia Maurtua Espinoza and Rodrigo Christofoletti

Abstract The aim of this article is to discuss the museographic use of recovered cultural heritage through demands for restitution and repatriation from a decolonial perspective, which questions the immediate association of these demands with the idea of historical reparation, in view of the return of the material in dispute. Although during the demand process return and, in some cases, during its subsequent museographic use, behaviors are observed that question the ability of the original community to take care of their own cultural heritage. In this order of ideas, we will address the museographic, physical, and virtual exhibition of recovered cultural heritage and their potential to be used in education and raising awareness about the importance of maintaining cultural heritage within its context or place of origin for study and use by people whose history and identity would be directly linked to these objects. In this sense, the recovered material becomes the object of protest against the illicit trafficking of cultural goods and colonialist relations between states. But what are the colonialist practices around the demands for restitution and repatriation of cultural heritage? In this article, this question will be addressed from the analysis of two cases: (1) the analysis of the demand for the return of the more than 40,000 pieces of archaeological heritage of Machu Picchu that were in the possession of Yale University and (2) the Peruvian permanent exhibition called Heritage recovered: assets of our cultural identity. Keywords Postcolonial · Decolonial · restitution · Repatriation of cultural objects · Exhibition spaces

K. M. Espinoza (B) Graduate Program History, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] R. Christofoletti Cultural Heritage, Department of History, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_7

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1 Introduction Dicen que ya no sabemos nada, que somos el atraso, que nos han de cambiar la cabeza por otra mejor [They say that we no longer know anything, that we are the backward, that they have to change our minds for a better one] (José María Arguedas 1972)

Arguedas,1 one of the most important detractors of colonialism in Peru, dedicated his life to safeguarding, explaining, and trying to make everyone understand the importance of indigenous cultures in Peru. The author’s interest in indigenous cultures is the result of his earliest experiences since as a child he was welcomed and cared for by his family’s indigenous servants, this fortuitous event2 marked the author’s life as an artist and academic. In an interview (Arequipa 1965), Arguedas declared that two things remained in his nature from this experience: “the tenderness and boundless love of the indigenous people, the love they have for each other and for nature […], and the hatred they had for those who almost unconsciously and as if by a kind of supreme mandate made them suffer”. In this way, Arguedas, welcomed by indigenous social groups, experienced both their cultures and the mistreatment they suffered. In that sense, the lines of his authorship that begin the present work, despite having been written more than half a century ago, reflect a current problem: the presence of colonialist thought in Peru and how it detracted from the indigenous culture that the author defended until his death. Aware of the importance of evidencing the continuities of colonialist thought in Peru, Arguedas, identified with the Andean culture, when he wrote “Dicen que ya no sabemos nada”, referring to the contempt suffered by the indigenous people despite the fact that, as he points out: “Ten thousand years ago he exercises his intelligence and his ability to dominate nature, to explain the origin of the world and all its particular aspects, to seek better forms of coexistence” (Arguedas 2001, pp. 13–14, author translation). Thus, continue: “Dicen […] que somos el atraso, que nos han de cambiar la cabeza por otra mejor”. Certainly, the author knew the ways in which colonialist thought perpetuated the invention of irrationality innate to colonized peoples, as well as the idea of progress as an 1

Arguedas was a prolific writer of novels, short stories, and poems, as well as ethnological, folkloric, and anthropological works. He was also a musician. Throughout his professional life, he worked as General Curator of Folklore, director of the Ministry of Culture; in 1948 he recorded the first record of Andean music and introduced Andean art to theaters; he also worked as director of the Institute of Ethnological Studies and director of the American Folklore magazine, among others. In 1963 he was appointed director of the House of Culture of Peru and one year after he published the emblematic book “Todas las Sangres”. 2 In an interview (1965) Arguedas claimed to be the result of his stepmother’s contempt for him and for the indigenous since this contempt was the reason why, despite being a member of a wealthy family, he was welcomed by the indigenous servants of the family who took care of him. As an anecdote, he tells that he was happy, so happy, that “if his stepmother had known, surely, she would have taken me to his side to torment me”. It was in this context that Arguedas learned Quechua, which would allow him to tour Peru collecting folkloric material.

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exclusive reflection of the changes in the metropolises. Because these same beliefs were used to discredit his work on indigenous knowledge and Eurocentric thought, accusing him of not being on par with current times, these criticisms covered up the traditional irrationality and passion attributed to the subjugated peoples. In one line, Arguedas explains how the colonialist thought “was established in Latin America, and similarly in the African continent, through what Santos would call the greatest lack of respect suffered by Latin Americans and Africans on the part of the metropolises: “it refers to the adulteration - not to say plain and simple denial - of their character as men and rational beings” (Santos 2013, p. 140); a fact uncomfortable even in current times. However, for Santos (2013) it is essential that the history of colonization in Latin America and the African continent is made visible to build a dialogue between these spaces that subverts the traditional order of the flow of information from the metropolises to their colonies so that better ways are found for the recognition of their philosophical traditions.

2 Heritage, Decolonization, and Restitution Returning to “assert” indigenous and African worldviews, as proposed by decolonial studies, confronts these beliefs that refuse to recognize them in their complexity. In this sense, Fanon (2002[1961]) points out that the path to decolonization is to return to the “settler” the rationality that has been denied. However, this path is diverse because decolonization is a concept that has gone like the concept of cultural heritage expanding its limits to reach different areas of social life: Over time, the meaning of the concept has expanded beyond these particular decolonisation processes, and now refers to a variety of different ways in which coloniality and hierarchical relations of power that characterize the present world order societies might be undone and replaced in different spheres of contemporary life, including education, media, economy and political systems, as well as science and academic knowledge (see e.g., Laako 2016). (Seppala et al. 2021, p. 17)

Likewise, this concept is in constant transformation since the thought it faces, too, will adopt new forms to perpetuate itself. With this in mind, we observe how the problems inherent in cultural heritage have grown in the light of the postcolonial and de(s)colonial theories.3 An example of the above statement is the changes in the division between tangible and intangible cultural heritage of Eurocentric origin that at first focused on the monumentality of cultural heritages and then amended this first segregating approach by progressively including less monumental cultural heritages until the extension of the concept of cultural heritage allowed the recognition of cultural practices understood as non-material, the same ones that gained more value, within this scheme, with the beginning of this century. 3

These concepts have been brought together not because they are mistakenly considered equal but rather because of that coincide in confronting the same hegemonic thought call it this colonialcolonialist-Eurocentric-modern.

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Another example, in the field of heritage studies, is the demands for restitution and repatriation of cultural property since they are actions that, in addition to confronting the problem of illicit trafficking in cultural objects, seek to reconcile the conflicting memories of social groups that suffered the loss of their cultural heritage subordinated by colonialist thought. In this regard, it should be recorded that not all recovered objects can be considered as trafficked, which depends on clarity in each case, so that repatriation, unlike restitution, involves situations, which cannot be easily defined as illicit. Explained by Rolim: “The term restitution is understood as the return to the place of origin of goods that have been stolen. Repatriation involves situations that are not easily defined as unlawful” (Christofoletti as cited in Queiroz 2020, p. 83); likewise, Christofoletti notes that: “requests for repatriation are based on international treaties, the majority instituted from the 1970s” (idem). For his part, Melo said that “the demands of repatriation involve assets that will allow to re-establish outstanding spiritual issues” (Melo as cited in Queiroz 2020, p. 82). Taking these differences into consideration, although we cannot measure the exact scale, we know that the illicit trade has devastating consequences to individuals, communities, and cultural heritage in the fight against this illicit act, and conventional measures for the protection of historical, artistic, and cultural heritage have proved insufficient, as reported by the international agencies responsible for its administration such as UNESCO and Interpol. In this context, we believe that the assimilation of the international guidelines created since the 1970s by UNESCO and the measures of national agencies, despite representing important advances in preventive and legislative matters, should be complemented by others that address the problem from new vectors. In our view, integrating into the museographic narrative of cultural heritage, recovered through the demands for restitution and repatriation, the history of the dispute over its return, from an approach that transgresses the colonialist order, is part of these new vectors in the fight against this type of trafficking and, guarantees, to some extent, the aim of making these demands true examples of historical reparation. But not because of the exclusive fact of its recovery, because that process is not free to continue justifying those relations, both past and present, but rather because of the integration of the history of its recovery from a postcolonial–decolonial perspective that evidences the power relations and unequal narratives that originated its loss. In this order of ideas, we will address the museographic exhibition, physical and virtual, of cultural assets recovered through these demands. Thus, these exhibition spaces invite us to think about experiments of museums whose commitments in the fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural objects go beyond the exhibition, since their own composition depends on the success of their actions for the recovery of mostly trafficked objects. In the same way, we consider that these potential museums, physical or virtual exhibitions, composed of these for recovered cultural objects allow us to question the colonialist relations that are maintained in the field of culture and its management between colonized countries and their colonizers, as well as those that have differences related to economic, political, and social power. In this sense,

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the recovered material becomes an object of protest the illicit trafficking of cultural objects and colonialist relations between countries.

3 Why Should Demands for Restitution and Repatriation of Cultural Property Be the Subject of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies? In our opinion, the hegemonic patrimonial discourse,4 more specifically the actions that it encompasses as tools of historical reparation, must be subjected to the criticism that postcolonial theory makes of hegemonic epistemology and, at the same time, in the light of decolonial studies and their search for of new ways of dealing with the survival of Eurocentric thought, that is, the belief: “consider European culture as superior to all others” (Arguedas 2001, p. 7). We also believe that this perspective of study should have special relevance in contexts such as Latin America, which has a colonial past with consequences that affect, to this day, the lives of the various social groups that comprise it. Starting from the postcolonial and decolonial critique of the way in which these processes of dispute and return are developed, highlighting these issues through the incorporation of a museographic narrative constituted with the intention of evidencing the continuities of colonialist logic. Why, when we observe the singularities of the problems addressed in this article, we perceive that although we intend to make the demands for restitution and repatriation of cultural property true examples of historical reparation, we know that this goal is only achievable in retrospect. Starting from the postcolonial and decolonial critique of the way in which these processes of dispute and return are developed, highlighting these issues through the incorporation of a museographic narrative constituted with the intention of evidencing the continuities of colonialist logic. Because the recovery of the cultural property in dispute is not in itself sufficient to be considered an action that repairs the memories affected by its loss. This work will certainly benefit from critiques of Western power and knowledge of postcolonial theory. However, at the same time, this new use of the cultural object focused on benefiting, through historical reparation, the plundered peoples who fit within the diversity of paths proposed by the decolonial theory5 to face the hegemonic discourse because: “While postcolonial theory struggles against “epistemic coloniality”, critiquing Eurocentric knowledge production based on European tradition and experiences” (Seppala et al. 2021, p. 17), decolonial theory will seek both the elimination of forms of colonial domination and their replacement by others that are not subject to this system of thought. The objective of constructing free (or relatively 4

We refer to the paradigm that dictates the guidelines on how to manage cultural heritage from international and state administrations. 5 To fit within this theory, the new museographic narrative must be aimed at making visible and benefiting the participation of the producer-heir peoples of the cultural property in the history of its discovery, loss and return. Contrary to how it has been done.

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free) paths of logics that respond to the old order exercised by the metropolises over subordinate spaces is being that this order and its continuities come to be the object of questioning of both postcolonial and decolonial theory despite their differences. But what is the issue? As we mentioned above, we observe that during the processes of restitution and repatriation of cultural objects that proliferated during the last decades, and that in the south of the American continent had the Peruvian government as the protagonist, the return of cultural heritage was celebrated with speeches that exalted the power of these actions as historical reparation for the looted nations, and even for the social groups that are/were immediate heirs of these traditions. However, at the same time, the expressions of gratitude for the "shelter" despite being forced in emblematic repatriation cases due to their size, antiquity, and international importance, as we will analyze later, come to contradict these attempts to reconcile the memories, the lives, affected by the experience of colonization. The approval of the forced and subaltern tutelage of cultural heritage of Latin American states by their official spokespersons highlights the “new” faces that colonial thought adopts to remain in force in a context where these ideas should be rejected since they do not agree with what is intended to be achieved with the return of cultural property through its defenders who “based their premises on ethical precepts and argue that colonial thought must be definitively overcome” (Christofoletti 2021, p. 231). Meanwhile, in other cases, as Christofoletti points out: “the return of the work does not always cause a commotion or retain greater significance in the countries and/or cultures that produced it, sometimes falling even into the limbo of oblivion and even becoming inaccessible to the public” (2021, p. 228). So, if the success of these lawsuits is irrelevant or insufficient since, in this process, the plaintiff state and its defendant counterpart adopt colonialist positions, how can we ensure that in effect the success of these demands is synonymous with historical reparation? Before answering this question, we will go on to explain from the analysis of the demand for the return of the more than 40,000 pieces of archaeological heritage of Machu Picchu that was in the possession of Yale University in the USA and how the discourses were constructed in defense of the possession of foreign cultural heritage by the defendant countries and the arguments for their return to the country of origin.

4 Dispute and Return of Archaeological Heritage of Machu Picchu Three factors explain much of the danger of loss suffered by cultural objects in Peru, being these, the ideological subordination product of colonialist thought that detracted from the importance for the nation of the indigenous presence and its cultural expressions, the scarcity of economic resources for its protection and the magnitude of this legacy. It should be mentioned that in Peru there are 5000 documented archaeological sites (National Center for Cultural Information 2001) although a total of 13,000 are counted according to a press release of the Ministry of

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Culture. Unfortunately, the inscription of archaeological sites in the national inventory does not guarantee their preservation or the cessation of illegal excavations at these sites. Therefore, the vast archaeological heritage, which still rests under Peruvian soil, is in danger of loss, especially due to this activity. The act of illegally excavating archaeological sites in Peru is called huaquear; however, this activity was not always illegal. During the colonial era, the huaqueo allowed the Spanish crown to collect taxes by regulating the practice through the “concept of ownership of the deposits, treasures and huacas established by the Spanish Crown in order to perceive the fifth real that was the tax linked entirely to mining activity” (Arista 2012, p. 14). In this way, the search for the treasure of the “ancients” was legitimized the creation of companies for this purpose and the programmed distribution of the future benefits that they generated. With the proclamation of independence in Peru, the first national legislation aimed at protecting archaeological objects and sites emerged through Decree No. 89 of April 2, 1822, “However, ten years after its promulgation the requests for excavation of huacas were identical to those registered during the colonial period” (Maurtua 2020, p. 77). This was followed by the legislations of 1840, 1893, and 1911 that aimed to protect the Peruvian cultural heritage and that, according to Emilio Gutiérrez de Quintanilla, former director of the National Museum (1912–1921), were also inefficient in containing the predation of the huacas. So, the huaqueo continued to be a common activity among individuals belonging to various economic and ethnic groups, surviving the colonial period, despite the new national and international legislations of modern states. As is to be expected, the magnitude of Peru’s tangible cultural heritage has made the country the target of a systematic looting, which is inaugurated with the European presence in the region and survives to this day. For this reason, Peru, as well as other “object-rich” countries on the other side of the Atlantic, such as Italy and Greece, in the last fifty years committed themselves, in different ways, to the fight against illicit trafficking of cultural objects. One of these was the ratification of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (UNESCO 1970), to which Peru subscribed in 1979 and the other countries mentioned in 1981. In contrast to the states historically considered as “recipient countries” of illicit trafficking in cultural objects such as France (1997), Japan (2002), the UK (2002) and Germany (2007), whose accession began in the late nineties and even reached the first decade of this century. International commitments of this nature allowed demands for repatriation and restitution of cultural heritage to become more relevant. In this scenario, Peru has become one of the main applicants and beneficiaries, within which the repatriation of the more than 40,000 pieces of archaeological heritage of Machu Picchu that were in the possession of Yale University represents one of its most memorable achievements. This, despite the subaltern behaviors exercised by official representatives of the Peruvian government during the hundred years that this process lasted. The most famous expedition in the history of Cusco was led by Yale University professor Hiram Bingham, in 1911, who made known to the Western world the existence of Machu Picchu; in July of the same year, the American expedition was

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guided to the archaeological zone of Machu Picchu where a total of 43,332 Inca archaeological pieces were stolen. While it is true that the Yale Commission received special treatment under the concept of “international etiquette” by the government of President Billinghurst who gave it extraordinary permits according to Gutiérrez (1921), in his report number 62 to the Minister of State in the Office of Instruction, he reports that said permitor expired on December 31, 1912, so the material “exported” in 1914 and 1915 was stolen without any authorization making illegal the excavations “in Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu, Huispang, Paucarcancha, Patallacta, Torontoi, Huata, Huarocondo and other places in the department of Cuzco, […] which produced the commission’s shipment of seventy and four drawers taken to North America” (Gutiérrez 1921, p. 213). Dissatisfied with the “export” of this archaeological material, Gutiérrez raises his voice of protest, arguing that: “the already existing legislations, although deficient, should have been sufficient to prevent the “export” of the 74 boxes that contained the archaeological remains extracted from Machu Picchu by the members of the Yale Commission.” (Maurtua 2020, p. 78). Denouncing, in addition, other illicit acts: “It seems, then, that the Expedition organized by Yale University toured the department of Cuzco, in demand of Peruvian antiquities, disregarding national sovereignty” (Gutiérrez 1921, p. 213). For Gutiérrez, the actions of Bingham and his commission were comparable to those of Cortés and Pizarro, who: “scrutinized the States of Moctezuma and Atahualpa, in the name of the relijión and of the treasury of Carlos V. No plausible end justifies, nor is it honest, the procedure, if Peru is not today a more monstrous asset than in Inca times” (1921, p. 282). Questioning, even, the very construction of the Peruvian state detracting from the Inca administration, for Gutiérrez, the loss of this archaeological heritage was equal to the loss of the sovereignty of the Peruvian nation. Likewise, there are journalistic records of the disagreement of representatives of Cusco society before the excavations carried out by the members of the Yale Commission in one of these reads: “several individuals denounce serious facts practiced scientific commission […] Accuse him of carrying out excavations in the Ollantaitambo area by exporting numerous archaeological objects from Cuzco” (AGN, Telegram 1915). In addition, within the framework of its activities, the Commission was accused of an alleged illegal purchase of Peruvian, archaeological and colonial cultural heritage in the south of the national territory: “This shipment was not the only one if the news received is reliable. Commander D. Victor Valera informed me in January 1916 that numerous herds of donkeys were at the service of the Scientific Commission for the clandestine transport of another cargo” (Gutiérrez 1921, pp. 213–214). Faced with this situation, Gutiérrez continues to ask representatives of the Peruvian State to stop the activities of the Yale Commission and to question the “export” of the archaeological material extracted from Machu Picchu. Arguing that the Commission seemed to consider the Peruvian State as incapable of taking care of its cultural heritage and that for this reason they decided to take them away: “[…] unless, judging

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us incapable of preserving and defending our scientific treasures, the monuments of our history, and the titles of our origin, it is resolved in a foreign land, to protect them, taking them away by virtue of a new right, superior to ours” (Gutiérrez 1921, p. 289). Gutiérrez was also responsible for inventorying the material “exported” by Yale University. An inventory that despite being hasty would be almost a century later a fundamental piece for the accounting of the goods that were returned by the house of studies. On the occasion, Gutiérrez wrote: “I will be allowed to deplore the strength that has been made to me, to review and report in a few hours, when it was necessary to open seventy-four drawers, to contemplate six hundred and twenty-six aspects of its contents” (Gutiérrez 1921, p. 284). After the loss of the material sent to Yale, the Peruvian State requested on several occasions its return, and in a news item from 1982 we found the following statement as a reference to this dispute: “The Americans allege that what was “exported” by Bingham was done with the consent of the Government of Peru and within the law” (El Comercio 1982, author translation). The same argument that Gutiérrez had denying before, during, and immediately after the departure of the archaeological material. At the beginning of the new century, in 2006, the US press expressed its dissatisfaction with the demand for the repatriation of this material imposed by the Peruvian government, insinuating the existence of an uncollaborative and opportunistic behavior. Because the demands coincided with an exhibition, organized by Yale, of the disputed material that had gained great relevance. By any conventional measure, Yale’s exhibition about Machu Picchu would seem a windfall for Peru. As one of the most ambitious shows about the Inca ever presented in the United States, drawing over a million visitors while traveling to half a dozen cities and back again, it has riveted eyes on Peru’s leading tourist attraction. Yet instead of cementing an international partnership, the exhibition, which returned to the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale in September, has brought a low ebb in the university’s relations with Peru […] As the first indigenous Peruvian to hold the office, Alejandro Toledo has saluted the country’s Inca heritage […] “The irony is that for years the collection was just left in cardboard boxes,” said Hugh Thomson, a British explorer who has written about the early-20th-century Yale expeditions to Machu Picchu. “It’s only when they rather conscientiously dusted it off and launched this rather impressive exhibition that the whole issue has surfaced again.” (Eakin 2006, para 1)

They also charged that Peru’s then-president, Alejandro Toledo, was using that controversy with political intentions (Eakin 2006). A year later, Yale spokesmen would support the possession of the archaeological pieces with arguments that appealed to the conditions for their protection, in the same way that it was pointed out by Gutiérrez, even demanding that the Peruvian government creates a museum and, in addition, that it can be accompanied by a graphic museum narrative that exalted the Bingham expeditions. In 2008, when it did not find a positive response from Yale University, the government ceased talks and filed a lawsuit at the court of Columbia, USA, which was referred to the Connecticut Court (Andina 2010). Two years later, through an agreement and in the face of international pressure, Yale promised to return (until the end

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of 2012) the material “exported” by the Yale Commission. The last batch of 35,000 pieces, approximately 80% of the total, was returned to Peru just one month before the expiration of the maximum term of the agreement. This same year the Peruvian president thanks Yale University for having preserved “these parts and pieces that would otherwise have been scattered in private collections around the world or perhaps would have disappeared” (El País 2010, author translation). The museum that exhibits the memory of the Yale University professor’s expeditions exists. This happens according to Frantz Fanon because the colonial world is tailored to the figures that justify its existence a: “World divided into compartments, Manichean, immobile, world of statues: the statue of the general who has made the conquest, the statue of the engineer who has built the bridge. Self-confident world […]” (1965, p. 30). In the same way, Lefebvre points out that: “The monument is essentially repressive. It is the home of an institution (the Church, the State, the University). If it organizes around itself a space, it is to colonize it and oppress it. The great monuments were erected to the glory of the conquerors, of the powerful” (2008, p. 32). Therefore, it is not surprising that the return of the archaeological heritage of Machu Picchu by Yale University is conditioned to the creation of an exhibition space (see Fig. 1) that exalted the figure of its professor Hiram Bingham as the scientific discoverer of this place: Yale said it would return about 380 “museum-quality” pieces when Peru finished a museum to house them, as well as part of the “research collection.” In addition, Yale would finance at least three years of academic exchange and help curate a traveling exposition on the expeditions that made Machu Picchu famous. From the perspective of science, the compromise seems a good one, and should be praised. (Heaney 2007)

In our opinion, this action represents an attempt to give greater importance to the figure of the foreign explorer so that he becomes the protagonist of the story. Thus, this “settler” in the words of Fanon seeks to be the one who “makes history” and, at the same time, to be “permanent cause”, constituting itself as an entity without which nothing happens in a story where there are no protagonists among the local inhabitants, who become silent guides of the colonialist adventure. This demand by Yale University representatives, which was accepted by the Peruvian government, is incongruous with the attempt to see these demands as tools to repair memories and lives affected by colonialist behavior. Thus, the exhibition of the archaeological material that was returned by Yale University is a means to disseminate the story of the Yale professor and his commission during the trips in which the archaeological material that Yale University and the Peruvian government disputed for a century was gathered. And, it says nothing or almost nothing about the participation of the people from the place in its discovery. So, it can be considered that this has not been returned to the people of Cusco but rather rests in a space dedicated to the memory of the settler and is testimony to his “adventure” in those lands.

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Fig. 1 Representation of the work by the Yale Commission. Photo taken by the author in 2021

5 About the Permanent Exhibition “Recovered Heritage: Assets of Our Peruvian Identity” This exhibition is virtual in nature and aims to make known to the public how cultural heritage is recovered and how citizens can contribute to its dissemination and protection. The tour begins by exposing, through educational videos, what is cultural heritage, its classification and nature, and then presents the recovered material that makes up the collection through 3D photographs of it. In the words of the official body, about this virtual exhibition: The Ministry of Culture expresses its satisfaction with the crystallization of this innovative initiative in favor of the valorization of our Cultural Heritage, which is conceived in accordance and harmony with the actions implemented in the face of the Bicentennial, and contributes decisively to the strengthening of our identity, in the face of the new millennium of our republican era. (Ministry of Culture 2021)

The tour begins by presenting the Plaque or Sun of Echenique (900 B.C.– 200 B.C.), in the infographic presented by the Ministry of Culture of Peru, gives an account of the importance of the good for the indigenous communities of Cusco and for Peru as a whole; reports on the origin, the possible purposes of the good and then exposes the chronology of the route of the good since its first registration, in 1833, looting in the same year, “acquisition” by the Smithsonian Institution in 1913,

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from there it passes to 2011 when “The Ministry of Culture takes cognizance of the case” almost a century later, six years later said ministry initiates the claim process, through sessions held between 2020 and 2021, until its return in this last year. After exposing this case considered as a “repatriation” through statements by members of the Ministry of Culture, he continues to explain what the illicit trafficking of cultural objects is, describes the recovery actions at the international level, explains the prevention actions at the national level, presents a gallery of eight goods “repatriated” between 2018 and 2021 abroad, and also encourages citizens to denounce the trafficking of cultural goods. The exhibition continues with the case of a colonial document of the eighteenth century recovered from an auction by eBay in Spain, describing chronologically the actions undertaken from the alert in 2019 until its recovery in 2020. It also announces the case of the restitution of five historical-artistic cultural assets to the Peruvian embassy in Brazil, which took place between 2019 and 2020. In addition, it explains about the process of repatriation of cultural property and the international and bilateral agreements among which the agreement of understanding with the USA that sponsors the recovery of 2882 cultural goods since 2016 stands out. It also presents the case of the return of cultural assets donated to the Museum of Anthropology “Phoebes A. Hearst” of the University of Berkeley between 1993 and 1998, whose return was carried out between 2019 and 2020. Another case is presented, title “Gothenburg: millenary fabrics returned to Peru”, in this story appears in 1935 the Swedish Consul called Sven Karell who donated anonymously and “irregularly” textile pieces to the Ethnographic Department of the Museum of World Cultures of Gothenburg in Sweden, then, in 2008 the museum provided information on the origin of the donation which led in 2014 to an interinstitutional agreement that sponsored the delivery on three dates of 89 lots, between 2014 and 2021. Finally, the use of interactive resources that reinforce the information is presented. The cultural objects that make up this permanent exhibition corroborate the recent rise of these demands and represent Peru as one of its most important beneficiaries. In addition, they demonstrate how the incorporation of the route of the object throughout its history until its return can be used as a pedagogical strategy in the fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural property. However, in our view the museographic narrative lacks an approach that critically addresses the behavior of the agencies involved in these lawsuits; on the contrary, it has an orientation that highlights the latest concordances that led to the recovery of the good. In that sense, Diane Lima points out the importance of “a curatorial practice from a decolony perspective” being that for the author this practice in perspective: […] poses as a challenge to combat the devaluation, denial and concealment of the contributions of other knowledge and epistemologies, while promoting the production of artistic and cultural knowledge fundamental to guarantee human dignity. (Lima 2018, p. 247)

Indeed, the path toward the decolonization of knowledge in the field of arts and culture must confront the concealment and historical contempt suffered by both nonWestern epistemologies and their holders, the subalternized peoples. In this sense,

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the search for the historical reparation of these peoples that guarantees their human dignity through museographic narratives that transgress the ancient, imposed truths, making visible the uncomfortable continuity of the hegemonic domination schemes, comes to demonstrate the sovereignty of the claimant states.

6 How to Make Demands for the Return of Cultural Heritage of Historical Reparation? A little more than half a century ago, Eduardo Galeano in his work “The Open Veins of Latin America” set out to tell the “story of looting and at the same time tell how the mechanisms of dispossession work” (1971, p. 22, author translation) in the region. A proposal that in our view must be constantly updated and that would be incomplete if it did not consider the history of the looting and destruction of Latin American cultural heritage. Therefore, in this “update” the key to making the demands for the return of cultural heritage tools of historical reparation. To this end, it is necessary to critically analyze the behavior of the actors involved in the process of dispute and return of cultural heritage. In this way, cultural heritage scholars will highlight subaltern behaviors in representatives of national administrations. National administrations that make these questions a self-criticism could potentially strengthen the idea of nation in its role as guardian of the diverse cultural heritage that composes it. This change in the idea of nation from its strengthening or this “new nation”, in terms of Fanon, which reveals itself to colonialist subjugation can put: “end to the history of colonization, to the history of pillage, to make exist the history of the nation, the history of decolonization” (1965, p. 30, author translation). Recent studies and experiences point to the importance of this integration seen as historical reparation. In this sense, it is worth mentioning Christofoletti’s work “Illicit Trafficking in Cultural Goods and Repatriation as Historical Reparation” (among others) in which it addresses the need for more effective legislation and interinstitutional “new mechanisms”, and repatriation/return seen as “a flag that can make colonizing countries serious examples of historical valorization and broad understanding of the concept of sovereignty of the colonized peoples.” (2017, p. 128). Another example of the importance of the proposed integration is the exhibition “Il corpo del reato” of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, in which it was exposed asset material recovered in the 1960s, making visible the consequences of illicit trafficking in Cultural Goods, also demonstrating the role of the State as guardian of its patrimony when disseminating the history of these disputes. Thus, we consider that state capable of exposing its cultural heritage without hiding the history of its looting and recovery breaks with the paternalistic subjugation that justifies the possession of foreign cultural heritage, the same that represents Latin American States as unable to take care of their cultural assets, also goes against the creation of more exhibitions places dedicated to the memory of figures that diminish the importance of the

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history of these assets to the immediate heirs of the recovered cultural heritage, a fact that prevents making these demands real examples of historical reparation. In this way, the “updated” incorporation of these stories—of looting, subalternization and return—must accompany the exhibition of the good and is as important as the information about its antiquity or origin. Thus, the cultural heritage recovered, gathered, and exposed, permanently or temporarily, will not go unnoticed and may be transformed into objects of denunciation against the continuity of colonialist practices. The exhibition of the material cultural heritage of the original civilizations in Latin America recovered through these demands and exposed in the light of postcolonial and colonial studies can be seen as symbols of protest the illicit trafficking of cultural objects. This history should not be indifferent to dialogue with social groups that have a greater identification with the recovered assets. Listening to what these in their capacity as immediate heirs have to say is fundamental to continue breaking with colonialist logics that start from the state itself when recovering the disputed heritage. It is also material for awareness-raising and education actions on the importance of maintaining cultural property within its context or place of origin for its study and use by people whose history and identity are directly linked and how citizens can collaborate through their complaints in the fight against illicit trafficking of cultural property.

7 Conclusion Cultural heritage has seen its objects of study grown from the approaches that seek to highlight or change orders that respond to the old systems of colonial domination. Within these, the restitution and repatriation of cultural heritage and the intention to repair the memories—lives—in conflict by this segregating thought are possible even though these are still immersed in colonialist logics. Actions such as the one proposed in this article are part of the decolonial creative thought that, together with the postcolonial theory, benefits, in our view, the analysis of the contexts for the creation of new actions that face the new scenarios that have arisen from the advances and setbacks in the struggle for the decolonization of the thought of the Latin American peoples. Specifically, the integration of the history, updated, of the looting-lost within the colonialist scheme of the cultural property to it, after its recovery represents for national and international agents concerned with opening paths toward the decolonization of cultural heritage a reminder of the need for its constant revision because both this and the colonialist order are changing. In Peru, these demands incresed given in part to the immense archaeological wealth that rests or rests under its soil; however, the success of these demands does not imply an imminent historical reparation of the plundered peoples. As seen in the case of Peru v. Yale, the construction of the defense arguments and even the statements during the delivery of the goods in dispute can be samples of behaviors that prove

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the permanence of colonialist ideas such as the need for foreign tutelage, as well as the conditions established for their return. For its part, the virtual and permanent exhibition called: “Recovered Heritage: Assets of our Identity” shows us how to expose this recovered heritage without potentially restricting its access-use to the communities that should be the immediate beneficiaries of recovery-existence, from the creation of a virtual exhibition and permanent aimed at publicizing the existence of trafficking in cultural property, the measures adopted to contain it, and inviting the population to be part of this struggle; however, these narratives still lack clarity in describing events from an approach that questions the ways in which these power relations influence their course. The incorporation of this critical element in the history of this particular type of cultural asset is fundamental to continue with the progress in the creation of paths toward the decolonization of culture in Peru.

References Arguedas JM (1965) Primer Encuentro de Narradores Peruanos. Arequipa. YouTube. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=T4M9K32ejyo Arguedas JM (ed) (1972) Katatay y otros poemas huc Jayllicunapas. INC, Lima Arguedas JM (2001) Working paper. Lima. https://repositorio.cultura.gob.pe/handle/CULTURA/ 234 Arista A (2012) La protección del patrimonio cultural: el caso peruano. Derechos culturales. Cuadernos Electrónicos, (8):14–37. https://pradpi.es/cuaderno-electronico-8-2012/ Andina (2010, 19 November) Universidad de Yale acordó devolver al Perú los bienes de Machu Picchu (urgente). https://andina.pe/agencia/noticia-universidad-yale-acordo-devolver-al-perulos-bienes-machu-picchu-urgente-328831.aspx Christofoletti R (2021) Illicit trafficking in cultural assets: a genealogy of the concept and actions in contemporary brazil. In: Lopes da Cunha F, Rabassa J (eds) Festivals and heritage in latin america: interdisciplinary dialogues on dulture, identity and tourism. Springer Cham, pp 217– 238 Eakin H (2006) Inca show pits Yale against Peru, 01 Feb 2006. NYT. https://www.nytimes.com/ 2006/02/01/arts/design/01mach.html El País (2010, November 10) Yale devolverá a Perú más de 46.000 piezas de Machu Pichu. El País. https://elpais.com/cultura/2010/11/20/actualidad/1290207603_850215.html EL COMERCIO (1982) Darán identidad de proveedores de obras de arte del antiguo Perú: lo hará el importador culpable David Bernstein, s/n Fanon F (2002[1961]) Las condenados de la tierra. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City Galeano E (ed) (2004) Las venas abiertas de América Latina. Siglo xxi editores, s.a. de c.v Mexico DF Gutiérrez EQ (1921) Efforts and resistances 1912–1921. Museum typographic workshop, by Ramón Barrenechea, Lima Heaney C (2007) Stealing from the Incas. Berkeley, 7 Oct 2007. NYT. https://www.nytimes.com/ 2007/10/07/opinion/nyregionopinions/07CTheaney.html Laako H (2016) Decolonizing vision on borderlands: the mexican southern borderlands in critical review. Globalizations 13(2) 173–3187. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2015.1076986 Lefebvre HA (eds) (2008) A Revolução Urbana. UFMG Editor, Belo Horizonte Lima D (2018) “Não me aguarde na retina” The importance of curatorial practice in a decolonial perspective of black women. Sur Int J Hum Rts 28. https://sur.conectas.org/en/nao-me-aguardena-retina/

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Maurtua KE (2020) Identity as a new pillar in the construction of smart cities: the case of Cusco and Ouro Preto (1980–2016). The protection of cultural heritage: the Peruvian case. Cultural rights. Dissertation, Federal University of Juiz de Fora. Electronic Notebooks No. 8, pp 14–37 Ministry of Culture (2021) https://www.gob.pe/cultura Queiroz C (2020) Revisitando e expondo o passado 295(07):78–83 The Trade (1982) They will give the identity of suppliers of works of art of ancient Peru: it will be done by the guilty importer David Bernstein, s/n Santos JH (2013) From Latin American to African philosophy. Clues for an intercultural philosophical dialogue. Advanced studies. Santiago de Chile, vol 13, n 13, 18 Mar 2013. Available in: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=4851390. Accessed on 28 Mar 2023 Seppala T, Sarantou M, Miettinen S (2021) Arts-based methods for decolonising participatory research. Routledge, New York UNESCO (1970) The Convention on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property, Paris

Kathia Maurtua Espinoza is a Ph.D. student in History from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) and CAPES fellow. She was program member of The Youth as Researchers (YAR) of UNESCO; She currently participates in the Research Group CNPq Heritage and International Relations, and of the Laboratory of Cultural Heritage (LAPA) linked to the UFJF, and was also a Voluntary Visitor for the Department of Communication and Culture of the Institute of Public Policies and Human Rights-MERCOSUR. Recently, she participated in the research: “Brazilian youth engaged in social reality: perceptions and creative strategies in times of pandemic” for UNESCO as a member of YAR-Brazil. Rodrigo Christofoletti holds a Ph.D. in History from the Fundação Getulio Vargas—CPDOC. Full Professor of Cultural Heritage of the History Department at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), and teaches in the Graduate Program at the same university. He is a researcher at LAPA—UFJF Heritage Laboratory and a collaborator at CITCEM—Center for Transdisciplinary Research, Culture, Space and Memory of the Faculty of Letters of University of Porto (FLUP). He is the leader of the research group CNPq—Heritage and International Relations. He has experience in the area of Political History and Cultural Heritage with an emphasis on Cultural Heritage, working mainly on the following topics: heritage—cultural assets—heritage education, and world heritage.

Restitution of Indigenous Cultural Objects in Latin America NAGPRA as a Model? María Julia Ochoa Jiménez

Abstract In 1990, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was passed in the United States, mainly in response to social and political movements for the repatriation of indigenous peoples’ cultural property, especially human remains and funerary or sacred objects. Thirty years later, NAGPRA has once again come under the spotlight, and the balance remains generally positive. Throughout NAGPRA’s existence, it has been proposed that it be taken as a model beyond the United States, as it has, in fact, influenced, for example, the rules about restitution that were included in the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The chapter critically raises some underlying issues from a Latin American perspective, paying particular attention to the Argentine experience. Keywords NAGPRA · Restitution · Indigenous · Cultural property · Latin America

1 Introduction There is still restitution beyond restitution when it comes to indigenous cultural property. This relates to two pairs of complex arrays of legal issues, in each of which restitution has different but interconnected connotations. Firstly, if international restitution is understood as the return of indigenous cultural objects to states of origin, such restitution does not necessarily imply any answer to questions around restitution to the indigenous groups of origin living in such states. So, beyond international restitution is the question of internal or domestic restitution. Secondly, if restitution is understood as the material or physical return of the objects in question only, without paying attention to the lives of the indigenous group from which they originate, such M. J. Ochoa Jiménez (B) Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, University of Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] School of Political and Juridical Sciences, Loyola University, Seville, Spain © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_8

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restitution does not necessarily answer the question about restitution as a restorative action, which is justified by the negative consequences produced by the nonauthorized, or in any other form questionable dispossession. So, beyond restitution as mere material or physical return is the question of restitution as restoration. The international restitution of indigenous cultural property to the indigenous peoples from whom it originates comprises a wide range of issues. While there seems to be no reason to prevent it from a strictly technical-legal point of view, it involves critical ethical and political questions. These are at the basis of why existing binding instruments of international law do not content any obligation to return cultural property to indigenous peoples.1 But this chapter does not focus on discussions of international restitution of cultural property. Instead, given that steps have been taken to facilitate the international restitution of such property to states of origin (cf. Gerstenblith 2004, 2009; Gordley 2013; Prott 2009; Siehr 1998, 2015; Wantuch-Thole 2015; Wiese 2010),2 this chapter focuses on some issues related to the domestic or internal restitution of indigenous peoples’ cultural property. In particular, it addresses how states respond, or fail to respond, to the restitution needs and claims of indigenous peoples. To this end, this chapter considers one of the most outstanding examples of national legislation on this subject: The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, known as NAGPRA, which was passed on November 16, 1990.3 Thirty years after its adoption, NAGPRA has been reviewed by several authors who add to an already vast literature (cf. Brown and Bruchac 2009; Kuprecht 2012; Musselman 2005; Nafziger 2006; Nash and Colwell 2020; Orona and Esquivido 2020; Rodríguez López 2009; Tünsmeyer 2022). Some assess the balance as favorable, not only because “the legislation has facilitated the return of about 67,000 ancestral human remains, 1.9 million funerary objects, and 15,000 sacred and communally owned objects” (Nash and Colwell 2020, p. 226), but also because “morally and ethically, NAGPRA has induced, if not forced, colonialist institutions, particularly those with long collecting histories, to (re)consider their role in the development of archaeology, anthropology, and even civil society” (Nash and Colwell 2020, p. 26). Thus, though there remain areas to be clarified, NAGPRA is seen as “one of the most important statutes enacted to restore honor to Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians” (Tünsmeyer 2022, p. 251).

1

According to the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, indigenous peoples’ interests on their cultural property may be considered for restitution to the state of origin. 2 See, e.g., national laws of Belgium, Bulgaria, or Germany that include the lex originis-rule, and case law in England: Attorney General of New Zealand v Ortiz (1983) and Iran v Barakat (2007) or in the United States: U.S. v McClain (1989) and U.S. v Schultz (2002). See also the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Export, Import and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects. 3 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Pub. L. 101-601, 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., 104 Stat. 3048.

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Thus, NAGPRA has come to be regarded as a legislative model for the restitution of cultural property4 to indigenous peoples, whether domestic or international, especially in the case of human remains and funerary or sacred objects (Kuprecht 2012; Tünsmeyer 2022; Herman 2021). This chapter deals with some issues that should be considered if NAGPRA is taken as a legislative model for the restitution of cultural property to indigenous peoples within the territory of a state. In doing so, particular attention is paid to the Latin American countries, Argentina being the case that stands out in this context. As far as Latin American countries are concerned, it is crucial to bear in mind that the nation-state plays a preponderant and almost exclusive role in the configuration and application of cultural heritage norms. This supremacy of the nation-state over indigenous peoples, which can be observed both internationally and nationally (Kuprecht 2012; Ochoa Jiménez 2010, 2019), is an expression of new forms of colonialism or neocolonialism (Ochoa Jiménez 2021), which consists of imposing modern forms of understanding the world on indigenous peoples, mediated by legal instruments created and controlled by the state. This idea underlies the discussions around NAGPRA presented in this chapter, as this legislation is a case in point. The manifestations of such neocolonialism in the context of indigenous cultural property restitution can vary widely, although. In Latin America, they are also present, for example, when the rights of indigenous peoples recognized in human rights instruments are used by the Constitutional Court of Colombia to decide that the government should do everything possible to recover the Quimbaya collection that is currently in Spain,5 and at the same time the Court asserts that the collection is “part of the identity and culture of the Colombian nation”.6 Now, such colonial conceptions that are behind the design and application of legal norms are of course also intertwined and accentuated by the socioeconomic fragility and urgency of many situations that these peoples go through (forced displacement, lack of access to basic services, extreme poverty, etc.), which are also related to Latin America’s history. In this context, it is particularly relevant to pay attention to the restorative dimension of the recognition of indigenous peoples’ control over their cultural property, which may imply to have it back when they have been questionably dispossessed of it. 4

Legally speaking, the term “cultural property”, which is widely used, was first included at the international level in the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and is also found in the most important international treaties regarding the international repatriation or restitution of cultural property: the 1970 UNESCO Convention and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention. The legal terminology on this subject can cause some confusion particularly among readers with no legal expertise. The main reason is that legal definitions of “cultural property”, like those of “cultural heritage”, may vary in each specific legal instrument (at the national, regional, or international levels) and in each country or jurisdiction. Thus, it would be extremely difficult and even unnecessary to indicate individually all such definitions or even to attempt to classify them. In this chapter, I use the term “cultural property” to refer in general to objects or artifacts with cultural significance for indigenous peoples; otherwise I will use the terms used in NAGPRA or in the respective legal instrument. 5 Constitutional Court of Colombia. 2017. Decision No. SU-649/17, November 19, 2017. 6 Idem.

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After describing the origins, content, and effects of NAGPRA, I will give a brief overview of cases of restitution of indigenous cultural property, especially human remains, that have taken place in Latin America. This is followed by a critical review of the above points, before concluding with some final remarks that raise some questions that would be worth further discussion.

2 NAGPRA 2.1 Origins and Content The existing context in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s determined the emergence of NAGPRA. Then, the permanence of Native American cultural heritage in museums and scientific institutions was strongly questioned (Nafziger 2006). Criticism appealed both to the need to rectify colonialist injustices and to the image of existing museum collections as reflecting the nation’s new imperial power. This led to the emergence of a “burial rights” movement that argued that it was time for action in the political and legal realm (Nafziger 2006, p. 184). In parallel, a process of consolidating an international framework for the international restitution of cultural property beyond armed conflict began (Nafziger 2006, p. 185). Building on earlier work,7 UNESCO adopted the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Export, Import and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property in 1970, which was accepted by the United States in 1983.8 As was also the case in relation to norms developed in the context of armed conflict, the spirit of the 1970 Convention, as Lixinski (2019, p. 69) says, points to repair “internationally wrongful acts”, one of which being “the harm of colonization and conquest, and the consequent taking of cultural artefacts from colonial areas … that could be remedied in the aftermath of decolonization”. However, what remained in its text in this regard was the obligation of each state vis-à-vis the other state parties “to prohibit the import of cultural property stolen from a museum or a religious or secular public monument or similar institution … provided that such property is documented as appertaining to the inventory of that institution” (art. 7, b). Countries that are rich in cultural property, e.g., Latin American countries, are thus obliged to create inventories of public collections and export authorizations. 7

For example, UNESCO adopted two recommendations: in 1956 on international principles to be applied to archeological excavations and in 1964 on measures to prohibit and prevent the illicit export, import, and transfer of ownership of cultural property. 8 The 1970 UNESCO Convention was accepted by the United States in 1983; nevertheless, it is worth noting that the US Senate “gave its unanimous consent to ratification in 1972, but the United States did not deposit its instrument of ratification until 1983, after enacting the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (‘CPIA’)”; cfr. Patty Gerstenblith (2012), United States of America and Canada Expert Report, Second Meeting of States Parties to the 1970 Convention Paris, 20–21 June 2012, p. 2.

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NAGPRA aimed to replicate that logic domestically and act as a tool to ensure respect for civil rights (Nash and Colwell 2020, p. 226). It sought to protect indigenous human rights, which were threatened, or directly violated, by land dispossession, resettlement, genocide, and assimilationist programs prohibiting traditional ceremonies, and to ensure the informed consent of affected groups (Kuprecht 2012, pp. 44, 45; Nash and Colwell 2020, p. 229). In this sense, “the legislative goal of the act was very clearly restorative” (Tünsmeyer 2022, p. 250). On the other side of the coin, there was a need “to counteract federal and state laws that facilitated the excavation, examination, and destruction of Indian burial grounds, which were situated predominantly on lands taken from tribes by non-Indians” (Carpenter et al. 2009, p. 1062).9 In this sense, NAGPRA establishes general standards for dealing with human remains and sacred objects excavated or discovered on federal tribal lands. In addition, it establishes a primarily procedural solution for their restitution (or repatriation, which is the term used by the law) to Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations (these are also the terms used by the law). In general, NAGPRA favors a relationship with cultural objects based on the notion of “cultural affiliation”. According to Kuprecht (2012), this notion replaces the European concept of ownership developed under private law, emphasizing the cultural dimension of the object, rather than its economic value, and displaces the need to prove ownership of the object or the fact that it was stolen or unlawfully taken. Now, according to NAGPRA’s text, cultural affiliation “means that there is a relationship of shared group identity which can be reasonably traced historically or prehistorically between a present-day Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization and an identifiable earlier group” (§ 3001(2)). That is, cultural affiliation would be the demonstrable relationship between the group claiming restitution and a group that existed in the past and not exactly a relationship of the group to the object. The regulation of the relationship with the object is more direct in the definitions of the different types of cultural property included in § 3001(3). In addition to “human remains”, this section refers to objects that, as part of a culture’s funerary rite or ceremony were placed with individual human remains, either at the time of death or later. These can be “associated funerary objects” (§ 3001(3)(A)) when they have a link to the human remains of an individual and both the object and the human remains are in the possession or control of a federal agency or museum, or “unassociated funerary objects” (§ 3001(3)(B)), when the human remains to which they relate are not in the possession or control of a federal agency or museum. The legislation also embraces ceremonial objects that are necessary for the practice of traditional 9

On the path that led to NAGPRA’s adoption, there were the following legislations: the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, and particularly the 1989 law that created the National Museum of the American Indian as part of the Smithsonian Institution. The latter legislation, which directly influenced the configuration of NAGPRA, established the duty to carry out, in cooperation with indigenous groups, the identification of human remains and funerary objects, as well as to return such objects when they are claimed.

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religions (called “sacred objects”, § 3001(3)(C) and objects of permanent and central historical, traditional, or cultural significance to the Native American group or culture (called “cultural patrimony”, § 3001(3)(D). In each of these definitions, reference is made to the relevance of the object to the Native American culture or group. Thus, in this sense, NAGPRA, in general, has “a language that emphasizes personal relations and interrelations with regard to an object” (Kuprecht 2012, p. 39). Repatriation can be claimed by those who own or control the objects excavated or discovered after its adoption, according to § 3002. Legitimate are communities on the list published annually under the Federally Recognized Indian Tribes List Act of 1994 and Native Hawaiian organizations. In the case of Native American human remains and associated funerary objects, these are owned or controlled by direct descendants. If direct descent cannot be determined, ownership or control will vest in the group on whose tribal lands the objects were discovered. If human remains or objects were not discovered on Native American lands and cultural affiliation cannot be determined, ownership or control rests with the group occupying the area in which the remains or artifacts were discovered or the group having the strongest cultural relationship with those remains or artifacts. Thus, although the law does not set aside the notion of ownership, it links it to the concepts of “cultural affiliation” and “strongest cultural relationship”, which can serve as a basis for filing a restitution claim. As can be seen, the way NAGPRA refers to who can claim repatriation is quite entangling. Not surprisingly, determining who are Native Americans under NAGPRA has been problematic in practice, the “Kennewick man”10 case being the most prominent example in this respect. But what is perhaps the main weakness of NAGPRA in relation to this issue is that it excludes indigenous peoples who have not been federally recognized (Tünsmeyer 2022; Brown and Bruchac 2009). In doing so, NAGPRA goes against international standards, as conditioning repatriation on federal recognition violates indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination and self-identification (Tünsmeyer 2022, p. 249). Therefore, Tünsmeyer (2022, p. 253) points out that prior legal recognition of indigenous peoples as a requirement for claiming restitution should be excluded from any legislative undertaking. In this respect, the definition of “community of origins” in the Guidelines for German Museums Care of Collections from Colonial Contexts seems to be more compatible with international standards: “The term community of origin is understood to be the community in which an object 10

See: Bonnichsen v United States 367 F.3d 864 (2004) United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. In this case, the principal aim of the lawsuit “was to prevent the Corps from repatriating the skeleton [that was discovered on Federal lands near the town of Kennewick in eastern Washington State] to a group of Native Americans … and to allow unfettered scientific access to the bones” (Hutterer 2015, p. 5). The main plaintiffs’ argument was that “contemporary Native Americans could not be shown to be lineal descendants of Kennewick Man, given the age of the remains [approximately 8,400 years BP], and that the remains could, therefore, not be classified as ‘Native American’ in the sense of the NAGPRA statute”. In 2002, a ruling in favor of the scientists found “that lineal descent could not be demonstrated, and that the Kennewick remains could, therefore, not be considered ‘Native American’” (idem, p. 6). Two years later, in 2004, “the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision” (Bandle et al. 2013), and scientific study by the plaintiffs was thus allowed.

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was created or originally used … and/or which views this object as part of its cultural heritage” (German Museums Association 2021, p. 21). Of course, it should not be overlooked that this definition can pose significant challenges in practice. One of the main activities that public institutions—i.e., federal agencies and museums—are required to carry out under NAGPRA is the identification of the cultural objects they house, which requires consultation with tribal government, indigenous religious leaders, or officials of Hawaiian organizations (§ 3003 and § 3004). Consultation or consent is also required, for example, by § 3002 (c) when an object is discovered or when there is an intention to conduct an excavation. This consultation or consent is the most prominent procedural mechanism through which the interests and rights of indigenous groups are supposed to be respected under NAGPRA. Another such mechanism is found in the review committee created by § 3006, to which the above process must be reported. The review committee is also responsible for reviewing repatriation claims (§ 3005). Before repatriation can proceed, the cultural affiliation must be established. In such a case, repatriation “shall be in consultation with the requesting lineal descendant or tribe or organization to determine the place and manner of delivery of such items”, according to § 3005(3).

2.2 Effects Although NAGPRA “has facilitated the return of about 67,000 ancestral human remains, 1.9 million funerary objects, and 15,000 sacred and communally owned objects” (Nash and Colwell 2020, p. 226), this has by no means meant that the institutions have been emptied, as initially feared (Herman 2021, p. 34; Kuprecht 2012, p. 47). But broader implementation of NAGPRA has been difficult. Resources for implementation, in terms of time, money, and people, have been insufficient (Tünsmeyer 2022, p. 252). In addition, the processes incorporated in the legislation are not entirely compatible with spiritual beliefs, which weakens the interest of indigenous groups and organizations. Institutions have benefited the most, because in the collaborative processes indigenous peoples have shared knowledge about the objects that gives them more meaning and, therefore, increases their value (Kuprecht 2012, p. 46). In addition, the colonial power structures embodied in the museums do not seem to have been affected by the repatriations under NAGPRA (Peers cited by Nash and Colwell 2020, p. 231). In this sense, it is possible to question the true impact of NAGPRA in terms of the participation of Native American groups in mainstream activities, in the production of knowledge, or even in gaining economic independence (Kuprecht 2012, p. 47). Orona and Esquivido (2020, p. 50) point out that, despite NAGPRA, “many Tribes continue to ask the question, why are basic human rights not afforded to them?”, and that the law is the result of policies based on indigenous human rights that “are a façade that hinders full repatriation efforts”. However, NAGPRA has also had effects beyond the borders of the United States, and its influence has been identified in the treatment of restitution in the 2007 United

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Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Kuprecht 2012, p. 35). So, for example, article 11.2 refers to this based on indigenous peoples’ free, prior, and informed consent. Additionally, the 2007 United Nations Declaration, like NAGPRA, does not directly use the European notion of ownership, but establishes (art. 12) the right of indigenous peoples “to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains”, while ensuring “the access and/or repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned”. It is also argued that the policies currently being designed and implemented in several European countries have been inspired by NAGPRA (Nash and Colwell 2020, p. 234). These processes—which had a turning point in the Report written by Sarr and Savoy (2018) and indicate that restitution is receiving more attention today than ever before—are generally focused on those objects that were forcibly removed in the exercise of colonial power. This is the case in Austria, France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands with regard to the restitution of objects from former colonies (Nash and Colwell 2020, p. 234). Such approaches may be examples of ways to create a kind of “provisional compromise” (Berman 2020, p. 804) between two law conceptions—that of the state and that of indigenous peoples—rather than a finished or (really) functioning participation mechanism. It is thus difficult to expect that such approaches serve to overcome NAGPRA’s weakness stressed by Orona and Esquivido that I already mentioned. The governments of the European countries mentioned above mainly consider that, in order to know what type of restitution can be carried out, it is crucial to take into account the type of government that exists in the former colony (Wintle 2021). In such restitution approaches it is latent that objects must be returned to their states of origin. This state-centered vision leaves the possibility of participation of local or indigenous groups in the hands of the respective state. In this sense, restitution does not necessarily represent a socially just event, nor is it necessarily a decolonizing process (Wintle 2021). This justifies the need to analyze the issue of restitution of indigenous cultural objects including its internal dimension. Decolonial and postcolonial theories help understand complexities behind the resistance that exist in Latin American countries to return indigenous cultural objects to indigenous groups themselves. To understand the neocolonialism that is behind the hindrances to the internal restitution of indigenous peoples’ cultural property in Latin America, one must certainly keep in mind that the exclusion of indigenous worldviews through legal mechanisms was the result of the introduction in the region of modern legal models of European origin. It is worth noting, however, that the introduction of such legal models and the exclusion of the indigenous cultures they implied do not exactly represent a reproduction or continuation of the legal views developed during the colonial period, although following Quijano (2019, p. 274) it is possible to say that “modernity was colonial from its starting point”. Even though the content of codified legal rules established by Spain for the inhabitants of the American territory it controlled until the nineteenth century differed greatly from the dispossession and exploitation that occurred in reality, such rules

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allowed for some consideration of indigenous worldviews and traditions,11 due to the influence of the Spanish scholasticism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and because of personal law conceptions, the displacement of which by territorial law had already spread throughout Europe since the Peace of Westphalia in the seventeenth century. Legal conceptions based essentially on the uniform creation and administration of state law in the territory of each country (territorial law) were introduced by the republics after independence in the nineteenth century, among other things, because such independence “has been accompanied … by the stagnation and retreat of capital and strengthens the colonial character of social and political domination under formally independent states” (Quijano 2019, p. 275, author translation). Thus, any consideration of indigenous worldviews, for which there was formally a certain room in the colonial legal system, ended up disappearing in the political and legal framework established with the emergence of the republics. Removing the veil that is often placed over this latter fact helps to understand the origin and the basis for the shortcomings of political or legal measures in some Latin American countries to return to indigenous groups the cultural objects of which they had been dispossessed, which is supposedly sought for restorative purposes.

3 Restitution of Indigenous Cultural Objects in Latin America 3.1 A Brief Overview The attitude of states toward the creation of international rules relating to the restitution of cultural property can be observed from two perspectives. The first one refers to the way states control the process of creating these rules. The other perspective points to the wide margin of freedom they have to transpose these rules into their national legal systems. Hence, two major scenarios emerge with regard to the restitution of indigenous peoples’ cultural property. The first scenario is that of international restitution. In this regard, general rules exist in international treaties, such as the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects,12 as well as in non-binding instruments, such as the 2007 United Nations Declaration.13 States of origin, including Latin American 11

According to the Recopilación de leyes de los Reynos de las Indias (book 5, title 2, law 22), the “order and way of living of the Indios” and “their good uses and customs” had to be recognized by authorities if they were not against the Spanish religion (Ochoa Jiménez 2021, p. 96). Boletín Oficial del Estado & Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias (1998) (https://www.boe.es/biblioteca_juridica/abrir_pdf.php?id=PUB-LH1998-62_2). 12 See, in particular, art. 3.8, art. 5.3.d, and art. 7.2. 13 See, especially, art. 12. See also art. XIII of the 2016 Declaration of the Organization of American States.

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countries, are in favor of the restitution of indigenous cultural property, insofar as it is part of national heritage. They have demanded that the states, where the objects are currently located, adapt their legal systems by modifying private or state ownership regimes so that the objects can be returned. They seek to ensure restitution also through their own legal systems, establishing what property is part of their national cultural heritage, and stating that they are the owners of that heritage and that their national authorities should make every effort to recover it if it has left the territory illegally. The second scenario refers to the internal or domestic restitution of indigenous peoples’ cultural property, to which international standards are also applicable. However, Latin American states have continually disregarded this issue. In this context, the fact that in Latin American legal systems the ownership of cultural heritage is in the hands of the state acquires a particular dimension, as it serves to reaffirm and perpetuate the preponderant and practically exclusive role that states have historically played and continue to play today, in the construction of norms and practices surrounding cultural heritage (cf. Losson 2021). Such a preponderance of states has made it difficult—even impossible—for indigenous peoples to exercise their rights over their cultural objects, including human remains and sacred objects. Such a view predominated in the case of the Quimbaya collection, which was resolved by the Constitutional Court of Colombia in 2017.14 This case had an international dimension (because it involves cultural objects originating in Colombia that are now in Spain) and a domestic or internal dimension as well (because the objects have direct relevance to indigenous peoples within Colombia). The Court’s central argument was that the collection belongs to indigenous peoples insofar as “they are part of our pluralistic nation”. This is a clear expression of the preponderance of the Colombian state over any possible indigenous peoples’ interests. This is reflected not only in the justification for restitution but also in the rules that were applied for this purpose, with the state controlling all steps toward restitution. Here one does not see the use of any procedural mechanism, such as the participation or prior consent of the indigenous peoples to decide about the destination of the artifacts (beyond the fact that there was an indigenous representative among the experts who were called to give their opinion at the public hearing). The dominance of the Colombian state was even clearer in the case of the statutes of San Agustín and Nariño, which was decided by the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca in 2017.15 This case dealt with the restitution of 35 pre-Columbian stone statues that were taken by Konrad Theodor Preuß to Germany and were at the time of the process in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. For the Court “the appropriation, knowledge, appreciation, and enjoyment of cultural heritage by citizens is essential for its defense and protection”. No attention was paid to whether the rights or interests of indigenous peoples should be considered at all.

14

Constitutional Court of Colombia, Ruling No. SU-649/17, November 19, 2017. Administrative Court of Cundinamarca, Decision No. 250002341201600892-00, September 14, 2017.

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It is possible to name other cases in the Latin American context. Also noteworthy in Bolivia is the repatriation of the Illa del Ekeko carried out by the Bern Museum in Switzerland in 2014, with the participation of the Archaeology and Museums Unit of the Bolivian Ministry of Cultures and Tourism. Cases regarding human remains can also be mentioned. The restitution to Uruguay of the remains of the cacique Vaimaca Pirú, which were in France, was completed in 2002. In this case, although “the initial claimants were the members of an association of descendants of the Charrúa nation … the process ended up being appropriated by the State” so that the remains of the cacique “remained in the National Pantheon of the Central Cemetery, where prominent figures of the indigenous genocide also rest” (Arthur and Ayala 2020, p. 46, author translation). Another case took place in 2019, when a mummified body of Inca origin was returned from Michigan in the United States. As Arthur and Ayala (2020, p. 47) point out, the materials returned in this case, as well as the Ekeko, are in the National Museum of Archaeology. Even in Argentina, where, as will be seen below, the most specialized legislation on the subject in Latin America has been adopted, the prevalence of the state and its ownership of cultural property has been used as an argument also in the context of internal restitution of human remains, as occurred when the return of the human remains of caciques that had been requested from the La Plata Museum in 1992 was rejected (Endere 2020, p. 190). These cases allow us to see the close relationship between two deep-rooted phenomena in Latin American legal systems, the existence of which adds to the difficulties faced in achieving (even some degree of) decolonization in this legal realm: the ownership and control of cultural property by the state, including indigenous cultural artifacts, and the application of state law without any serious consideration of indigenous norms and practices.

3.2 Brief Reference to Experiences in Regulation and Practice In Latin America, a significant legislative effort has been made in Argentina to address the domestic restitution of indigenous peoples’ human remains. The concern for this issue in Argentina is explained by the large amount of human remains—i.e., Tehuelche and Mapuche skeletons and skulls—preserved in museums as a consequence of the “Conquest of the Desert”, the offensive war against the indigenous peoples of Pampa and Patagonia carried out by the government in 1879, which was followed by the “Conquest of the Chaco” from 1884 onward (Endere 2020, p. 190). In addition, climatic conditions have contributed to the preservation of ancient bones and the formation of important collections and scientific research on them, which in Argentina are much more developed than in the rest of the region. In Chile there have also been claims for restitution of indigenous peoples’ human remains since the end of the twentieth century. However, such claims have been based on national general rules contained in Act No. 19.253 of 1993 that establishes

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norms on the protection, promotion, and development of indigenous peoples and creates the National Corporation for Indigenous Development, which does not deal with restitution specifically (Arthur and Ayala 2020, p. 45). Thus, it is not surprising that it is in the Southern Cone, and precisely in relation to the legislative steps taken in Argentina, where there has been most interest in the region in learning about NAGPRA (Arthur and Ayala 2020, pp. 39–62; Endere 2020, pp. 188–207). The first legislation concerning the restitution of human remains in Argentina was a law passed in 1991 (Repatriation Act No. 23.940), which made possible the repatriation of Inakayal’s remains to Tecka, in the region of Chubut in Patagonia (completed in 2014 with the restitution, among other remains, of those of his wife). Subsequently, the repatriation of the remains of Rankülche cacique Mariano Rosas to Leubuco, in the province of La Pampa, was based on Act No. 25.517, enacted on December 14, 2001 (Endere 2020, p. 191). This brief legal instrument establishes that the mortal remains of aboriginal people that are part of museums and/ or public or private collections must be made available to the indigenous peoples and/or communities that claim them. Act No. 25.517 establishes that “the mortal remains of native peoples … that are part of museums and/or public or private collections, must be made available to the indigenous peoples and/or communities that claim them” (art. 1). Unlike NAGPRA, which applies to federal agencies and federally supported public institutions, the Argentinian legislation applies to public and private collections in general. Additionally, it “does not establish the requirements that communities must meet to make their claims, the criteria that museums must follow to decide on their claims, nor how conflicts should be resolved” (Endere and Ayala 2012, p. 44, author translation). Since Argentina is a federal system with a civil law tradition, the general rules contained in Act No. 25.517 must be developed by provincial regulations. In this sense, Act 3.468/2001 of the Province of Río Negro establishes that the claimant community “must be recognized in its jurisdiction of origin or have the endorsement of an official body that certifies its existence” (Endere and Ayala 2012, p. 44, author translation). This rule is similar to the aforementioned solution adopted by NAGPRA, according to which indigenous peoples who have not been federally recognized are excluded, which goes against the right to self-determination and self-identification of indigenous peoples, as noted above. A decade after its adoption, Act No. 25.517 was developed through Decree No. 701 of May 20, 2010 (Endere and Colombato 2017, pp. 84–85),which grants the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs the power to coordinate, articulate, and assist in the monitoring and implementation of the law, along with other entities such as the National Institute of Anthropology (Endere 2020, p. 191). However, the restitution processes that have been carried out within the framework created by the aforementioned legislation, such as those of the remains of Inakayal and Mariano Rosas, have been far from problem-free, as they have involved “complexity and internal plurality, since, despite the existence of a federal law, provincial legislations have hindered its applicability and have even held back indigenous claims

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due to the impossibility of finding judicial or political tools to solve these problems” (Arthur and Ayala 2020, pp. 50, 57, author translation). Although similarities can be glimpsed, it is not easy to compare the Argentinian legislation and NAGPRA. Some differences have to do with the ways in which the relationship between the governments and indigenous peoples in Latin American countries has been attempted to be legally organized and the diversity among them, whereas the relationship between the government of the United States and Native American groups has a more uniform basis formed by an 1831 Supreme Court decision and the federal legal system (federal Indian law) to which it gave rise (Kuprecht 2012, p. 50). Beyond that, it always underlies the fact that in the United States and Latin American countries there are ongoing tensions arising from an everpresent conflict between state law and the traditions and practices of indigenous peoples. Such conflict, as Riles points out, “far from being anomalous and exotic, is the unacknowledged paradigm of cultural conflict” (Riles 2008, p. 276).

4 Beyond Participation: Considering Indigenous Rules and Practices NAGPRA is based on a web of procedures that are not always easy to follow, including the determination of the group entitled to claim—what involves cultural affiliation— and its relationship to the claimed object, on the basis of which restitution may ultimately occur. Certainly, such procedures leave room for consultation with indigenous groups, as noted above. But, although NAGPRA contains some references to the norms and practices of indigenous peoples (Brown and Bruchac 2009, p. 207; Tünsmeyer 2022, p. 137), what they or indigenous authorities may mandate in terms of its application will not be decisive in the end. In Argentina, discussions have also taken place about “the need for previous consent of indigenous communities to carry out archaeological research and a requirement to provide them with relevant information for the related decisionmaking process” (Endere 2020, p. 192). Act No. 25.517 (art. 3) makes indigenous peoples’ participation mandatory through the requirement of prior informed consent. In addition, the Argentinian national science agency has established some principles for carrying out scientific projects.16 One of such principles refers to the “obligation to obtain the free and informed consent of participants … to respect the human remains involved in research and not to participate in work that may affect human rights recognized by international conventions and the National Constitution” (Endere and Ayala 2012, p. 46, author translation). However, indigenous peoples still do not see that their voices have been heard by means of such mechanisms (Endere 2020, p. 201). This is not surprising in Latin America, where procedural solutions, such as prior consultation, have mainly failed in practice (cf. Rodríguez Garavito and Baquero Díaz 2015, p. 73). This chapter argues 16

CONICET Res 540/2006 and Res 2857/2006.

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that participatory mechanisms cannot function properly without greater attention to indigenous peoples’ rules and practices. In this regard, it is interesting to see that, in relation to the international restitution of cultural objects, a practice has been consolidating that points to a direct relationship between institutions, i.e., public museums and collections that hold the objects, and groups of origin. When such a direct relationship takes place, traditional rules and practices of the communities seem to acquire a more prominent value. This practice is supported by various documents, such as recommendations, codes of ethics, or guidelines, e.g., the Guidelines for German Museums Care of Collections from Colonial Contexts (German Museums Association 2021, p. 11). Examples in practice include the way in which NAGPRA has been interpreted to serve as the basis for voluntary repatriations to groups that are not federally recognized (Brown and Bruchac 2009, p. 204; Tünsmeyer 2022, p. 249) and even to groups living in foreign countries,17 neither of which formally fall under the legislation. The restitution of the remains of Damiana or Krygi is an example of a process between two Latin American states. Damiana was a young woman from the Aché community of Paraguay, who was taken to Buenos Aires at the end of the twentieth century as a servant of a German family and was the subject of anthropometric studies. She died in 1907 from tuberculosis, and her remains were included in the collection of the Museum of Natural Sciences of La Plata, while part of the remains reached the Charité Hospital in Berlin. In 2007, Damiana’s remains were voluntarily returned by the La Plata Museum to the Kuêtuwyve community in Paraguay and the Argentinian government intervened so that the Berlin hospital would also return the part of the remains found there. Damiana’s remains returned to the community of origin were buried in the Caazapá National Park, considered a site of ancestral value for the Aché community (Endere 2020, p. 196). Another case worth mentioning took place in 2004 when Argentinian researchers found human remains of at least five people at the Loma de Chapalcó site in La Pampa. The researchers informed the representatives of the Rankülche Willi Kalkin community about their findings, and the community’s members expressed their desire to know the site, the details of the archeological work, and the age of the remains. It was agreed that the remains should be returned to the community and subsequently “broad consensus was obtained about the reburial of these human remains at the same place where they had been found, as well as the need to respect the sanctity of this place” (Endere 2020, p. 197). Cases of such kinds allow us to see that the application of traditional rules and practices has been relevant in relation to the restitution of human remains, especially in the value that is placed on reburial. Endere (2020) points out that reburial has even led to changes in science policy in Argentina. There, a direct relationship between scientists and communities has also been taking place, though state authorities have

17

See, for example, Tünsmeyer (2022, p. 245) on restitution to the Stó:l¯o in Canadá and Brown and Bruchac (2009, pp. 210–211) on restitution to the Shuar in Peru.

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been unwilling to participate, avoiding creating the conditions to establish policies based on the consideration of the legitimate interests of all parties involved. Beyond simply expressing legal recognition of the existence of indigenous groups or allowing them to participate, in cases such as those mentioned above, the rules and practices of the groups involved are considered and put into practice. It is not possible to assert that reburials are the solution for all cases of restitution of human remains, but it is important to call attention to the fact that cases such as those mentioned above would demonstrate that, in fact, in matters of restitution of cultural objects, and specifically in the restitution of human remains, the application of indigenous peoples’ rules and practices does take place. Such application occurs independently of the state legal system, as it is not expressly mandated or regulated by law and takes place without necessarily conflicting with the state legal system. It is not this chapter’s intention to downplay the essential role played by procedures legally established, that allow for indigenous peoples’ participation in decisionmaking processes. What I wish to emphasize is that procedures, such as indigenous peoples’ participation and prior informed consent, need to be made meaningful, and this is possible by taking seriously the rules and practices of the indigenous groups involved. The contrary would not be compatible with principles and rights of indigenous peoples that are part of international standards, especially the right to self-determination. Procedures do matter, but procedural solutions alone are not enough. As Weller points out, “a procedure does not as such aim at justice or fairness in terms of contents” (Weller 2009, pp. 84–85).

5 Discussion It seems to be unquestionable that NAGPRA has had an impact on archeology and museum practice in the United States. Some point out that it is now almost inconceivable to do archeology and exhibit expressions of indigenous culture in the United States without the participation of interested indigenous groups. A necessary question is of course what institutions and individuals are trying to achieve or at least contributing to achieving by acting that way. In other words, what end are they pursuing? Instead of simply acting in compliance with the law, such an end should be related to a debate, that has somehow found a place in international human rights instruments, that “has centered on ‘identity politics’, cultural survival, revitalization processes and the political sovereignty of descent communities” (Skrystrup cited by Tünsmeyer 2022, p. 251). This clearly points to restitution as a restorative action that goes beyond restitution as the mere material or physical return. Here, the question arises whether participation mechanisms such as those entailed in NAGPRA and the Argentinian legislation on repatriation are enough to achieve such an end. This chapter argues that reality invites us to think twice before answering this question in the affirmative.

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Procedural approaches adopted and implemented using the platform of human rights continue to move within a system that remains based on the systematic exclusion and exploitation of indigenous groups that were initiated in the colonial era and continued—and to a large extent reinforced—by the political and legal framework established since independence and the formation of the republican states. After all, it is possible to argue, from the prism offered by decolonial theory, that the framework in which the mechanisms of participation that have been established so far move, both internationally and within states, is that of a globalization that “is, above all, the culmination of a process that began with the constitution of America and that of colonial/modern and Eurocentric capitalism as the new pattern of world power” (Quijano 2019, p. 260, author translation). A more appropriate approach to overcoming this pattern of exclusion in relation to the restitution of cultural property to indigenous groups has to involve “providing at least some legal recognition of the fundamental independence of indigenous systems” (Berman 2020, p. 804), which requires serious consideration of the application of the norms and practices of these groups.

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María Julia Ochoa Jiménez is Full Professor of Private International Law in the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Antioquia, Colombia. She studied law at the Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela, and received her Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen, Germany. She is currently conducting a research project on the restitution of Latin American cultural property in the Department of Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn, Germany, with a grant from the Georg Forster Programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

The Veins of Latin America Remain Open The Movement of Cultural Goods and Colonialities Ana Cristina Pandolfo and Jaisson Teixeira Lino

Abstract Based on the multiple concepts and discourses on historical and cultural heritage, this paper seeks to subscribe cultural heritage on the debates on colonialism, coloniality, and the anticolonial zeitgeist, arguing that the flow of commerce and illicit trafficking of cultural goods and the process of inscription of listed sites by UNESCO follow the same structures created by the colonial domination. Under the perspective of anticolonial critique, this chapter intends to defend that the displacement of cultural properties follows the same path imposed by historical colonialism, and that after independence, other mechanisms of power remain: coloniality and imperialism as soft power. The aim is thus to demonstrate that the commerce of cultural and historical objects, whether legal or clandestine—as result of theft, looting, or just unequal business acts—continues to bleed Latin America and enrich northern collectors and museums, as a fallout of historical colonialism and a coloniality’s aftermath. A scenario against which, it is important to point out, emerges a potent anticolonial epistemology, designed to build an autonomous and plural thought, which includes the broad human and cultural diversity and which, without pretending to be universal, does not flinch from the fight for liberation and radical humanism. Keywords Cultural heritage · Colonialism and coloniality · Illicit trafficking of cultural goods · Anticolonial perspective · Decoloniality

1 Introduction Al princípio, el saqueo y el otrocidio fueron ejecutados en nombre del Dios de los cielos. Ahora se cumplen en nombre del dios del Progresso. Galeano (1992) A. C. Pandolfo (B) Tribunal Regional do Trabalho da 12ª Região, Florianópolis, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] J. T. Lino Department of History/Department of Sociology, Universidade Federal da Fronteira Sul, Chapecó, Brazil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_9

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In the beginning, the plunder and the othercide were carried out in the name of the God of heaven. Now they are fulfilled in the name of the god of Progress. Galeano (1992, author translation)

Every day, cultural goods are sold, legally or clandestinely. And it is possible, as this chapter will demonstrate, to identify a clear origin-destination flow, that dates back to the first colonial endeavors. It was with the intention to understand the cultural goods market and its recognition process, associating these phenomena with colonialism and colonialities, that our research was carried out, and this chapter is written as a result. The research is placed in the framework of Cultural Heritage Studies and Heritage History, as well as in anticolonial critique,1 the latter seen as resistance to colonialism and imperialism. As to the sources, the work is supported by a variety of bibliographic references. We also consulted some databases, such as the Database of Wanted Cultural Goods maintained by IPHAN (Brazilian Historical and Artistic National Heritage Institute) and the Stolen Works of Art Database from the INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization), which made it possible to analyze the types of wanted cultural objects. Finally, we looked into foreign trade data, such as the Atlas of Economic Complexity and UN Comtrade, as well as UNESCO manuals and lists. The goal of this work is to present the debate on the material and intellectual dispossession of Latin American colonialism, based on a compilation of the wanted cultural goods registered in the IPHAN and INTERPOL database, as well as in the international market of cultural objects, to analyze whether it is possible to link this phenomenon to coloniality. Furthermore, the aim is to consider, critically, UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites Lists and the inscription process, as well as the legal trade of cultural properties. The relevance of the research lies in the contribution it can give, albeit modestly, to the Latin American anticolonial debate, with a theoretical and reflective focus on the data obtained and on the continuous reinvention of coloniality in the most diverse global processes, including the heritage issue. There are prominent works on the topic of illicit trafficking of cultural objects, however rather focusing on the issue of regulation regarding the protection of cultural goods, such as the dissertations written by Soares (2015) or by Rabelo (2017). There are also studies involving the repatriation and restitution of cultural property, by Costa (2019)—focusing on the Egyptian case and with postcolonial criticism under the orientalist paradigm—and on international illicit trafficking, such as the works of Yates (2018) and Brodie (2015), discussing several countries, however none about Brazil, nor under the anticolonial reflection on Latin American particularities, as will be shown. The theoretical framework is multiple, with emphasis on what will be presented in greater depth in this chapter: the debate on colonialism as material and intellectual dispossession and the various anticolonial epistemologies, supported mainly by 1

The use of the term anticolonial is here preferred to postcolonial, which can be misunderstood with the sense of continuity and not with the pursuit for a transformation. However, for semantic purposes, in this text both are understood and used as synonyms.

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Césaire (2020), Fanon (1968, 2020, 2021), Mbembe (2018), Quijano (1997, 2005), Mignolo (2020), and Dussel (as cited in Mignolo 2020), and on the ‘Authorized Heritage Discourse’ in Smith (2006). The present chapter will be structured in order to present the academic references on colonialism and colonialities in Latin America, that concern cultural property and heritage, starting with the presentation of Latin American colonial context and historical material and intellectual dispossession, and the anticolonial theories. Finally, after discussing Authorized Heritage Discourse and the authorized heritage organizations, we will present the empirical data on wanted goods and international trade, leading to our conclusion. Our argument is that the flow of cultural goods today follows the same pattern established by the practices of the European colonial invasion and that the heritage mentality and the Authorized Heritage Discourse are tainted by strong colonialist ideas.

2 The Tragedy of Colonialism and Coloniality: Material and Intellectual Dispossession In historical colonialism, the looting of cultural objects was enforced by politicalmilitary supremacy of the colonizer; however, during post-independence, there are other power mechanisms that guarantee the flow of art and heritage from Latin America to the countries of the so-called Global North (such as defined by de Sousa Santos 2019). In addition, the dispossession of these cultural properties is part of and promotes an agenda of intellectual dispossession. According to Said (2011, p. 43), neither imperialism (also see Lenin 2008), nor colonialism are simple acts of accumulation and acquisition but are sustained and driven by powerful ideological formations that include the notion that certain territories and peoples need and beg for domination. Going beyond this definition, Césaire (2020) portrays colonization as spoliation and cynical usurpation, in which not a single human value remains. Césaire argues that no one colonizes innocently or with impunity, that a nation that colonizes, justifies force, is a sick nation, a morally diseased civilization. The act of colonizing dehumanizes the most civilized men, the colonial action founded on contempt for the native inevitably tends to change the person who undertakes it, because, by “accustoms himself to treating others like an animal, he objectively tends to transform himself into an animal” (Césaire 2020, p. 11, author translation). For the Martinican author, between colonizer and colonized, “there is only room for forced labor, intimidation, pressure, the police, taxation, theft, rape, cultural imposition, contempt, mistrust, arrogance, presumption, rudeness, brainless elites, degraded masses” (Césaire 2020, pp. 21–22, author translation). The colonial enterprise of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was essential for European primitive capital accumulation, as described by Federici (2017), who mentions that approximately one million African and indigenous enslaved people

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produced surplus value for Spain in colonial America, with a much higher exploitation rate than workers in Europe in the same period. For the author, capitalism could not have taken off without the “annexation” of America and the “blood and sweat” that for two centuries flowed from plantations to Europe. Many authors under anticolonial perspective describe colonial practices and consequences similarly, as a Manichean world, which goes to the extreme of dehumanizing the colonized and animalizing them (Fanon 1968). A system in which “exploitation, torture, looting, racism, collective murder, rational oppression take turns at different levels to literally make the autochthonous an object in the hands of the occupying nation” (Fanon 2021, p. 74, author translation). White Europeans could colonize the rest of the world under the premise that there would be enlightened humanity that needed to bring humanity into the light and the misrepresented notion of a single way of inhabiting and exiting on this earth, only one truth. Colonizers called those people barbarians while promoting war in order to “integrate” them into civilization, to admit them into the “club of humanity” (Krenak 2019). Colonization or imperialism seen as the brutal onslaught out of Europe that caused a migration crisis, a form of constituent power that intertwined, in an unprecedented way, the logics of race, bureaucracy, and business (commercium), expressing Europe’s claim to universal dominion. The seizure of land and occupation takes place through the denial of the native’s humanity, who can thus be despoiled of any and all rights. Therefore, the right of the self-declared civilized to dominate and enslave the barbarians is justified because of their intrinsic moral inferiority. Colonization was a project of universalization, with the purpose of inscribing the colonized in the space of modernity (Mbembe 2018). Thereby, modernity has been colonial since its beginning, and the history of exploitation of Latin America and the production of dominant and dominated identities are the source of the Eurocentric hegemony that marks the world system. Coloniality and modernity are two sides of the same coin, a coin forged with Latin American gold and silver, bled from this land, and drained across the Atlantic, only to come back in the form of more domination and destruction. Latin American theorists such as Dussel, Quijano, and Mignolo consider the beginning of Modernity with colonial expansion, inscribing in it the history of Latin America, unlike Said (2011), which maintains the paradigm of the beginning of modernity in the eighteenth century. In short, Mignolo (2020) points to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution as the second phase of modernity and as secondary in the history of Latin America. However, the paradigm that spread was a Modernity founded on mythical content, whose elements are described by Dussel (as cited in Mignolo, 2020). Aligned with this understanding, Quijano (2005), responsible for conceiving and dispersing the idea of Coloniality, proposes that with America a whole universe of new material, social and intersubjective relations begins, arising a new pattern of world power and integration of peoples, a new complex world system. Colonization, for the author (Quijano 1997), shaped culture, thought, subjectivity, and the production of knowledge in Latin America, establishing world capitalism. In fact, the colonial heritage is the representative dependence of coloniality of power,

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which recreates relations of socioeconomic and cultural dependence on the world system. It helps if we imagine colonialism as a hydra, which articulates exploitation through different heads. Even if one is decapitated, others emerge in its place. Under this scope, Fanon (2020) presented the idea of a colonialist complex, in which he proposed that colonialism—as the economic and political-administrative domination of one country over another—is one of many possible forms of colonialist configuration, which can even survive the formal end of colonialism if independence struggles do not completely overcome it (Barbosa 2018), anticipating the concept of Coloniality proposed decades later by Quijano. Coloniality survives colonialism, reproducing itself in the structures of power and dependence created by it, especially in subjectivities and epistemology, which are constantly reproduced and updated, characterized by Eurocentrism. Based on Quijano, Mignolo (2020) argues that the Coloniality of Power subjugates and subordinates existing knowledge on the other side of the colonial structure, proposing the concept of Colonial Difference, placing subaltern knowledges on the dark side of modernity. In addition to the genocide of native peoples, colonial expansion caused an epistemicide that, according to de Sousa Santos (2007), is the extermination of local knowledge perpetrated by external science, which induces the subordination of social groups whose practices were based on specific knowledge, different from the consecrated by universal science. For the author, the dominant criteria of what would be valid knowledge, by ruling out other types, led to a massive epistemicide, to the obliteration of a colossal variety of intelligence from colonial interactions. Such devastation has deprived these societies of forms of subjectivity on their own terms, of the power to pursue their own goals and seek change by their own power. It is a two-way street. From the interiorization of an inferiority complex in the native subjectivity comes the European superiority idea, Fanon (2020) concludes: the racist creates the inferior. In another work, Fanon (1968) points out that the colonialist bourgeoisie turns its efforts to the field of culture, values, and techniques when it perceives the impossibility of maintaining its dominance through colonialist force. In his political writings, the author mentions the effects of the chimera of colonialism on culture: “But one does not undergo domination with impunity. The culture of the enslaved people is sclerosed, moribund. There is no life circulating in it. More precisely the only life which exists is dissimulated” (Fanon 2021, pp. 72 and 81, author translation). Also in the topic of knowledge and epistemicide, Kilomba (2019) addresses the issue of speech and silencing, promoted by colonization when denying the epistemic privilege to the colonized, imposing the European hegemony that reigns to this day in several countries. She points out that the white Eurocentric discourse treats the knowledge produced at the margins as deviant, while its discourses remain in the center, as the norm. In there lies the coloniality of knowledge, which, according to de Sousa Santos (2019), remains a crucial tool for the expansion and reinforcement of the oppressions generated by capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy. Coloniality is, in fact, the survival of colonialism by other means, another type of colonialism.

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For the Portuguese author, capitalism cannot exercise its domination without articulating it with colonialism, just as decolonization is about not only political independence, but a broad process of ontological recovery and reconstruction of humanity. In this way, considering that the coloniality of knowledge inescapably implies a historical-structural dependence, the hegemony of Eurocentrism also derives from it, which becomes the only way of knowing. And this cultural colonization, even after formal independence, condemned the nations to imitation, simulation, and shame of themselves (Quijano 1997, pp. 123–125). Furthermore, the “colonial complex” echoes on the heritage issue, not only on the way these goods circulate, as will be shown ahead in this text, but also on how and why they are valued or disregarded. This dependency—which is also intellectual and of identity—helps to explain the overvaluation of ecclesiastical or colonial artifacts and the belittling of indigenous or African heritage, which has tragic ramifications, not only for the patrimony but for intangible manifestations and for the people who participate in them, victims of discrimination and marginalization. This zeitgeist, as we intend to lay out in this chapter, maintains global domination structures that allow the illicit trafficking of cultural property, once carried out as colonial plunder, today the core of business between characters and nations engendered in coloniality.

3 Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies As pointed out, colonial domination manifests itself in many ways, it is not limited to the violence of occupation or material destruction, but embodies an epistemological, cultural, and linguistic imposition, which survives the end of the colonial period itself. Therefore, the struggle for decolonization does not end when the struggle for independence triumphs. The term “postcolonialism” can refer both to the historical period after the decolonization processes by European nations and to the set of theoretical contributions from literary and cultural studies that emerged in the 1980s, which became, as understood by Ballestrin (2013, p. 90), a kind of academic trend. According to Hall (2009), the term postcolonial has a high level of abstraction and refers to the decolonization process that, like colonization, imprinted both colonizing and colonized societies, renouncing the colonizer/colonized binary opposition, where one of its most powerful contributions resides: colonization was inscribed in the culture of colonizing nations as well as in that of the colonized. The label reinterprets colonization as a transnational and transcultural global process, producing a diasporic rewriting of imperial narratives. This new narrative displaces capitalist modernity from Europe to the “periphery” and disrupts the great liberal historiographical canon. The trio formed by Albert Memmi, Aimé Césaire, and Frantz Fanon is considered to be the founders of the so-called postcolonial critique, seconded by the author of the idea of Orientalism, Edward Said. In Latin America, the relevant Latin American Group of Subaltern Studies assembled in the 1990s, and many of its members

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later organized the Modernity/Coloniality Group2 (The concept of decoloniality or “decolonial turn” (a term created by Maldonado-Torres 2008) seeks to detach from the monolithic logic of modernity and Eurocentrism. In a nutshell, the decolonial perspective “provides new utopian and radical horizons for the thought of human liberation, in dialogue with the production of knowledge” (Ballestrin 2013, pp. 105– 110, author translation). The group does not design a new epistemology, but systematizes an existing critique and applies it to the Latin American scenario. It proposes an emerging thought from the subaltern’s perspective, which Mignolo (2020, author translation) names “liminal thinking”, which he describes as an engine for intellectual, political, and economic decolonization. Studying this concept, Simoneti and Souza (2022, p. 11, author translation) say that “the notion of liminal thought, therefore, concerns forms of thought emerging on the margins of the modern/colonial system, in the fissures of the imaginary modern world, where knowledge repressed by Western epistemology comes to the fore”. Connected with that thesis, de Sousa Santos (2019), proposing the end of the “cognitive empire”, draws the issue under the notions of north and south, not geographical, but epistemological. Southern epistemologies designate those pieces of knowledge based on the resistance’s experiences of all social groups that were systematically victimized and subordinated by capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy. The project of Southern epistemologies is to enable oppressed social groups to represent the world as their own and on their own terms, as only then they will be able to transform it according to their own aspirations. Northern epistemologies, in this system, envision the Eurocentric epistemological North as the only source of legitimate knowledge, regardless of where it is produced geographically. In the same sense, the South, that is, what lies on the margin, on the “other” side, is characterized as the stronghold of ignorance. On this basis, de Sousa Santos (2007) emphasizes that one should not focus on erasing the differences between North and South, but rather on annihilating the power hierarchies that move and structure them. Southern epistemologies value the differences that survive after power hierarchies are eliminated, and they are aware that no unique knowledge can capture the limitless world’s diversity, not rejecting any form of cosmology, but casting aside modern science’s claim to a monopoly of scientific rigor, proposing a true ecology of knowledge.

4 Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD) and UNESCO World Heritage Sites With the end of World War II (1939–1945), the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) were created in 1945. According to Evangelista (1999), UNESCO, a UN agency, is an institution of high heuristic value that invokes the right to provide answers to the challenges of the 2

A complete analysis of the group can be found in Ballestrin (2013).

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contemporary world and emerges as an intergovernmental agency, with a supposed intention of universality and supranationality, pursuing nations cooperation through education, science, and culture. However, the emergence of international cooperation entities is basically a response to the question of how to allow, without resorting to war, the everlasting expansion and reproduction of a certain way of organizing social life (Evangelista 1999). Furthermore, the UN is a “western” institution, working, since its inauguration, toward the “progress” of all people and to eliminate barriers that might oppose a new cycle of westernization and modernization of societies, promoting free circulation of goods and ideas. From this derives the strong ethnocentric and ideological nature of the institution, infused by ideas of progress and modernization, homogenizing the world under a single vision. Even with the participation of a growing number of countries and with new epistemological contributions, the world power structures and coloniality are inescapable to the UN and UNESCO. The UN bias was criticized by Fanon, for whom the entity was never able to properly solve any of the problems presented to the man’s consciousness by colonialism “and whenever it has intervened, it was to actually come to the aid of the colonial power”. For Fanon (2021, 271–273, author translation) the “UN is the legal card used by imperialist interests when brute force has failed”, perpetuating the “peaceful struggle” for the balkanization of the world. In Smith’s understanding (2006), the European sense of historical monument identified in the UNESCO conventions universalizes Western values and worldviews. The World Heritage Sites lists, in which cathedrals and state buildings dominate the inclusion process, make that clear. She points out that these conventions can be understood as authorized heritage institutions since they define what heritage is, how and why it is significant, and how it should be managed and used. And, naturally, the admittance of a certain heritage is influenced by specific motivations. Funari and Pelegrini (2009) shed light on the disparity of cultural properties included, with the overestimation of elites’ heritage, in general, and Europe, in particular. In other words, “great civilizations” get more attention than societies that neither oppressed other nations nor left monumental constructions. They also reveal that 60% of the sites listed by UNESCO are located in Europe and North America, a number that increases if we add part of the Latin American heritage referring to European cultural values. Non-Arab Africa only accounts for about 4%. More than ten years after Funari and Pelegrini’s studies, the proportion on the UNESCO list has undergone few changes. According to 2021 data on World Heritage List Statistics, there are 1157 properties registered, 900 of which are cultural, 218 natural, and 39 mixed, distributed disproportionately around the globe. Europe and North America hold 546 properties, meanwhile Latin America and the Caribbean stands for 146 and Asia and the Pacific have 277 of the inscribed properties. Africa holds 98 properties and Arab States only 90. By these numbers, we can see that Europe and North America (here referring to the United States and Canada) have more than 47% of the listed properties, while Latin America and the Caribbean 12.62%, Asia and the Pacific 23.94%, Africa 8.47%, and the Arab States 7.78%. Finally, endangered cultural and natural assets are inversely distributed, with 40% of them located in the Arab States.

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Europeans rate their own national heritage as so superior that it ought to be global, in the words of Lowenthal (1998), who states that the idea that cultural heritage can mean everything to everyone is absurd, as any cultural asset will represent different experiences for different individuals or groups. This dominance of discourse prevents certain cultures from having their own heritage recognized. Moreover, the listed sites themselves represent grand European narratives and esthetic notions and national identity, with elitist architecture including cathedrals, castles, and palaces that are over-represented on UNESCO lists. Brazil currently has 22 sites inscribed on the World Heritage list, 14 of which are cultural, one is mixed (Paraty), and seven are natural (Pantanal, Cerrado, and Amazônia, for example). Among the cultural heritages, there is a dominance of those connected to European colonization or ecclesiastical, such as the Historic City of Ouro Preto, the Sanctuary of Senhor Bom Jesus de Matosinhos in Minas Gerais, the Historic Center of São Luís do Maranhão (city founded by French and occupied by the Dutch before Portuguese), and the Ruins of São Miguel das Missões. Only in 2017 the Valongo’s Harbor Archaeological Site was included, where more than 900,000 enslaved Africans landed. Thus, it is clear that UNESCO and its lists represent the power relations that sustain the Authorized Heritage Discourse, widely studied by Smith (2006). And that discourse, according to Bortolotto (2015), marginalizes divergent conceptions of cultural heritage produced by disadvantaged communities or privileges cultural objects and expressions over people and communities. Indisputably, the countries’ political and economic pressure have a great influence on the inclusion of sites in the lists. The heritage (or patrimoine) mentality does not escape our system’s contradictions, heavily colonialist, and considers everything associated with the origin of European civilization as the origin of humanity itself.

5 The Farce: Cultural Goods Trade and the Veins that Remain Open The idea of historical repetition was laid out by Marx (2011, p. 25, author translation), the “first time as tragedy, the second as farce”. Even if he was referring to the Bonaparte clan (Napoleon, by the way, a master of archeological and arts pillage), one can diagnose the same dynamic in the displacement of cultural heritage. The tragedy would lie in colonialism and the spoliation carried out by the metropolis, plundering and destroying cultural assets through violence. The farce can be seen today, with the heritage and cultural property flowing from south to north, through less obvious and more articulated global trade. It is therefore proposed, based on some empirical elements, that the trade and illicit trafficking of cultural property is a symptom and reflection of the global project of cultural and epistemological hegemony.

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5.1 Trade in Cultural Goods The trade in cultural and artistic goods represents a billion-dollar and constantly growing market, which, on its legal side, handled more than $30 billion in 2018 alone, with more than 42% of exported art coming out the United States, which is also the largest importer, accounting for 27%. United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, and Germany account for more than 38% of the exported and imported art, according to data from Atlas of Economic Complexity. According to UN Comtrade data (2020),3 Brazil exported more than $389 million worth of artworks, collectibles, and anticues in 2019, most of it to the United States, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. The global market for antiquities developed, according to Yates et al. (2017), as an extension of European colonial expansion, embedded in enlightenment ideals of cultural and social capital. The market was formed during the era of occupations in foreign territories to feed European elites’ demands. These demands were first for antiquities symbolic of what was considered the foundations of European exceptionalism (Greek, Italian, and West Asian antiquities) and then for souvenirs and “curiosities” (cultural objects from the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and Asia), designing a market that, until today, is characterized by the exploitation of southern countries’ cultural heritage. This flow highlights what this paper set out to show: that coloniality maintains the order of colonial domination, in which artifacts and cultural goods continue to leave former colonies and end up in former metropolises, not necessarily through looting or piracy, but through a highly specialized and profitable business market established under the same power dynamics prevailing in the colonial past. Dependent capitalism is also visualized in this phenomenon, in which national and foreign merchants sell cultural properties to northern collectors or museums, where they reach higher prices. A process that is facilitated by the population’s disassociation with such heritage and by its vulnerable economic situation, both consequences of colonialism, coloniality, and imperialism themselves. In other words, even the legal trade in cultural goods is just another fallout of historical colonialism and an aftermath of coloniality, similar to colonial looting. The veins of Latin America—as the study of the Brazilian case reveals—which were bled by historical colonialism, remain open.

5.2 A Crime that Pays Off: The Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Properties UNESCO identifies three major sources of illicit trafficking of cultural properties: theft (from private collections to museums, sometimes carried out by its employees), 3

The United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN COMTRADE) details the world trade in goods since 1962 and is considered the most complete database on the subject in the world.

The Veins of Latin America Remain Open Table 1 Properties stolen from Brazil according to INTERPOL (2021)

149

Object type

Amount

Coins and medals

2

Documents or books

50

Furniture

11

Gold, silver, and jewelry

7

Miscellaneous (Indian vases, shackles, etc.)

7

Paintings

38

Photographs and engravings

99

Religious or liturgical items

46

Sculptures and

statues4

Weapons

123 1

illicit excavations (usually executed by locals and implicating authorities), and forgery (UNESCO 2018). Thefts are mostly carried out from private homes, but museums and churches are common targets. The sort of object stolen varies from country to country, but generally involves paintings, sculptures, figurines, and religious items, although nothing is spared. Regarding illegal excavations, they are, in general, attractive in impoverished places and are especially damaging, according to INTERPOL (2020a, b), because in addition to the loss of objects, they can destroy historical sites and the chance to know more about them. When an item is removed from its original location, its scientific value is seriously jeopardized. In the Banco de Bens Culturais Procurados—BCP (Wanted Cultural Objects Database), maintained by IPHAN (2020) and created with the collaboration of the Brazilian Federal Police and INTERPOL, there are 1679 registered archeological objects, mostly of religious nature, and 141 were recovered. More than half of the BCP (58%) is made of items missing from churches. The IPHAN’s database lists some relevant information for the identification of archeological or heritage sites and objects that have been reported as stolen or missing, informed by their legal holders or owners. It is a tool (not an end in itself) to help fight the illicit trafficking of cultural goods, used to gather information on archeological or heritage sites, to provide police, customs, and public ministries with data that may be relevant to investigate, intercept, seize, recover, and return the objects to their places of origin. The Stolen Works of Art Database, held by INTERPOL, lists 384 items stolen from Brazil, with the following typology, as presented in Table 1. These data show the high demand for religious and ecclesiastical items, mostly from colonizers’ religions. Very few items are of indigenous and Afro-Brazilian origin (and even those have more to do with slavery than African culture in Brazil), suggesting that they do not receive the same institutional protection and patrimonial recognition, not necessarily that they are not stolen or looted. After the theft or looting, items are normally placed in the hands of intermediaries, who may be local or part 4

Of these, the vast majority are statues of Catholic saints.

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of an international crime group, who may include other types of illegal trafficking, such as drugs or weapons. In the core of the operation, there may be bribes and the participation of corrupt officials. The final seller gets the biggest profit, and he is the one who knows the real value and the ideal final buyer. In general, in antiquities trafficking chains, looters in the lower-income countries are exposed to significant occupational risk for scant reward, the value of their illicit work being appropriated by international traffickers and then most significantly by antiquities dealers and collectors at the top of the market supply chain, named by Yates et al. (2017) of cultural capitalists, who use their economic power to obtain cultural power. In the words of Giovannetti and Páez (2009), the road taken by an archeological piece from its origin to its acquisition by a large collector or museum is very similar to the production of any commodity in the capitalist process. Most of the time, it is the underprivileged peasants and small local producers who roam the fields searching for objects. They are the first links in the chain, all for insignificant payment or even food. Traffickers or collectors take advantage of that to enrich themselves or add to their collections. Moreover, Brodie (2015) explains that, since the launch of eBay in 1995, the internet market in antiquities has grown into a diversified and sophisticated commercial operation, expanding its reach to collectors from all over the world, working against traditional merchants and galleries. The most common on these platforms are sales between individuals of objects without certification of origin. The illicit art and archeological market is also great for money laundering, in a scheme that legitimizes funds and legalizes the cultural object itself. According to Hehn (2016), fraudulent auctions are very popular, in which a work of art owner puts it up for auction and, simultaneously, an accomplice acquires it with money of illicit origin. At the end of the operation, the artifact is certified and the money is clean. This entire chain of theft and illicit trafficking of cultural goods is enabled, as seen, by the coloniality that rule geopolitical and individual relationships, in which, often, pauperized looters are exploited for the benefit of a European or US collector, auction house, or museum.

6 Conclusion In this chapter we set out to present the trade and illicit trafficking of cultural objects, in an interdisciplinary effort, associating it with colonialism and coloniality. We seek to demonstrate, based on some empirical data on wanted assets, that the flow of cultural goods today follows the same pattern established by the European colonial invasion. Still, we intend to deconstruct the UN and UNESCO Authorized Heritage Discourse and the very notion of humanity and so-called modernity and its ideology. We pointed out that, even after independence, other mechanisms of power remain— coloniality and imperialism—that guarantee the continuity of the flow of cultural properties to the northern countries. And the dispossession of these cultural assets is part of and keeps in motion an intellectual dispossession agenda.

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We tried to uncover how the countries’ political and economic pressure influence the admission of heritage in UNESCO’s lists, revisiting the issue of hegemony and domination by the so-called elites over the election of cultural goods. We point out how the patrimonial mentality and the authorized discourse of heritage are impregnated by strong colonialist ideas, which consider everything connected to the origin of European civilization as the origin of humanity itself. Based on the authors and researched data, we think it is safe to conclude that the trade in cultural objects, whether legal or clandestine, the result of theft, looting, or just unequal business acts, continues to bleed the veins of Latin America and enrich northern collectors and museums. History, therefore, continues to be staged and reenacted. The barbarization, the epistemicide, and genocide promoted by colonialism presented themselves as the tragedy. The cultural properties sold, openly or in the underground, taking advantage of dependent capitalism and colonial mentality, is a farce. What comes next? Trafficking in cultural property has been commonly analyzed from a forensic point of view, especially concerning legislation, prevention, and punishment. However, by including the anticolonial perspective, our work sought to link this phenomenon to a more general and global picture, using tools from the various social sciences to unravel the power relations that may have an influence on heritage. Although each country has particularities regarding colonial heritage, epistemicide, and colonialities, we identified a process of production and maintenance of inequalities that are very similar throwing its tentacles to the most diverse social and economic spheres, from which heritage does not escape. Our work focused on Latin America, but can easily present a method to be transposed to other continents and countries that had colonial experiences, old or recent, besides suggesting new ways to study various problematics, not limited to the traffic or trade of cultural objects or heritage, since—as we argue—coloniality generates a system that touches all social, economic, epistemological, and mental aspects of society. Thus, its application is a fruitful field for all kinds of research and areas of knowledge.

References Ballestrin L (2013) América Latina e o giro decolonial. Rev Bras Ciênc Polít 11:89–117. https:// doi.org/10.1590/S0103-33522013000200004 Barbosa MS (2018) A atualidade de Frantz Fanon: acerca da configuração colonialista. In: Washington SN, Carvalho Filho SA (eds) Intelectuais das Áfricas. Pontes Editores, Rio de Janeiro, pp 422–447 Bortolotto C (2015) UNESCO and heritage self-determination: negotiating meaning in the intergovernmental committee for the safeguarding of the ICH. In: Adell N, Bendix R, Bortolotto C, Tauschek M (eds) Between imagined communities and communities of practice. Participation, territory and the making of heritage. Göttingen University Press, Göttingen, pp 249–272 Brodie N (2015) The internet market in antiquities. In: Desmarais F (ed) Countering illicit traffic in cultural goods: the global challenge of protecting the World’s heritage. ICOM, Paris, pp 11–20 Césaire A (2020) Discurso sobre o colonialismo. São Paulo

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Comtrade (2020) About UN comtrade analytcs. https://comtrade.un.org/labs/data-explorer/. Accessed Sept 2020 Costa KL (2019) Caminhos para a descolonização dos museus: a questão da repatriação das antiguidades egípcias. Dissertation, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis de Sousa Santos B (2007) Para além do pensamento abissal: das linhas globais a uma ecologia de saberes. Rev Crít Ciên Soc (78):3–46 de Sousa Santos B (2019) O fim do império cognitivo. Belo Horizonte Evangelista EGS (1999) A Unesco e o mundo da cultura. Dissertation, Universidade Estadual de Campinas Fanon F (1968) Os condenados da terra. Rio de Janeiro Fanon F (2020) Pele negra, máscaras brancas. São Paulo Fanon F (2021) Por uma revolução africana: textos políticos. Rio de Janeiro Federici S (2017) Calibã e a bruxa: mulheres, corpo e acumulação primitiva. São Paulo Funari PP, Pelegrini SCA (2009) Patrimônio histórico e cultural. Rio de Janeiro Galeano E (1992) Ser como ellos y otros artículos. Madrid Giovannetti M, Páez MC (2009) El tráfico de objetos arqueológicos en los tiempos modernos. Discusiones y críticas en torno al mercado. Cuba Arqueol Rev Digit Arqueol Cuba Caribe 2(2):90–102 Hall S (2009) Da Diáspora: identidades e mediações culturais. Belo Horizonte Hehn L (2016) Les lieux de ventes d’objets archéologiques: luxe, calme et confidentialité. Les nouvelles de l’archéologie. http://journals.openedition.org/nda/3500. Accessed Sept 2020 INTERPOL (2020a) The cultural property issues. https://www.interpol.int/Crimes/Cultural-her itage-crime/The-issues-cultural-property. Accessed Sept 2020a INTERPOL (2020b) How we fight cultural heritage crime. http://www.interpol.int/es/Acerca-deI NTERPOL/Historia. Accessed Sept 2020b INTERPOL (2021) Database of stolen work of art. https://www.interpol.int/Crimes/Cultural-her itage-crime/Stolen-Works-of-Art-Database. Accessed 2 May 2021 IPHAN (2020) Wanted cultural goods database. http://portal.iphan.gov.br/pagina/detalhes/219. Accessed Sept 2020 Kilomba G (2019) Memórias da Plantação: episódios de racismo cotidiano. Rio de Janeiro Krenak A (2019) Ideias para adiar o fim do mundo. São Paulo Lenin V (2008) Imperialism: higher stage of capitalism. São Paulo Lowenthal D (1998) The heritage crusade and the spoils of history. Cambridge University Press, Nova Iorque Maldonado-Torres N (2008) A topologia do Ser e a geopolítica do conhecimento. Modernidade, império e colonialidade. Rev Crít Ciênc Soc 80:71–114 Marx K (2011) O 18 de Brumário de Luís Bonaparte. São Paulo Mbembe A (2018) Crítica da razão negra. São Paulo Mignolo W (2020) Histórias locais, projetos globais: colonialidade, saberes subalternos e pensamento liminar. Belo Horizonte Quijano A (1997) Colonialidad del Poder, Cultura y Conocimiento en América Latina. Anuário Mariateguiano. Lima (9):117–131 Quijano A (2005) Colonialidade do poder, eurocentrismo e América Latina. In: Quijano A (ed) A colonialidade do saber: eurocentrismo e ciências sociais perscpectivas latino-americanas. Buenos Aires, CLACSO, pp 117–142 Rabelo CN (2017) A Proteção Do Patrimônio Cultural No Direito Internacional e Brasileiro: A Saída Ilícita de Bens Culturais e Sua Repatriação ao País de Origem. Dissertation, Universidade de Fortaleza Said E (2011) Cultura e Imperialismo. São Paulo Simoneti CAM, Souza NMF (2022) Epistemologias do Interstício: Hibridismo, Pensamento Liminar e Conexões Pós/Decoloniais. Rev Carta Int 17:11–24 Smith L (2006) Uses of heritage. Routledge, London

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Soares AD (2015) A normativa de proteção ao tráfico ilícito de bens culturais: acervo arqueológico do Instituto Cultural Banco Santos. Dissertation, Universidade de São Paulo UNESCO (2018) Fighting the illicit trafficking of cultural property. A toolkit for European UNESCO (2020) World heritage list. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/stat. Accessed Feb 2023 Yates D, Mackenzie S, Smith E (2017) The cultural capitalists: notes on the ongoing reconfiguration of trafficking culture in Asia. Crime Media Cult 13(2):245–254. https://doi.org/10.1177/174165 9017700947 Yates D (2018) The global traffic in looted cultural objects. In: Rafter N, Carribine E (eds) The Oxford encyclopedia of crime, media, and popular culture. Oxford University, Oxford. https:// doi.org/10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190264079.013.124

Ana Cristina Pandolfo holds a Law degree from Unochapecó (2013) a Social Sciences degree (2023) and a Master in History (2021), both from the Federal University of Fronteira Sul (UFFS). She is a public servant of the Regional Labor Court of the 12th Region. Jaisson Teixeira Lino is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Fronteira Sul (UFFS), Brazil. Graduated in History (UNESC), Specialized in Archaeology (URI), Master in History (UFRGS), Doctorate in Archaeology (UTAD) and Post-Doctorate in Archaeology (UvA).

Museums, Discourse, and Power

Entangled Heritage Paths to Decolonize Museums and African Objects in the Diaspora Márcia Chuva

Abstract This chapter brings to light reflections on the participation of museological institutions in the processes of forging national and imperial states. Such institutions are directly linked to European colonialism, especially in Africa, after World War II, in the context of the broader struggle for independence. The chapter seeks to analyze the role of Portugal’s Overseas Ethnology Museum in setting up the representation of Portuguese colonial exceptionalism, which served to justify its continuity during Estado Novo’s dictatorial regime, connected to ideas the Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre developed. Within the scope of the Museum, such representation was disseminated by creating musealization in overseas territories by the circulation of objects, people, and knowledge from one place to another. I have analyzed the Museum’s institutionalization processes and practices of collecting objects during trips to African colonial territories in the 1960s. The Museum was formally founded in 1965. A collecting urge to build collections for the Museum became the norm. Such urge steamed from the rhetoric of risk of imminent loss. Portugal’s Overseas Ethnology Museum has adopted a set of actions. I am highlighting strategies meant to pursue recognition and prestige from the European network of museums and establish control over museums in colonial regions in the early 1970s. Keywords Portuguese colonialism · Lusotropicalism · Ethnography and collection · Rhetoric of loss · African objects in the diaspora · Lisbon’s Overseas Ethnology Museum

1 Introduction Museological institutions have the power to organize social life by imposing consensus on the meaning of things about the world. National museums are legitimate spaces for shaping and spreading interpretations of history. Such institutions are M. Chuva (B) Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro - UNIRIO, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_10

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also arenas to exercise power and political control. They, too, are places for making choices about what to present and represent. This article analyzes Portugal’s Overseas Ethnology Museum (MEU, acronym in Portuguese for Museu de Etnologia do Ultramar), based in Lisbon. The article seeks to study Portugal’s Overseas Ethnology Museum (hereafter referred to as MEU) in setting up a representation of Portuguese colonialism, which has always been regarded as harmonious and fraternal. In this sense it has been seen as exceptional compared with the colonialism practiced by other European countries, characterized by greater cruelty and violence. The premise of this article is that the coloniality of such representation of Portuguese colonialism is disseminated from practices of circulating of objects, people, and knowledge from one place to another (Appadurai 2008). In the 1960s, the institution forged the musealization of overseas territories influenced by Portugal’s colonial perspective. The Estado Novo regime disseminated the belief in Portuguese colonial exceptionalism, supported by adopting Gilberto Freyre’s theses of lusotropicalism: a new civilization in the tropics built by the Portuguese historical experience of colonialism. However, such belief is inconsistent with historiographical review arguing for a much broader debate, which defines colonialism as a European problem (Jerónimo 2013, 2015; Bastos et al. 2007; Rossa and Ribeiro 2015; Bittencourt 2015, Thomaz 2001). To ratify this perspective, I seek to rewrite the histories of museological institutions and their collections of African objects in the diaspora. In other words, in a decolonial perspective, I aim to analyze deterritorialized objects, violently removed physically or symbolically from their places of origin where their meanings and uses have been produced and experienced. Freyre’s ideas on racial democracy and miscegenation had immense repercussion in Brazil and also in Portugal, since the 50s. Their harmful effects persist today, when structural racism prevails in both countries that, contradictorily, deny its presence. Therefore, this article intertwines Latin America with the theme of Portuguese colonialism in Africa and Overseas Ethnology Museum in Lisbon through the uses of Brazilian social thought about lusotropicalism. Based on colonial relations, how those institutions are portrayed is key to understanding postcolonial relations and sensitive issues related to demands for historical reparations. Portugal’s Overseas Ethnology Museum was the first public, national, ethnographic museum in Portugal. It was founded under the dictatorial rule of Estado Novo, after World War II. Compared with similar European museums, its founding was late, perhaps anachronistic, since its counterparts were established in the nineteenth century during the European imperialist expansion over Asia and Africa. In the mid-twentieth century, those museums became a target of criticism against colonialism. Such criticism became increasingly harsh in the post-World War II period (Soares 2012). This research highlights three intertwined aspects as evidence of the colonial metropolitan character of Portugal’s Overseas Ethnology Museum: the first refers to performing ethnography as a practice of collecting objects, not as a practice of field research, which would result in building collections. According to this perspective, the second aspect is the fear of curbing cultural diversity in colonial regions that leads to rhetoric of loss (Gonçalves 1997). Such rhetoric demanded and justified urgent action toward collecting objects in the field before everything would be lost due to

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fast-paced cultural changes because of adapting to market and touristic logic. The third aspect concerns distrust regarding the possibility of a museum in the colonies (or overseas museum, as they were called) taking the lead role. I identified such fears when the metropolitan museum performed different operations. The multiple connections created by the circulation of items forged colonial domination through scientific knowledge and cooperation between metropolitan and colonial museums and agencies. Such practices, which are ways of coloniality of knowledge (Quijano, 2005; Mignolo, 2011), resulted in silencing hierarchies subjected to colonial rule. For Trouillot (1995), silences participate in historical production in different moments, since the creation of the event (in the elaboration of sources), till the moment of retroactive significance (in the making of history ultimately). Considering these ideas, I shall identify those practices analyzing documents that produced the silence of subjects and facts. The primary documents I have studied are annual activity reports by the following institutions: the Organizing Mission of Portugal’s Overseas Museum, Portugal’s Overseas Ethnology Museum, Portugal’s Center for Cultural Anthropology Studies (CEAC, Centro de Estudos de Antropologia Cultural), agencies connected and subordinated to the High Institute for Overseas Studies (ISEU, Instituto Superior de Estudos Ultramarinos).1 ISEU is responsible for training personnel to hold positions in the colonial administration overseas.2 Such reports are public documents addressed to higher levels of State services and serve accountability purposes. Their main feature is to show appreciation for achievements explicitly. Also, those documents provide support for choices made and actions not conducted, as well as producing explanations for introducing new demands. Thus, it is unsurprising that there is no reference to anti-colonial wars. Since 1961, those conflicts have escalated, especially in Angola. However, war must have affected logistics in the field and imposed limits on travel within territories. Despite the official nature of the documents, I could verify concepts and practices supporting the actions and expectations regarding the Museum’s role, as well as relationships established with other agencies and multiple connections brought about through circulation. Those reports followed a pattern: the Museum’s reports simply repeated the information available in the reports by overseas missions on acquisition of pieces. Reports by the Center for Cultural Studies would provide a list of academic production, publication, and conferences of the entire team, which was, in fact, only one report for the two organically interconnected institutions. Hence their complementarity: the MEU was the producer of the collection and sources for research, and the CEAC was responsible for the academic-scientific reflections on material culture, intertwined by a civilizing perspective expressed in its circulation practices, as can be seen in the following.

1

On the institutional history of ISEU, from its antecedents with the emergence of the High Colonial School to its transformation into the Overseas High Institute of Social and Political Science (ISCSPU, Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas do Ultramar), refer to Gonçalves (1968). 2 These documents are in the custody of the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon, which granted access in February 2020.

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2 An Overseas Museum for Portugal In the introduction to the exhibition catalog Peoples and Cultures, there is a narrative stating that MEU “represents the expansion of a small school museum that originally operated at ISEU […] founded on July 1, 1960” (Museu 1972, p. 1, author translation), without, however, any legal diploma. The goal was to organize a Portuguese overseas museum, where all the existing collections in various departments under the Ministry [of Overseas] would be brought together, adding to what would still be sought to be collected. […] they aimed at translating the greatness of the Portuguese Discoveries (Museu 1972, p. 1, author translation). Considering that the title of the school museum appeared in a retrospective narrative about the origins of the MEU, I infer that the emphasis was on keeping a project with pedagogical purposes. The project aimed at training people as colonial administrators, considering that it was precisely ISEU’s primary role. Dating from the same year, the news of the two-month trip promoted by ISEU for its finalist students emerged. According to the article, “they lived in the most intimate contact with the people and things of Angola” (Boletim 1960, p. 63, author translation), including scheduled visits to the Museum of Angola, founded before the metropolitan museum (Boletim 1960, p. 63, author translation).3 According to the Cultural Bulletin of the Museum of Angola (Boletim Cultural do Museu de Angola), students assessed “different aspects of action in the Overseas” and were able to “see our successful undertakings […] by the close ties with the same nationality” (Boletim 1960, p. 63, author translation). It is worth noting, initially, that the existence of a cultural bulletin by the Museum of Angola as a channel for disseminating actions is an exciting indication of the investments made to structure colonial institutions. In this matter, the emphasis on the racial issue shows that it was a vital theme connected to a whole national idealization. At the time, such idealization included the metropolis, the islands, and “overseas provinces”, as the regions used to be called. Colonial powers aimed at mitigating anti-colonial pressures in Angola. Elias states that integration and disintegration occur in the process of building of national states, as well as processes of connection and disconnection of social groups dispersed, that the State seeks to include in control and concession meshes (Elias 2006[1970], 1993[1978]). The approach presented in Boletim Cultural do Museu de Angola, quoted above, demonstrates the participation of the Museum in those processes of integration of groups to the networks belonging to the Portuguese Imperial State. They forged interdependence and commitment and outlined the idea of a nation with silenced contradictions, which hierarchized their populations in the metropolis and overseas provinces. Colonial rule was regarded as part of the Portuguese colonial exceptionalism, or the Portuguese way of living. It was meant to create feelings of belonging to that nation thanks to its fraternal, harmonious, 3

The Museum of Angola was created in 1938 by decree 266/1912. Its new name is Angola’s National Museum of Natural History. This museum was responsible for the collection that was first sent to the Luanda Anthropology Museum, created in 1976. Refer to www.museuantropologia.ang oladigital.net.

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and friendly character, as outlined by Gilberto Freyre on his trip to Portugal and its colonies in 1951–52 (Freyre 1953; Castelo 1998). In this sense, the training trips overseas and the presence of ethnographic museums in the metropolis and colonial regions were strategic actions for expanding territorial networks in establishing the Imperial State, regarded as a national institution and, therefore, meant for colonial domination. Self-represented by soft and fraternal colonialism, coloniality imposed itself even more violently, given that the colonial condition was denied by various subterfuges which sought national normality. After reading the official reports, the role played by Antonio Carreira stood out.4 Upon building this connection, he established two-way relations between the metropolis and colonial zones in Africa. His expertise in forging museological objects and constituting collections shaped the field collections for setting up MEU’s African collection. His ability to select objects perceived as authentic provided materiality to the idea of a Portuguese nation overseas and the colonial enterprise. Indeed, this was due to his previous experience in Guinea as a colonial official, where he worked for a long time since the 1940s. For Ágoas, Carreira was “the most prolific ethnologistadministrator in the territory with several pieces of academic work on its people’s demography as well as history” (Ágoas 2020, p. 27), with abundant scientific production and knowledge produced from their presence in the colonies. It was due to the trust the Museum’s management placed in him that he oversaw most of the numerous collection trips to African colonies (Chuva 2020). Then, it will be seen that Carreira’s keen eye and the networks of colonial administration he had were decisive in building the Museum’s collection. Nevertheless, before addressing collection trips, we are pointing out some particularities of their institutionalization to understand the process of shaping the position MEU wanted to have in the network of peer institutions, whether a control-type institution concerning colonial agencies or an institution providing recognition as their European counterparts. To build MEU’s identity, conceptual and project negotiations were necessary concerning three fundamental elements that were not fully constituted: its name, headquarters, and collection. Formally created in 1965, MEU did not have its own headquarters and could not settle on an address suitable for the size of its collection, that was progressively consisted of an uninterrupted flow of items brought during the trips to the colonies. The care, conservation, and custody for the pieces also demanded an appropriate place for that. In the documents studied, there are reports on the various changes in 4

António Barbosa Carreira was born in 1905 in Cape Verde. In 1916, he went to Guinea, where he was a colonial official until retiring in 1955. In the 1940s, he attended the Higher Studies course at the High Colonial School [Escola Superior Colonial]. He remained in Bissau until 1959 as a civil district administrator. Despite lacking specific training, he published numerous anthropological studies in Cultural Bulletin of Portuguese Guinea [Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa] and has served as a collaborator for the Portuguese Guinean Studies Center since its founding in 1947 (Botas 2013). In 1962, he joined the Organizing Mission of Portugal’s Overseas Ethnology Museum, which preceded the Museum’s formal founding in 1965. He was responsible for expedient and accounting services, hired on a demand basis. He was a resident student at the Institute of Social Research in Bahia’s Federal University in 1966 (Dias 1967).

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address, as well as on costs, and care with the collection already assembled. In 1968, they dealt with the difficulties in obtaining from the municipality a plot of land in Restelo, very close to Belém, a symbolic area for Estado Novo’s representation of power in Lisbon (Chuva 2022; Sancho-Querol 2022). MEU, however, ended up being a museum without headquarters. When the projected building was finally inaugurated on the abovementioned land in 1976, the Museum was in a new phase, with a new name: it was already the Museum of Ethnology, heir to its estate. The name change was made to eliminate the term “overseas”, which had been banned from Portuguese State agencies, in a political stance after the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1974, that ended the authoritarian regime and aimed to clean up the public administration of Portuguese Empire’s brands. However, the power dispute around the name of the Museum began much earlier, right after its founding. Contrary to the idea of an overseas museum only, Jorge Dias, its first director, designed the Portuguese People Museum (Museu do Homem Português) (Dias 1968a, b), believing people would support the fraternity of the Portuguese nation, on the mainland, on the islands, and in the overseas provinces. He defended that this Museum should encompass the practices and ways of living in Portugal and overseas, and it was in this aspect, it presented itself as innovative and marked its distinction from universal European museums (Museu 1968). However, the whole overseas perspective imposed by the Overseas Investigation Board prevailed. Therefore, Jorge Dias and his team had to adapt.5 The small subtleties in name changes are not accidental. Trouillot reminds us when he states that the power of naming synthesizes forces and hegemonies and is also capable of producing silencing (Trouillot 1995). The museum’s identity is shaped in the nuances of these different denominations in different contexts since its first project, configuring representation struggles for the imposition of a hegemonic vision. MEU’s African collection consisted of objects from overseas, acquired in the colonies or the metropolis through donations and purchases. These practices could be labeled colonial loot. Added to this, I will put in doubt the ethnographic nature of the Museum, displayed in its name. In 1968, the catalog African Sculpture at Portugal’s Overseas Ethnology Museum (Escultura Africana no Museu de Etnologia do Ultramar) was published (Museu 1968).6 Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira wrote the introduction to the catalog.7 He unveiled 5

The objects collected in the ethnographic works conducted by Jorge Dias and Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira in rural areas in northern Portugal were taken to MEU’s collection (Cf. Botas 2013), which belongs to the technical reserve that can be visited as Rural Life Galleries at the National Museum of Ethnology, heir to MEU’s collection. Another existing technical reserve that can be visited is that of Amazon Galleries, whose collection was created in the 1960s, mainly through purchasing objects acquired by Victor Bandeira. The history of setting up these collections also brings to light the disputes around their identity. However, such a debate is not within the scope of this article. 6 In 1972, the first exhibition was held at the National Gallery of Modern Art, entitled Peoples and Culture’s common dense catalog (Museu 1972). 7 Between 1967 and 1970, Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira was MEU’s and CEAC’s director from time to time due to frequent Jorge Dias’s academic and overseas trips. In 1967, Jorge Dias spent nine

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the agenda through which the Museum inaugurated its public display (Chuva 2020). Produced in large size (approx. A4 format), with hardcover and photographs, the catalog introduced a selected set of pieces that would become the Museum’s image for its peers. While the formalist aesthetic perspective in which black art was approached in Europe at that time was refuted, they rejected the random modes of collection in the field (Museu 1968). However, I found a mismatch between this idea and how its collections were constituted, because the museum urgently promoted field collections but not in an ethnographical mode. The ethnological perspective has been replaced by the practice of collecting and the types of objects collected, as I will try to explain in the following item, analyzing the way the collection trips were produced in the field.

3 “Collection Trips”—Ethnography as a Collection Practice When analyzing institutional practices, two theses became evident: one of them was that they believed that the cultures found in the field were bound to disappear due to the relentless civilizing progress that would homogenize everything. Therefore, they needed to keep records of their existence for the future. This thesis rendered most collections made in the field lacking due commitment to the groups directly involved with its production and fruition. In this sense, it can be seen in MEU’s practices a collecting urge that bypassed ethnographic experience, focusing on objects for its collections and not on the people who created the objects and whose knowledge gave them meaning. We will see that the adjective ethnographic would not apply to the processes of collection in the field, which are always done in an associated way justified by the risk of imminent disappearance. Such procedures were another form of silencing local people and their knowledge. Not based on an ethnography committed to the peoples investigated, the position of traditional European museums was maintained, with the objectification of cultures perceived as native, through power relations based on the exercise of symbolic violence. In the various reports analyzed, I also saw that the Museum of Angola’s role was crucial so that MEU’s collection operations were successful. In 1965, in reference to a significant undertaking for transporting canoes in bark and wood involving a colonial agency—the Museum of Angola stated: [...] transported with due care by Fernando Guimarães, Camera’s Port manager, to Luanda in February. The Museum of Angola is responsible for dispatching goods. It is a good sign of understanding by Angolan officials. It shows a true commitment of setting up a proper Museum (Dias 1965, p. 20, author translation).

months at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, in Stanford in the USA. Margot Dias kept him company for six months (Dias 1967).

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Mentioning Angolan employees involved with the care of the objects to be shipped to Lisbon shows there was a local network and agents available to execute this complex undertaking. Such a network of agents and agencies was progressively established for building the metropolitan museum. This information appears recurrently in the reports. However, I shall witness that this network was not perfect as sometimes there were other tensions in the relationships established around collection trips. Traveling has become an important part of the work routine. Also, there were crucial moments for understanding the network of agents and agencies that operated toward creating such a heritage (Chuva 2016). The agents sought objects at risk of loss to protect them (Dias 1964, 1967, 1968a, b). Therefore, those agents promoted the collection and production of records and sources. The bureaucratic procedures and articulation to conduct the fieldwork had already begun in Lisbon. Based on Antonio Carreira’s report of his third mission in Angola, Mission for Prospection of Native Art in Angola (Missão de Prospecção de Arte Nativa a Angola), I found evidence of the network supporting field relationships and promotion modes of circulation of objects, people, and knowledge (Carreira 1967). In Lisbon, Carreira describes the paths taken (and the mishaps), the people contacted in each region, and information gathered while preparing for the trip. One of the very illustrative cases of how such collections operated occurred in then-called Vila Luso (today the city of Luena) for purchasing a drum, which was “owned by a dealer known as Couceiro [a railway engineer]”. According to Carreira, “When you find truly authentic pieces, you have to buy them”. Here is the first clue of field searches: through this network—often built over a few years by colonial agents and agencies, such as the manager or the railway engineer—one expected to find authentic objects. In this case, it was a vast “distance message transmission drum (about 2.47 × 0.89 × 0.79 m). A piece of dense tacula wood with an estimated weight of more than 1000 kg” (sic). The piece’s value was still extremely low compared with its final price. As the report reads: “It is not the initial cost that makes it expensive. Shipping expenses to take pieces to Lisbon are a considerable burden. The drum purchased in Cabinda was worth Esc.: 6,565$40 when it arrived in Lisbon. The original cost (Buco-Zau) – $2,00,000.” Other costs: gifts to Soba – 150$00 / wood for packaging – 800$00 / carpenter – 200$00 / transport from the area to Cabinda by truck – 1,000$00 / Steam freight from Cabinda to Luanda – 1,996$40 / Duan dispatch in Cabinda – 419$00 / It is still necessary to consider dispatch at Customs in Lisbon and transport to the Museum (Carreira 1967, p. 11–12, author translation).

Despite detailed information on the purchase, there is no mention to the person who made the instrument nor how the drum was used and by whom. The network of agents in the territory focused on acquisition. The network had informants able to indicate where what they understood to be “authentic objects” could be found, as well as essential services, such as drivers for displacement and sobas that facilitated the circulation of objects and field researchers. In Angola, the local museums were, on the one hand, institutional connection points of this broad network, as mentioned above. In some reports, the Museum of Angola appears to help transport and store objects acquired by MEU. On the other

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hand, the relationships established with such museums seemed to fail, producing disconnections, which showed competition between metropolitan and local museums and highlighted integrative tensions, contrary to the strengthening of ties in the construction of the nation state (Elias 2006). When Carreira refers to “Dr. Albuquerque”, who would not accept to dispose of objects as they were to be sent to the Lobito Museum, it is quite clear they are competitors. Another indication of this competition appears when he states that the pieces gathered in this mission were significant, considering that “most of them are not represented in the Museum of Ethnology, even in the Angolan museums—those in Luanda and Huíla” (Carreira 1967, p. 5, author translation). The network had weak links, especially considering the varied risks faced in the missions. The report states, “you cannot let the number of pieces increase because […] there is always the fear of pieces being stolen or damaged”. Distrust was also a key element of the institutions that made up this network. As can be seen, when Carreira stated that they preferred to transport objects by plane to Luanda and from there to Lisbon, rather than leaving “the task to any Angolan entity, as there would be a risk of delay in shipping or even loss” (Carreira 1967, p. 6, author translation). The reports show that the desire to collect items was rooted in the rhetoric of loss. In turn, the scientific character of Carreira’s Missions spread the word on the Museum’s publications (Museum 1968, 1972), which were based not on ethnographic research but on producing source records for future research at the Museum. Carreira referred to many color slides and black and white photos taken in the field, explaining the purpose of the set produced: It is a reasonable photographic documentary to be used in the studies of the regions, classes, and publicity, or educational lectures. The slides are all labeled. Whenever we could, we photographed the ethnographic material to, from day one, document its presence in the Museum’s collection (Carreira 1967, p. 9). Therefore, the scientific character of the missions was introduced to urgently register the material expression of the authenticity of these disappearing cultures by organizing collections for studies and, in this way, mitigating the damages of what the inexorable civilizing progress would be doing. In this way, this loss was seen as inevitable, and the historical, political, and cultural specificities marked by the struggles for independence ended up being disregarded or becoming invisible in the reports. This approach is aligned with Jorge Dias’ anthropological perspective, influenced, as Macagno discussed, by Franz Boas’ cultural anthropology and precise adherence to Gilberto Freyre’s Lusotropicalism (Macagno 2002). According to Pinto, Lusotropicalism adapted to the Portuguese scenario by Estado Novo managers that portrayed a racially mixed, hybrid, mestizo national context (Pinto 2009). Hence, the idea then forged of an exceptional or sui generis character to Portuguese colonialism compared with other European Imperial nations, for being able to create a sense of belonging, fraternity, and harmony through mixing races. If civilizational homogenization was inexorable, as MEU agents discussed, miscegenation was also the fate of civilization in the tropics, according to Jorge Dias (Dias 1966). However, such a Freyrean perspective silenced the racial, social, and cultural hierarchies in which racism was structured in Brazil and, as the evidence points out, also in Portugal.

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The research aimed at consolidating that MEU had an idealized reference for the ethnographic experience conducted with the Maconde people in the Portuguese Overseas Ethnic Minorities Study Mission.8 However, that ethnographic practice had long since been replaced by gathering trips that resembled treasure hunters. Even so, the Museum created an ethnographic effect because there were people working on its behalf in pursuit of authentic objects. The Museum’s authority validated the search. Such a contribution provided legitimacy to the value of authenticity attributed to the pieces collected in the field by the agents working for the Overseas Ethnology Museum, which also ended up producing effects on the intense trade in cultural goods. This issue is approached in the report: “Traveling long distances in search of objects that were available there until a few months ago, or that someone familiar with the region recommended to us. An object sold to [person A] or [person] P’; ‘the object was available last year(…)”. (Carreira 1967, p. 10, author translation)

The authority of its informants—they were “sobas and important people”— also constructs that ethnographic effect of authenticity as they belonged to structured networks, operating in the territory aiming at locating, acquiring, displacing, packaging, and transporting, thus inventing this heritage at risk of disappearing. Modes of knowledge production are highlighted by measuring, quantifying, and internalizing (or objectifying) what is knowable, as Quijano defined the coloniality of knowledge (Quijano 2005). Such coloniality of knowledge can be identified in the collection, selection, and attribution of heritage value and the methods adopted for the knowledge of these cultural assets with the production of records and sources. I analyzed some of the discovery mechanisms of this heritage and the limits to that discovery in identifying “authentic” native culture. Doing so was one of several strategies undertaken by colonial powers (Porto 2009).9 What can be seen in this collecting eagerness in search of the lost authenticity and an effort to manufacture objects for tourists, “objects that proliferate in urban centers” (Carreira 1967, p. 11, author translation) is its silenced reverse, that is, the threat of disintegrating networks and the Imperial hegemony in colonial regions. MEU’s dominant rationale can be summarized in Carreira’s quote above. In his view, industrialization curbed the diversity of human life forms and reduced the original traits of native groups’ material culture. These practices carry ambiguities. It was vital to urgently put together a definitive collection—under the custody of the metropolis. The silencing, which is not made explicit, nor recognized as a reality, concerns the fear that such changes lead to the end of a fraternal relationship, threatened not by colonial rule but by civilizing modernity. Is the fear of anti-colonial struggles between the lines? 8

The Portuguese Overseas Ethnic Minorities Study Mission was conducted from 1956 to 1961. Under Jorge Dias, extensive ethnographic work was performed with the Maconde people in Northeastern Mozambique. For further information, refer to Pereira (2005). 9 Porto (2019) also analyzes the transits between “ethnography” and “art” in Angola, from a historical perspective, contributing to the current debate on the art market and processes of value attribution.

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In turn, this nostalgic and threatening feeling of everything being lost gives rise to the projection of a network of museums involving the MEU and the Museums in Angola, seen below. At the top, crowning the Angolan museums’ system and complementing it beyond the limitations of the other levels would be the Overseas Ethnology Museum, as the only general ethnology museum in the entire country. The Museum’s greatness needs to be urgently promoted. It must feature the richest and most complete representation possible of overseas cultures—and even of all human culture—in the universality and totality of their manifestations (Oliveira 1971, p. 33). With these words, Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira summarizes his project for a museum system, which he formulated after his trip to Angola in 1970, the year in which he also took on the “semiannual Chair of Museology, in the Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences course at ISCSPU” (Oliveira 1970, p. 10). He made an inventory of almost a dozen museums on a trip in May and June before classes started. He sought to find “good, old, or at least authentic pieces” in the collections, similar to the searches conducted in the field on collection trips. The same civilizing lenses noted the presence of “current ‘handcraft’ products of a commercial and decorative nature” (Oliveira 1971, p. 29), through which he also stated that “none of the museums in Angola can be considered a museum of world-class general ethnology. For this, they lack the character of universality. […] Angola’s museums are strictly regional”. (Oliveira 1971, p. 33, author translation). Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira played an integrated role in training MEU’s specialists sent to the colonies and criticized the autonomy of colonial museums, seen as unreasonable competition: Moreover, Portugal’s Overseas Ethnology Museum would work as a pilot museum and training school for specialist museologists. They would then be qualified to supervise services at provincial museums. […] Nevertheless, […] as long as each museum acts only to its own aggrandizement, indifferent, if not opposed to the others, sometimes in a kind of hostile rivalry, there will inevitably be, on both sides, a waste of resources, meaningless, constructive and of no real use. (Oliveira 1971, p. 34, author translation)

The imposition of a hierarchy between metropolitan and colonial museums reminds us of the “cultural guardianship” that Van Beurden (2015) refers to when dealing with the relationship between the Tervuren Museum10 and Congo. To Van Beurden, the protection and preservation of traditional cultures would be another strategy for maintaining the colonial presence of Belgium in independent Congo and, in the Portuguese case, a clear exposition of colonial relations silenced by the idea that there would be a Portuguese national character that would involve overseas provinces. As I tried to demonstrate, the reports analyzed silenced the ongoing struggles for independence in Angola, probably because this sensitive theme wasn’t welcome in the official document. The aesthetics of authenticity was reproduced 10

After architectural renovation and design overhaul, the former Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium, was reopened in 2018 and renamed Afrika Museum.

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among those Portuguese who perhaps perceived themselves to be oblivious to such power struggles. That did not make them, however, any less colonial. It is difficult to believe that they did not discuss the delicate subject of colonial wars in any way, but the issue has not been addressed in the reports.

4 From Africa to Portugal, from Portugal to the (Civilized) World In this chain of actions that I seek to point out throughout the article, consisting of a way of imposing a type of circulation from the metropolitan to the colonial areas, I also envision Portuguese strategies of insertion in a European world from which it was excluded, implemented within the scope of the Overseas Ethnology Museum. Rejected in international forums linked to the UN, due to its attitude toward its colonies, since the postwar period, Portugal has sought ways of recognizing and belonging to the European world, seen as the top of a civilization chain. The lusotropicalism theorizing on a Portuguese way of being in the world would reinforce the country’s theses about its overseas provinces, ideas still disseminated in the 1970s. Jorge Dias belonged to an international academic network and was celebrated after his death in 1973, especially in the Portuguese anthropological field, as the founder of Portugal’s Cultural Anthropology. However, it did not automatically render due recognition to the Museum among its peers, given problems already discussed here, such as the lack of a headquarters, the few exhibitions held, and its anachronism, and Portugal’s rogue position in the international scenario. In this limited field, some projects came to fruition and gave a more public appearance to MEU, such as the recognition it achieved after the publication of the 1968 catalog as mentioned earlier, African Sculpture at Portugal’s Overseas Ethnology Museum, envisioning opportunities to be integrated to the network of great universal European museums to which Portugal did not belong. Thus, it was with boundless joy that they accepted the invitation of Zurich’s Museum of Fine Arts to participate in the exhibition of Black African art, lending eight pieces to this exhibition. According to a report by Jorge Dias, who attended the exhibition opening with Margot Dias, the eight pieces on loan were chosen from the “African Sculpture” catalog. Dias, in his report, lists the pieces and makes some comments: 1) pot lid from Cabinda (Baoio), representing a figurative proverb; 2) an ancestor statuette, Kioko, which is one of the most beautiful sculptures of this genre and experts attribute it to the value of 500 contos; we must remember that it belonged to a collection of a few hundred pieces sold by Mr. Antonio de Oliveira’s widow for 80 contos; 3) the remaining six pieces are from the Bijagós collection, sold by Mr. Victor Bandeira [11 ]. Our representation of this

11

Victor Bandeira was an art dealer and made numerous private collection trips that later became part of MEU’s collection. Bandeira purchased the pieces (Botas 2013).

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ethnicity must be the richest known today unless I am mistaken. (Dias 1970, p. 2, author translation)12

He would highlight the aesthetic perspective, the commercial value of the piece, and its rarity. In the report mentioned above, he takes the opportunity to tell his superiors how important the Museum was. Such fact shows a certain instability about MEU’s institutional existence and a need for recognition: The fact that we were invited to collaborate with the pieces mentioned above is proof of the value of our collections, and the importance and prestige the Overseas Ethnology Museum already holds. (Dias 1970, p. 3, author translation)

He adds: It would have been severe and deplorable even if our country, a pioneer in the discovery of so many places on Earth and one of the first to meet people of all ethnicities, did not even have a Museum of Ethnology at an international level. At the last moment, when our undertaking seemed almost impossible, we managed to save our prestige for the rest of the world to witness. (Dias 1970, p. 4, author translation)

It is plain to see that Dias wanted international recognition for Portugal’s colonial enterprise, that is, the Portuguese role in civilizing the world. From Dias perspective, it would be a deserved recognition for Portugal because of the work the country had conducted since the discoveries, fully integrating itself into the civilized world. Dias had already been discussing those issues for over a decade to make a case for defending the existence of the Museum. Nothing should be more lusotropical than praising the Portuguese maritime expansion to the New World as the country’s remarkable achievement for civilization, silencing the effects of such expansion, that is, the violence against the original peoples and the exploitation of enslaved Africans in Portuguese America. Through MEU, these researchers envisioned the achievement of Portuguese recognition in the list of civilized countries by integrating such an exhibition, advocating support for the Portuguese colonial empire that collapsed and would soon end on April 25, 1974. The intertwined aspects that I initially indicated—ethnography as a collection practice, the rhetoric of loss as a justification for an urgent collection in the field, also the distrust/competition concerning the lead-role for colonial museums—have been discussed from a relational and dialectical perspective, seeking to identify the 12

These Bigajós pieces identified in the Electronic Inventory of the National Museum of Ethnology (MatrizNet) were probably those featured in the exhibition, given the information that they make up the 1968 African Sculpture catalog of the Overseas Ethnology Museum. The objects are: Mask: http://www.matriznet.dgpc.pt/MatrizNet/Objectos/ObjectosConsultar.aspx?IdReg=1037895&Ent Sep=4#gotoPosition; Head adornment: http://www.matriznet.dgpc.pt/MatrizNet/Objectos/Object osConsultar.aspx?IdReg=1037903&EntSep=4#gotoPosition; Mask: http://www.matriznet.dgpc. pt/MatrizNet/Objectos/ObjectosConsultar.aspx?IdReg=1037905&EntSep=4#gotoPosition; Head Adornment: http://www.matriznet.dgpc.pt/MatrizNet/Objectos/ObjectosConsultar.aspx?IdReg= 1040411&EntSep=4#gotoPosition; Head adornment: http://www.matriznet.dgpc.pt/MatrizNet/ Objectos/ObjectosConsultar.aspx?IdReg=1037880&EntSep=4#gotoPosition; Head adornment: http://www.matriznet.dgpc.pt/MatrizNet/Objectos/ObjectosConsultar.aspx?IdReg=1069066&Ent Sep=4#gotoPosition.

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perspectives that produced thinking and silencing on overseas enterprises, as well as their sharing. The fluidity of time transforms expectations of the future into vanquished pasts, into a present full of past that does not go away, into the synchronicity of such disparate events, which are, in fact, so interconnected, they seem surprised aspects in the historiographical work. Significant aspects of the MEU’s path, its complexity, and contradictions that constitute significant elements of its place as a colonial institution must be studied.13 The African collections in the former MEU were formed through field collections, the network of agents formed by the colonial administration, who provided materiality to coloniality by the objectification of cultures and inventing native colonial culture. In them, symbolic violence was part of the diasporic condition of these objects. Dealing with the past that created heritages in the diaspora is a gigantic challenge for their institutions seeking to decolonize their practices and comply with the current global debate. Considering the sensitivities of all those historical processes, I believe that the debate on historical reparation, including how to deal with African objects in the diaspora, is critical. Hence, I understand that the radical historicization of collections and, especially, of institutions are steps to be taken to forge a willingness to listen as a decolonial attitude. By listening, people will be able to build bridges so that societies can become more connected to their past, which affects their present, without resorting to cultural guardianship or any kind of patronizing attitude. Acknowledgements This research has received financial support from Brazilian agencies Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPQ).

References Ágoas F (2020) Social sciences, modernization, and late colonialism: the Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa. J Hist Behav Sci 56(4):278–297 Appadurai A (ed) (2008) A vida social das coisas: as mercadorias sob uma perspectiva cultural. Fluminense Federal University Press, Niterói Bastos C et al (eds) (2007) Trânsitos Coloniais: diálogos críticos luso-brasileiros. Social Sciences Press, Lisbon Beurden SV (2015) Authentically African: arts and the transnational politics of Congolese culture. Ohio University Press, Ohio Bittencourt (2015) Colonização e Pós-colonialismo: as teias do património. In: Rossa W, Ribeiro MC (eds) Patrimônios deInfluência Portuguesa: modos de olhar. Eduff, Calouste Gulberkian, Niterói, pp 121–146 Boletim (1960) Boletim Cultural do Museu de Angola 1, Luanda Botas A (2013) As Máscaras Bijagó do Museu Nacional de Etnologia. Questões em torno da informatização do inventário de coleções. Master thesis in Museology, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, New University of Lisbon, Lisbon 13

Cf. http://www.patrimoniocultural.gov.pt/pt/recursos/cedencia-e-aluguer-de-espacos/aluguerde-espacos-museu-nacional-de-etnologia/.

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Carreira A (1967) Relatório da Missão de Prospecção de Arte Nativa a Angola, Campanha de 1967, pp 1–13 Castelo C (1998) O modo português de estar no mundo. O luso-tropicalismo e a ideologia colonial portuguesa (1933–1961). Afrontamento, Porto Chuva M (2016) Forjar patrimônio em campo: deslocamentos e missões no Brasil e na África. Estudos Históricos 29(57):29–48 Chuva M (2022) Praça do Império In Catálogo. In: Guardião A, Jerónimo MB, Peixoto P (eds) Ecos coloniais: histórias, patrimónios e memórias. Tinta-da-China, Lisbon, pp 193–202 Chuva M (2020) Histórias para descolonizar: o Museu Nacional de Etnologia de Lisboa e suas coleções africanas. In Soares BB (ed) Descolonizando a Museologia. Museus, Ação Comunitária e Descolonização. Icom / Icofom, Paris, pp 72–90 Dias J (1964) das Actividades desenvolvidas pelo Centro e pela Missão Organizadora do Museu do Ultramar no ano de 1964, pp 1–12 Dias J (1965) Relatório das Actividades do Centro de Estudos e do Museu de Etnologia durante o ano de 1965, pp 1–20 Dias J (1966) O indivíduo e a sociedade, Separata de Estudos Políticos Sociais do Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas Ultramarinas (ISCSPU) IV(I):47–59 Dias J (1967) Relatório de 1967, Centro de Estudos de Antropologia Cultural e Museu de Etnologia do Ultramar, pp 1–11 Dias J (1968a) Interview to Diário de Lisboa. 4, 5 and 7 Mar Dias J (1968b) Relatório do Centro e do Museu referente ao ano de 1968, pp 1–15 Dias J (1970) Relatório da visita à Inauguração da Exposição ‘Arte Africana Negra’ no Museu de Belas Artes em Zurique, no dia 31 de outubro de 1970 Elias N (1993 [1978]) O Processo Civilizador: Formação do estado e civilização. Jorge Zahar, Rio de Janeiro Elias N (2006 [1970]) Escritos e ensaios. 1. In Estado, processo, opinião pública. Jorge Zahar, Rio de Janeiro Freyre G (1953) Aventura e Rotina. José Olympio, Rio de Janeiro Gonçalves JR (1997) A retórica da perda. IPHAN/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro Gonçalves JJ (ed) (1968) Criação e Reorganizações do Instituto Superior de Estudos Ultramarinos (1906–1961). Agência Geral do Ultramar, Lisbon Jerónimo MB (ed) (2013) O império Colonial em questão (XIX-XX). Poderes, saberes, e instituições, Edições 70, Lisbon Jerónimo MB (2015) Colonialismo Moderno e missão civilizadora. In: Rossa W, Ribeiro MC (eds) Patrimônios deInfluência Portuguesa: modos de olhar. Eduff, Calouste Gulberkian, Niterói, pp 95–119 Macagno L (2002) Lusotropicalismo e nostalgia etnográfica: Jorge Dias entre Portugal e Moçambique. Afro-Ásia 28:97–124 Mignolo W (2011) The darker side of Western Modernity. Duke University Press, Durham Museu (1968) Escultura Africana no Museu de Etnologia do Ultramar. Junta de Investigação do Ultramar, Lisbon Museu (1972) Povos e Culturas. Museu de Etnologia do Ultramar. Junta de Investigações do Ultramar. Exposição Galeria de Arte Moderna, Lisbon Oliveira EV (1971) Museus e Coleções de Etnografia de Angola. Garcia D’orta - Separata, Revista Da Junta De Investigações Do Ultramar 19(1–4):25–43 Oliveira EV (1970) Relato das Actividades do Centro de Estudos de Antropologia Cultural durante o ano de 1970, pp 1–11 Pereira R (2005) Conhecer para dominar. O desenvolvimento do conhecimento antropológico na Política colonial portuguesa em Moçambique, 1926–1959. PhD Thesis in Anthropology, FCSH/ UNL, Lisbon Pinto JAC (2009) Gilberto Freyre e o lusotropicalismo como ideologia do colonialismo português (1951–1974). Revista Da UFG, Ano XI 6:145–160

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Porto N (2009) Modos de objetificação da dominação colonial – o caso do Museu do Dundo 1940–1970. Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon Porto N (2019) Arte Africana, de novo: trânsitos entre ‘etnografia’ e ‘arte’ em Angola. De acervos coloniais aos museus indígenas:formas e protagonismo e de construção da ilusão museal. UFPB Press, João Pessoa, pp 157–190 Quijano A (2005) Colonialidade do poder, eurocentrismo e América Latina. In: Lander E (ed) A colonialidade do saber: eurocentrismo e ciências sociais. Perspectivas latinoamericanas. Colección Sur, CLACSO, Buenos Aires Rossa W, Ribeiro MC (eds) (2015) Patrimônios deInfluência Portuguesa: modos de olhar. Eduff, Calouste Gulberkian, Niterói Sancho-Querol L (2022) Museu Nacional de Etnologia. In: Guardião A, Jerónimo MB, Peixoto P (eds) Ecos coloniais: histórias, patrimónios e memórias. Tinta-da-China, Lisbon, pp 193–202 Soares BB (2012) Máscaras guardadas: musealização e descolonização. PhD Thesis in Anthropology, Universidade Federal Fluminense Thomaz O (2001) “O Bom Povo Português”: usos e costumes d’Aquém e d’Além-mar. Mana 7(1):55–87 Trouillot MR (1995) Silencing the past. Power and the production of history. Beacon Press, Boston

Márcia Chuva is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro— UNIRIO, Brazil. Holds a PhD in History. Researcher of the National Scientific and Technological Development Council—CNPq and of the Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support in the State of Rio de Janeiro—FAPERJ. Visiting researcher at the Center for Social Studies (CES) at the University of Coimbra (2019–2020). She conducts research projects and guides PhD students’ research on critical heritage studies. She coordinated the Brazilian team of the project European Colonial Heritage Modalities in Entangled Cities—ECHOES (2018–2021) (funded by European Union—Horizon 2020). Her interests are on heritage, museums and memory policies, postcolonialism and colonial heritage, restitution of cultural artifacts.

Denaturalization and Occidental Narrative to the Detriment of the Materiality of Moche and Tupinambá Jeremy Gibran Dioses Campaña

Abstract In the present work, we will study the denaturation of the Tupinambá mantles and the Moche “huacos” present in the museums Le Musée de Quai Branly and Musée d’ethnographie de Genève (MEG). We understand that denaturation is carried out from two processes that dialogue with each other. The first is the relationship of hegemony between these spaces and the materiality produced by peoples, where this materiality is placed in otherness. And, in addition to being placed in an inauspicious position, this materiality was distorted by altering their nomination and, consequently, their original meanings that gave them meaning. In that sense, we understand that this denaturalization of the materiality of these native peoples of America is inscribed in a greater spectrum that is colonialism and that operates through the elements commented. However, the existence of this colonialist discourse printed in museological narratives, constructions, and other manifestations has a response on the part of some colonized subjects. This agency is a continuation of the process of decolonization initiated with the anti-colonial rebellions in the nineteenth century. Keywords Colonialism · Denaturalization · Decolonization of imaginaries · Occidental narrative

The original version of the chapter has been revised: coauthor name “ Marcos Olender”. which have now been removed and Jeremy Gibran Dioses Campaña is the only author for Chapter 11. A correction to the chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_18 J. G. D. Campaña (B) Graduate Program History, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023, corrected publication 2024 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_11

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1 Introduction This article will study the idea of denaturation suffered by the Moche and Tupinambá materiality plundered and located in a European and colonialist context. The new nominations or labels placed to this materiality taken to the main museums of Europe—at different times—where these new nomenclatures freely imposed by these museums range from “strange object” to the idea of an “exotic piece” that clearly distorts the epistemological reality that originated the Tupinambá mantles and the “huacos”—sacred object—of the Moche. From the text of Achille Mbembe (2010) we know that the phenomenon of colonization, which is an important part of the occidental historical and civilizing project, developed by Europeans from the fifteenth century, has not ended. Mbembe divides colonization into two periods: the first period places it in mercantilism; the second period places it in the Industrial Revolution, which is described by him as: “[...] the second characterized by the double imperative of access to raw materials and distribution for industrial products” (Mbembe, 2010, p. 5, author translation). This periodization of colonialism allows us to understand that the phenomenon of the denaturalization of Tupinambá and Moche materiality from the modification in their nominations is caused by colonialism that is located in the second colonialist period indicated by Mbembe, where there are uses of old concepts and updates of these in new contexts, such as: Indian, exotic, rare; and the insertion of new concepts, mainly linked to capitalism, such as: import and export of cultural goods, investment for exploitation, among others. All of them used in the process of plundering and awarding new nomenclatures to the Moche and Tupinambá materiality. On the other hand, and although our article is based on the Tupinambá mantles and the Moche “huacos”, we understand that the monuments, statues, and all the materiality produced by Europeans are part of a colonialist grammar that continues to maintain the cult of those archetypes that contain colonialism in their semantics. Thus, we can observe in different cities and museums of Europe the assimilation of the invasion in America as a romantic achievement, where his narrative focuses on the difficulties that Europeans had to reach America, and erase in their narrative the destruction caused by them in the indigenous civilizations of America. In this sense, the Mausoleum of Christopher Columbus—in Seville—has a narrative as if he were a hero, led by four men representing the four kingdoms of: Castile, León, Aragon, and Navarre. Among other representations is, the bronze engraving of Antonio Susillo Fernández (1893), where Columbus and the indigenous are presented in an action of submission and nudes, linked to the archetype of primitive. A fact that is recorded is from the late nineteenth century and in the exhibition, there is no critical look at it.1 1

In this same city, Seville, we can observe that Corpus Christi is one of the most important celebrations, in which the image of Fernando III continues to be part, considering that the “comparsa” represents the important elements in the imaginary of a society and its hierarchies, as Darnton (2015) thinks, we can consider that in the current imaginary, in the Seville of the twenty-first century, this image adapted in this context, has an importance for Sevillian society. No longer as a holy king, but as an archetype reminiscent of the power this city once had. For this reason, we believe that these

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Another of the spaces where you can see these expressions is the Plaza España— located in Seville—where the Ibero-American exhibition of 1929 was held. And, although countries, such as Spain, the United States, Portugal, and Brazil were invited to this exhibition, the symbolic message indicates the maintenance of archetypes that suggests power over invaded spaces, such as the tiles where the figure of Columbus appears related to power and indigenous peoples to the uncivilized.2 In this brief tour of the elements construct a framework of colonialist expressions, we understand that the focus of our study is best understood if we observe that it is not only about museums, public spaces, and the current rituality performed in churches, such as the Cathedral of Seville, the Archbasilica of San Juan de Letrán and others where they still have archetypes that are venerated and carry symbols of power and colonization (such as is the case of the image of Fernando III “the saint”), constitute the framework that gives meaning to the museums considered in this study where the materiality Moche and Tupinambá are found. Thus, the space/semantic relationship allows the maintenance of imaginaries where the autochthonous American subject (understood as indigenous) is subjected to alterity and Europeans retain their hegemonic position. It is in this relationship that the Tupinambá and Moche materiality is inserted in the spaces of the Musée d’Etnographie de Genève—in Switzerland—and Le Musée de Quai Branly—in France. Therefore, realizing that in countries such as France, Switzerland, Spain, and other spaces not considered in this work, there are these structures that configure an entire ideological apparatus expressed in urban constructions. We understand that it is necessary to understand that the mechanics of domination presented have to do with even deeper issues, such as the imposition of a historical and civilizing vision on others. As Quijano (2000) warns: “One of the most powerful mechanisms in Europe was to have established history in the world according to its conceptions” (author translation). And this has never been resolved. But to that observation about history, we could add the question of time. By distorting the semantics of the materiality of these peoples, the new narrative will modify the questions of time that we will observe throughout this article.

elements have not been forgotten; if not, for a little modesty, they became icons or archetypes that still retain symbols of power, as we can see in the statue of Fernando III, which has a globe and the sword that refer to the conquest and power over the globe in a context where Spain had a great influence on the world. 2 This relationship can be seen in the “Plaza de España”, entrusted to the architect Aníbal González Álvarez-Ossorio, where again the presence of a Christopher Columbus as a historical icon was maintained, without any reflection on the facts of violence and colonization. The tiles where he honored the Colombo Agency are those dedicated to the Canary Islands, Barcelona, and Huelva.

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2 Homogeneous Time to the Detriment of “Indigenous Archaeological Artifacts” Colonialism has never been overcome but adapted to new contexts. These new contexts were and are embedded in the ideas related to the modern invention of the nation-state. In this sense, for Partha Chatterjee (2007) in societies that had been colonized the concept of nation was constructed in a different way with regard to the present in the spaces called “metropolis”. Chatterjee thinks that these societies go beyond the nationalisms proposed by European states due to the differentiation between the discourse imposed by the occident and the characteristics of nations that did not fall into the imposed categories, such as: citizen, civil society, democracy, among others that did not exist in spaces outside Europe. Going through this same line of thought, we can perceive that the tendency to generalize (homogenize) is a recurring mechanism in occidental colonialism. And, of the multiple concepts aimed at standardizing all societies outside Europe, let’s think about how the concept of humanity works, where all people are supposed to be subject to this concept. But in what is observed in the representations of museums, of the other spaces briefly commented, it is not a concept that encompasses all human beings. On the contrary, in the discourses presented, as we will observe in the development of the article, the native peoples of America are placed in otherness through the labels of rare, exotic, and others. But we cannot think of this discourse as coherent or fixed. Because coloniality has contradictory issues, and this concept spins in an unstable cadence and, depending on the situation, will adapt and be used. Thus, to impose their vision of history, they have to homogenize and place all peoples on the same logical and progressive line of time to speak of the “history of humanity”. And although these other human groups have been considered within humanity by the aforementioned label, what is invariable and stable is their position in otherness. Being thought of as civilizations that will never reach a position similar to that occupied by the civilizations present in Europe, and with the imposition of the “history of humanity”, a linear narrative is established that erases other criteria of perception of time, which is also inserted in the materiality of the Moche and Tupinambá civilizations, as we will see later. Thus, the imposition of occidental epistemology, as the only and legitimate way of interpreting the different historical and civilizing realities of each society, is the twisted part that operates in multiple ways through the notion of “humanity” thought by the occident, and one of them is through historical heritage. For this reason, the construction of a history of “humanity”, from a single glance and based on the plundering of the materiality of non-European civilizations, clearly shows this contradictory side that “includes” other peoples, but excludes their historical visions and takes away their cultural productions to “preserve” them. So, what kind of humanity is this that prevents different societies from thinking about their own historical interpretations and keeping their own productions in their place of origin? Thus, for the sake of universalism, many other ways of interpreting objective reality are erased, and the concepts contained in its materiality are misunderstood. In this sense, we

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try to prove that this imposition of the occidental colonialist vision operates through the submission of the materiality of the Tupinambá and Moche civilizations to the implicit and explicit discourses in the aforementioned architectural spaces to the concept of time understood from their matrix of occidental thought to the detriment of their own historical and temporal visions of the Tupinambá and the Moche. Thus, in the Musée d’Etnographie de Genève—in Switzerland—and Le Musée de Quai Branly—in France—we have observed how colonialism works, where the question of discourses on European hegemony and the concepts of temporality that the occidental structure of thought considers homogeneous is also inserted. Le Musée d’Etnographie de Genève—in Switzerland—is a space that through writing and unwritten information contains a historical and political language that maintains the idea of Europeans as civilizers. In this sense, today the logic of the subject-time of the universal colonizer was continued, as if there were no other ways of interpreting time and the logics of social change. In the narratives of this museum, the other conceptions about time are simply not taken into account and without the original time of the pieces, the sense granted by the epistemology that allowed their existence of materiality is lost.3 So how is time organized according to this museum? At the Musée d’ethnographie de Genève (MEG) in 2022 an exhibition entitled Objets Étranges et Histoire Naturelle was held. First, we can see that all the production of materiality by non-European civilizations is initially placed in otherness. And in that sense, the materiality of the civilizations invaded by Europeans is understood as strange. Thus, the European colonizing subject builds his normality from which there is someone non-European who is considered by them as strange. Secondly, this materiality belonging to other non-European civilizations—concerning the Tupinambá and the Moche—is poorly developed in its meanings and, among them, the concept of time; for the narrative of “objects” begins with contact with occidental invaders or marketers and not from the production of the object.4 The first objects today called “ethnographic” entered the Geneva collections in the eighteenth century, in a “charnière” moment. Around 1750, the ambition to build a scientific knowledge of the world rivals the curiosity aroused by strangeness. Exploration trips, conditions created conducive to bring back souvenirs, trophies or collections (Exhibition at MEG, 2022, author translation).

And what is the problem in this narrative? Well, this narrative speaks more of the European presence in contact with this materiality instead of these same material productions. For this reason, the narrative will focus more on details such as: the date of acquisition, the seller, the expedition, among other details that make up the spectrum of information that is placed as more relevant than the specific information of the epistemology itself that gave rise to these materialities. 3

This statement we will see further in the opinions of a woman belonging to the Tupinambá. With respect to the Tupinambá and the other civilizations present in the Amazon, the “Musée d’ethnographie de Genève” (MEG), in the first part recognize that there was a Eurocentrism from which humanity was hierarchized.

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And without them being the producers of this materiality they claim the right to do so. It is again the modern occidental subject, this subject that was born with the enlightenment that, ignoring the truths of other civilizations, is placed as the bearer of knowledge as a whole. And we talk about this because with the expeditions with the intention to appropriate the cultural productions of these civilizations, some disciplines arise to understand the “study” of these productions of materiality. For example, in the case of travelers who went to spaces known today as Peru, Pascal Riviale says: “But it is above all in the instructions written by Abbé Barthélémy in 1776 that the study of archaeological remains and ethnographic documents clearly appears as a critical approach to pre-Hispanic Peru” (2000, p. 33, author translation). In this sense, the exhibition tells more about the history of this European man focused on knowledge (according to occidental canons) than about the materiality exhibited in the museum; consequently, materiality is only an instrument through which he relies to carry out his construction as a subject, placing himself in a hegemonic space, placing material productions in alterity and under their supervision, and putting an end to all the semantic content created by the Tupinambá and the Moche. “The nascent ethnography was inspired by the model of the natural sciences. We were interested in specimens, exchanged between institutions to form a series. The study of people considered ‘not very advanced in civilization’ was in accordance with that of their natural environment” (Exhibition at MEG, 2022, author translation). In addition, it is mentioned: “It was here that we found the spectacular pieces capable of positioning the museum on the international scene” (Exhibition at MEG, 2022, author translation). That is to say, this same “exotic” nature generated a greater relevance for the museums that had this type of pieces and generated a hierarchy among the colonizers themselves from this materiality, confirming that this subject, who considers himself the bearer of “reason”, needs this materiality and these peoples considered inferior to his construction as a subject. In addition, in the exhibition of the Museum of Geneva a phrase is placed that has to do with “the strange”, this phrase is “Exoticism as taste”, which is the title of another part of the exhibition. In the graphic narrative of the museum, it is explained that the exotic means everything that is strange. “In its picturesque aspects, folklore and exoticism individualize one we and the others. At the end of the nineteenth century, the vogue of identities had repercussions in Geneva in the offer of local antique dealers, as on the occasion of the Swiss National Exhibition of 1896” (Exhibition at MEG, 2022, author translation). It is precisely this differentiation built on the “others”—otherness—that is clearly opposed to the totalizing idea of “humanity”, which will interact with the concepts of temporality, as we have observed in the museographic narrative where there is a linear and progressive reading from this invaded people, which are placed in perspective and are believed to be behind in relation to European societies; leaving aside their own temporal criteria through which indigenous societies understood the development of their own historical processes. So, we reiterate, a main component that Europeans use to characterize these nonEuropean subjects is otherness and, in this imposed condition, the “exotics” are inserted into the occidental context. But the insertion of objects belonging to the

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Moche and Tupinambá subjects is surpassed by long-term concepts such as exotic, Indian, among others, and also of time, removing the concepts of time originally implicit in these material productions. Because the time of both the Tupinambá and the Moche does not go in a linear and progressive direction; rather, his vision of time contemplates the possibility of an active interaction between past and present in order to live in harmony with these temporal dimensions. Therefore, the temporal scheme is circular, allowing them to communicate with their ancestors in certain rituals and festivities, so nothing has been forgotten and contact can be established with the cosmos as a whole.5 In this sense, the triad: equal humanity—homogeneous time—indigenous artifact is based on the denaturalization of the Moche and Tupinambá materiality to dehumanize them, end the heterogeneous of their ways of seeing reality and distort the information of the Moche and Tupinambá materiality. In this sense, it is necessary to think briefly about materiality to understand the idea about how time works around materiality and society. There are already studies on materiality, among which we can count Rodríguez (2006), Vaquer (2012), Ingolds (2013), of which we think as the work closest to our academic interests, the one carried out by Meskell (2004, 2005). Well, this author understands that materiality is a concept that goes beyond objects and can only be understood through the relationship sociability-temporality-spatiality. Nuclear elements to understand the functions of the Huacos Moches and the Tupinambá mantles in their context and how being stripped of their productions affect the Moche and Tupinambá subjects, which are denatured by the arbitrary attribution of new names and distant explanations to the social and cultural reality that gave rise to these materialities.

3 The Tupinambá Mantle When Cabral arrived in 1500 it was raised by the hand of, Pero Vaz Caminha, the first description of the Tupinambá and their mantles. This was not only the first record of the mantles, but the beginning of the construction of the space of otherness where the Tupinambá were located. In addition to the chronicles written about the Tupinambá, there were also exchanges in which the Tupinambá themselves agreed, according to Pero Vaz Caminha; however, it is not ruled out that the looting could have existed. Unlike the “huacos Moche”, which has documentation of the nineteenth century, which confirms the plundering. And, depending on the mechanisms by which the displacement of these material crops to other areas of the world took place, there is research on the restitution of Tupinambá mantles. Rodrigo Christofoletti and Acerbi (2020) mentions that, since 2000, there has been a growing disagreement and a consequent questioning of the European institutions that keep objects belonging to 5

This idea will be developed with greater deepening in the doctoral research work, entitled: Eldorado: Colonial Legacy of Practices against Indigenous Materiality. Comparative study between Peru and Brazil (1838–1850).

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non-European civilizations. However, according to Queiroz (2020), legally there is no support to demand the return of cultural property that was plundered during the colonial period, but it is possible to apply the law to objects that have been plundered today. International legislation regulating repatriation requests involving goods extracted from the original territories during colonial periods has restricted application. Marcílio Franca, professor of art law at the Law School of the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), explains that the normative frameworks established since the 1970s are not retroactive. In the case of the current trafficking of cultural objects, when it comes to a listed property that is stolen, the first measures must be to communicate to the police and the historical heritage body, such as Iphan, or to the state agency, which will include the missing item in the List of Wanted Cultural Goods. For this, franca points out, it is essential that the collector or the museum keep photos and descriptions of its collection (pp. 82-83 , author translation).

This legal reality is not efficient to face the problem that permeates this entire article, which is the denaturalization of the productions of materiality, in this case, of the Tupinambá. And in this sense, from Buono’s (2018) article, we know that Tupinambá mantles have been used in multiple ways that distorted their original meaning. The tupis mantles had a number of functions when they were reemployed in performances for the European courts, even in places without direct involvement with the colonization of the New World. At the same time that they became part of collections of the First Modern Era, the mantles of tupis feathers were used ceremonially and ritually in European contexts, during which new meanings were built for them20 . A striking example of this phenomenon is the procession of the “Queen of America” of 1599, which occurred in the duchy of Württemberg, one of the most important Protestant Germanic states (p. 20, author translation).

Currently, in the Musée d’Etnographie de Genève—in Switzerland—the number of pieces belonging to civilizations located in the Brazilian space are 2791. And in the Musée de Quai Branly—in France—there are 8010 pieces or images about brasileño ethnic groups that are in this museum, of which 70 are objects or images belonging to the Tupinambá, among which is a Tupinambá mantle. Considering the number of pieces, it is worrying that they are crossed by what is exposed in the first part, through which they emphasize their location in the otherness. And, in addition, when talking about the Tupinambá and Moche civilizations (which will be discussed later), the museographic narrative is limited to data on geographical location, description of the morphology of the piece, etc. These concepts distort the materiality of the Tupinambá and Moche, as they did some centuries ago, as shown by the author Buono (2018). Indeed, the forms and concepts may have changed, but the colonialist spectrum that misconfigures the semantics of these expressions of materiality remains the same.

4 The Huacos Moche and Their Avatars The “Huacos” Moche are a materiality that is also found in the same conditions as the mantles Tupinambá. The museum is not its natural place, because materiality responds to a sociocultural context determined by its historical and civilizing process

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of each society. In the Musée d’Etnographie de Genève—in Switzerland—there are 85 “pieces” belonging to the Moche civilization out of a total of 2925 belonging to various civilizations that developed in Peruvian territory. And in the Musée de Quai Branly—in France—among images and objects belonging to civilizations in Peru there are 31,459 pieces of which 901 belong or are photographs of the Moche civilization. And, as we have said before, covered with a halo that places these civilizations as subject to their interpretations. In the Musée de Quai Branly there are collections belonging to various expeditionaries, diplomats, relevant figures of France and Europe in general. Among which we can mention: Castelnau (1843), Colpaert (1858), Karl Von Scherzer (1859), Friedrich Gerstacker (1860), August Berns (1867), Paul Pra dier-Fodéré (1874), Théodore Ver (1875), Charles Wiener (1876), Leon Cessac (1877), Jules Creveaux (1883); all these characters have been placed, in the nineteenth century, a large amount of materiality of the Moche civilization and other civilizations located in the Peruvian space. Thus, from these sources we can observe that the interest in the materiality of the native peoples of America has always continued to this day. And this attraction to what they understood as strange, or exotic was effected through an agency that has fed this colonialist logic to the present. Indeed, colonialism remains through the romanticization of these characters who have plundered the materiality of the indigenous civilizations of the United States. And, as we said before, today the use of terms that do not explain the complexity of these peoples has been maintained. An example of what is expressed is that in the Musée de Quai Branly there are collections consisting of cultural elements plundered from the Moche civilization. And again, they use the term Indian in the classifications used by them to organize the collection of the materiality of this civilization. We perceive that in the multiple collections discussed above, we find the terms used by the French diplomat and collector, Leonce Angrand, who affirms that there are “huacos peruanos y antiguedades peruanas” (Peruvian huacos and Peruvian antiquities). He also mentions in his notes, preserved “Collection de Huacos et antiquités péruviennes-D002756/40808 Archives du musée du Quai Branly”: “Indios—Templo del Sol” (D.T. 83.30) where the word Indian has a colonial origin that was updated in the context of the nineteenth century and the terms of Peruvian antiquity are linked to that linear temporal reading where as time progresses the idea of antiquity is built; however, this notion is non-existent in the Moche and Tupinambá societies, as we will observe later.6 Although these inaccuracies exist in the museographic narrative and the Moche civilization has disappeared, there is important evidence that allows us to have an approximation to what they were as a civilization. The Moches existed in the period from 100 to 700 n.e and the complexity of this civilization is linked to a long process

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This idea will be developed with greater deepening in the doctoral research work, entitled: “Eldorado: Colonial Legacy of Practices against Indigenous Material Culture. Comparative study between Peru and Brazil (1838–1850)”.

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of civilizational development of the autochthonous societies of the Peruvian coast and the space known as the Sierra, mainly. The oldest society located on the coast is the civilization called “Caral” with more than 5000 years old, and by the technology and architecture found in the Moche cities, it is possible to know that there was a constant development of a complex thought of the Andean populations that was inherited by the Moche and designed in their architecture and technological advances. In this sense, we can highlight that they were influenced by other important civilizations in South America. Swenson (2012) mentions that the developments that characterize the late Moche period in the Jequetepeque Valley (in the northern part of present-day Peru), include the adoption of mountain artistic styles in San José de Moro, as well as the proliferation of Moche religious architecture in its territory, being influenced by interactions with mountain societies, which include Cajamarca and Wari. In addition, this author mentions that in this civilization there is a cosmological framework in a logic that opposes the Serra-costa, based on the complementarity of the masculine and the feminine. On the problem of understanding the complex Moche society, and, in particular, the iconography referred to the “Rebellion of Things”, Jurgen Golte (2014) recognizes that the cognitive tools used by several researchers to understand these cultural productions of the Moche are not efficient. It can be seen in a series of publications that the authors limited themselves to describing the figures they saw without being able to understand the meaning of the Moche compositions. This was aggravated by the transpositions that were used by specialized people for it, since it is known that Christopher Donnan instructed Donna McClelland not to copy signs that seemed superfluous or filled to him, since the moche according to him had a fear of emptiness, although he did not draw any of them (Golte 2014, p. 104, author translation).

It is therefore shown that the agency of homo faber, self-adjudicated by Europeans, over other epistemologies is limited, imprecise, and unreliable. It is this idea that homo faber carries knowledge, is a constant error, applying European categories to historical and civilizational contexts that have nothing to do, as has already happened when some researchers wanted to bring the images of the Moche to avant-garde artistic currents of Europe, such as surrealism. And, although Golte is not a postcolonial author, he is an author who recognizes the difficulties in understanding the Moche worldview. And, I try to explain the meaning of this iconography dedicated to the “Rebellion of things”, recognizing that there is currently a lack of tools to understand this colonized society. In this article we limit ourselves to one topic, exposed in a series of ceramic vessels, which has become known as the “rebellion of objects”. This name seems problematic because the events painted, although they refer to a war of objects against the Moche, this is not directed against their owners. It must be understood that according to the Mochica conception, the objects were not subjects of the Moche, but belonged to the scope of the divinities of the world below and as such were fighting against the Moche to deliver them to the Lunar Divinity and the god Owl, who also belonged to the world below, the world of the wet era. So, we prefer to call this Moche myth “the war of objects” (Golte 2014, p. 104, author translation).

What is clarified is the impossibility of understanding this epistemology without leaving the occidental categories because they would distort the conceptual reality

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of the Moche. And from this information we can understand that they are even more complex societies than what the museums mentioned above propose. And the concept of “Indian” is not appropriate, as it does not contain all the complexities and particularities of these autochthonous societies located throughout the Americas.

5 The Moche Subject From postcolonial studies we know that one of the pending problems after political decolonization is, as proposed by Mbembe (2010), the restructuring of the subject that was colonized. This is arguably the most complex task of the decolonization process, especially when colonization was as violent as it was with the Moche civilization, losing a great deal of important information to effectively restructure the Moche subject. Currently, there are not many studies on the cultural permanence of the Moche civilization to know if the Moche subject—diminished to “indigenous”— could be restructured, but there are attempts in universities located in northern Peru that strive to rescue local dialects, and also conducting festivities linked to this civilization. Of course, there is a risk of falling into false history, but at least it is important to know that there are some efforts to know the ancestral civilizations of northern Peru. Although there are some problems to achieve the restructuring of the Moche subject, Schaedel (1987) thinks that there are permanences of the Moche civilization today in the populations of the northern coast of Peru, such as the religious festival that is related to the climatic phenomenon, called the “Niño”. And, in addition, through its cultural and technological practices it maintains this continuity with ancient civilization. And, to obtain this knowledge, he suggests leaning on archaeology, art history, anthropological linguistics, ethnohistory, and cultural anthropology. It is possible to think that the Moche civilization was indeed a union of social structures that possessed the same cultural practices under the same historical and civilizing project. Logically, influenced by other previous civilizations, such as Caral, for example. From this idea we can understand that the Moche civilization is the consequence of the developments of the local civilization in this region. And after the Spanish invasion and colonization, this development stopped. And although the colonization was violent and ended with many cultural elements belonging to the Moche, we know, from the disciplines mentioned above, that the restructuring of the Moche subject is possible. But so far, the process of restructuring where the Moche subject begins to understand what the colonialist phenomenon was where he was inserted is still fragile. This process of decolonization has already been initiated by some Tupinambás.

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6 The Subject Tupinambá and His Postcolonial Agency The effects of colonialism in conjunction with fetishism can be perceived in the denaturation of materiality taken from its ritual contexts where it has another meaning, the meaning that gave rise to that materiality. Thus, the testimony of Glicéria Tupinambá is a mechanism to show the previously spoken. Glicéria, the differentiating from museums, shows other dimensions of the Tupinambá robes. The dimensions that correspond to its socio-historical and civilizing nature would originate where the mantle is not a museographic piece, it is a materiality that is connected with its worldview. Then came the dreams. One night, the robe told me that the hardest thing was not to get the feathers, but the finish of the hood. I woke up thinking that was in my head. But the feathers were emerging. The birds came and talked to me in a dream, and my brother saw the feathers that the hawk had left for me on the slab, at the foot of the mountain. Not to mention that the cats here from home brought several birds: the canary-of-the-bush, the bone-billed thrush. I’d take the feathers, and they’d eat the birds. My little son would sit next to me and ask me to tell the story of the robe, take the maracá and sing to us. When I went out to the yard and saw a feather, I would. It was all done this way in this cosmology, with the involvement of the community (Tupinambá 2021, author translation).

The way to connect with the mantle and with the cosmos in general is through dreams. “I dreamt I was lying in the net; someone came and threw a bunch of jequitibá seeds in my face: ‘Look what you need’. And they taught me how to do it, how each seed should be put on the line, and the feathers, tied” (Tupinambá 2021, author translation). Knowledge—according to the structure of proper thought from these civilizations—is constructed going toward the immensity of reality. This is the man who builds knowledge integrated into his reality, differentiating it from the construction of knowledge made by “homo faber” and “homo instrumentalis”, where to find “the truth” making use of reason—in the occidental sense, obviously—they move away from reality; but it is an infertile exercise, because subjectivity always stays with them. In this sense, the tool to achieve the knowledge created by Glicéria Tupinambá called it “cosmotechnics”, where from dreams it seizes the know-how of its people, connecting with its ancestors. I call this whole process of making the mantle through the photographs and dreams of cosmotechnics. It wasn’t someone who took me by the hand to teach me. I use a continuous line, I don’t break the line; do not use the needle, but rather the hands and palette to have the measurement of the point of the mesh and know the amount of feathers. People ask if I’m an artist, and I answer that it was a collective, cosmological, community thing. I was the instrument, the hands necessary for the mantle to come back into existence (Tupinambá 2021, author translation).

The agency of Glicéria Tupinambá positioned itself as postcolonial; because in addition to building knowledge from its own epistemology, it questions the action of the colonizers with respect to the mantle. People go to the museum to see the beautiful and imagine its priceless value. The mantle there is something untouchable, just to visualize yourself in that cold space, where it is

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lifeless, has no memory, is a used piece. For us tupinambás, the mantle has to be in motion, has a personality, a will, a way of being and being in the environment (Tupinambá 2021, author translation).

After positioning himself as a subject, from recognizing himself as a producer of his knowledge and, consequently, as a producer of the mantle, he is aware that he does not need the occidental structure, as if it were a universal manual, to explain his own productions. And, with this positioning, he will question the position of “knowing everything” of the occidental colonizing subject. [...] Tupinambá judged and condemned Europeans to the maximum penalty, which is to keep such a fragile material for centuries and centuries–and are happy to do that sentence! The mantle shows the footprints of the places where the Tupinambás passed, and Europeans are doomed to preserve our culture. What I think they should do is make it more flexible, make it easier for us to go there (Tupinambá 2021, author translation).

And from these actions there is an idea of restitution: “So the mantle came with me. He’s there, but he came with me. I managed to bring him back, not only access the beautiful, but reinstate that line that had been broken so long ago. There could be other people doing this” (Tupinambá, 2021). This alternative placed by Glicéria is a variant of the other restitution alternatives already existing in the academy. And that has as a strong point one of the most recent discussions of cultural heritage that is immateriality. Knowing how it emerges as an alternative that comes out of the question of merely material question can be a concept explored to a greater extent and expanded to solve the problem that entails the maintenance of materiality productions in Europe: I was reading some books and understood that our people were enslaved, we were taken from our lands, like black people, and taken to another continent, without being able to return to Brazil ever again. Our people got lost in the immensity, but the mantle is not, it is a record, it is still there, and they are forced to take care of it, to preserve it, spending billions. If we were to ask for the mantle back, it would be to make it return to nature, not to exist anymore, because his job is to return to nature. Being there, it’s the penalty, and if we bring him back, we’ve forgiven him – we have no intention of forgiving. It’s just time, the time that was established by Tupinambá law. So they will continue carrying this penalty for the rest of their lives, if it depends on the tupinambás of Serra do Padeiro. We do not want to give this forgiveness (Tupinambá 2021, author translation).

With this positioning she takes up the control of acting, although she does not have the mantle in her power. And thus, that discourse that describes the place as uncivilized is disjointed because of the subject Tupinambá, we reiterate, position himself, question and reflect on his people and their civilizing process interrupted, but not completely erased. And above all, it locates the colonizers in their true dimension; is to say, in the periphery of what does not belong to them, and although it does not speak, it underlines the unnecessary of “homo faber” and “homo instrumentalis” to understand their own culture and their own historical and civilizing project, where they only present inaccurate readings of the epistemological reality of the Tupinambá civilization. Therefore, this occidental subject (in its different versions: “homo faber” and “homo instrumentalis”) is punished by the thought structure of the Tupinambá. This is what Achille Mbembe calls the restructuring of the colonized subject.

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7 Conclusion In the first order, there is a naturalization of the plundering of the materiality of the Tupinambá and the Moches and other non-European civilizations. And with this materiality in his power, the European colonizing subject, although he tries to homogenize and create an idea of equality already observed in the triad of the French Revolution, the first action that is carried out is the positioning of the producers of the Tupinambá and Moche materiality in alterity, by placing the label of “exotic”, “strangers”, among other concepts to the detriment of these civilizations. Thus, it is possible to observe how occidental colonialism is not a period, nor a simple idea; for colonialism is a historical and civilizing project of occidentals to be favored and maintain their power. And this action is carried out from the creation of an idea of inferiority of other peoples that can be perceived today in the discourses located in their modern architectural constructions, in international exhibitions and in Christian rituality where it still has elements that suggest colonialism, as happens through the archetype of Felipe III, Columbus, and other characters venerated to the present. However, from the knowledge of the complexity of the Tupinambá and Moche societies, we can know that the narrative proposed by the museums presented in the article is not exact, much less represents nuclear concepts presented by Glicéria Tupinambá. Within these denatured and imposed concepts that have nothing to do with civilizations located in America, we have the concept of Indian. This concept, first of all, was intended to name the people of India. Secondly, the indigenous category had variations throughout the history of colonization, but always maintained as a nuclear element a pejorative meaning; That is, the Indian was equivalent to someone of lower hierarchy, uncivilized, with diminished biological capacities. Thirdly, and as a consequence of the second point, in order to make sense of the “inferiority” placed by the occidentals and occidentalized over the “Indians”, it has to diminish or strip them of their advances. For this reason, there are new nomenclature, such as: strange “exotic” artifact that distorts the real meaning of this materiality, and that with the intervention of the subjects who created these material productions, such as Glicéria Tupinambá, we can see that what was spoken in museums does not have much to do with the autochthonous epistemology that gives meaning to these mantles and to the Huacos—in the case of the Moche. Possibly a greater dialogue between the peoples who create these material productions, and the restitution of materiality would have to be more constant practices to avoid the risk of distorting the epistemological content of the Tupinambá mantles and the Huacos Moche. Finally, with the testimony of Glicéria Tupinambá and the possibilities presented by the few investigations on the cultural permanence of the Moche civilization, it is possible to think of what Achille Mbembe calls the restructuring of the subject that is no longer indigenous; but a Tupinambá subject and a Moche subject. However, only these terms can contain all the complexity of these civilizations that have been denatured by imposed occidental and erratic concepts. In this sense, the Tupinambá and Moche subjects have to dialogue with museums, as we have established in this article, to dismantle all these inaccuracies and colonial structures and make possible

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the restructuring of these subjects and their own political, historical, and civilizing ideas to dialogue with the Brazilian and Peruvian states. Otherwise, by maintaining concepts such as “indigenous artifacts” or, worse, modifying and distorting the sense of time inherent in these materialities, it will never be possible to get out of colonialism because the subject can only be so by thinking and reproducing his own knowledge. And the denaturalization of the productions—knowledge—of these autochthonous peoples of America, further distance the objective of the restoration of this Tupinambá subject and this Moche subject.

References Buono A (2018) Seu tesouro são penas de pássaro’: Arte Plumária Tupinambá e a imagem da América. Trans. Patricia Dalcanale Meneses, Figura: Studies on the Classical Tradition/ Studi Sulla Tradizione Classica 6(2):13–29 Chatterjee P (2007) La nación em el Tiempo Heterogéneo y otros estúdios subalternos. IEP, CLACSO, SEPHIS, Lima Christofoletti R, Acerbi VS (2020) Brazil on the circuit of international cultural relations: return and devolution of ethnographic goods. Anais do 1º Congresso Internacional Gestão dos Patrimônios da Humanidade Urbanos Darnton R (2015) La Gran Matanza de Gatos y otros episódios en la historia de la Cultura Francesa. FCE de España, Barcelona Golte J (2014) La guerra de objetos contra los moche. Antropología Cuadernos de Investigación, núm. 13, enero-junio, pp 103–122 Ingold T (2013) Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge, Oxon Mbembe A (2010) Sortir de la Grande Nuit. Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée. La Découverte, París Meskell L (2004) Objects worlds in Ancient Egypt. Material biographies past and present. Berg, Londres y Nueva York Meskell L (2005) Introduction: object orientations. In: Meskell L (ed) Archaeologies of materiality. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 1–17 Musée d’ethnographie de Genève (MEG) (2022) Objets Étranges et Histoire Naturelle. Genève Queiroz Ch (2020) Possibilidade de repatriação de bens culturais mobiliza debate sobre manejo de coleções formadas a partir de legado colonial. In: PESQUISA FAPESP, pp 79–83 Quijano A (2000) Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina. In: Lander E (comp) La colonialidad del saber, eurocentrismo y Ciencias Sociales. Perspectivas latinoamericanas. FLACSO, Buenos Aires, pp 201–246 Riviale P (2000) Las primeras instrucciones científicas francesas para el estudio del Perú prehispánico (siglo XVIII y XIX). Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Études Andines 29(1) Rodríguez J (2006) Textos y contextos de la materialidad e imaginación arqueológica. Galleacia: revista de arqueoloxía e antigüidade 25:305–331 Schaedel RP (1987) 2000 años de la continuidad cultural de los muchik em la costa norte del Perú. In: Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv N.F., 13:1, pp 117–127. Berlin Swenson E (2012) Los fundamentos cosmológicos de las interaciones Moche-sierra durante el horizonte medio en Jequetepeque. Boletín de Arqueología PUCP 16:79–104. Recuperado a partir de https://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/boletindearqueologia/article/view/9165 Tupinambá G (2021) A visão do manto. Revista ZUM 21. https://revistazum.com.br/revista-zum21/a-visao-do-manto/. Accessed 28 Mar 2023 Vaquer JM (2012) Apuntes para una semiótica de la materialidad. Comechingonia 16(1):13–29

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Jeremy Gibran Dioses Campaña is a PhD student in the Graduate Program in History at UFJF, and CAPES fellow. He holds a master of history from the Universidad Católica Peru. He is a member of the research group Heritage and International Relation CNPq/LAPA-UFJF. His research line focuses on the history of social thinking from a postcolonial perspective.

Andean Colonial Paintings A Space on Negotiation? Letícia Santos

Abstract Andean colonial art is associated with American Baroque, or Mestizo Baroque, as it is commonly found in traditional historiography. The issue with this association is to insert Andean colonial production in a World History of Art, of evolutionary bias and taking Europe as a parameter. Such bias is considered outdated nowadays precisely for corroborating the Spanish colonizer narrative. In the past years, there is a discussion in the History of Art regarding the field of knowledge itself. Traditional art historiography regarding Andean colonial art emphasizes its proximity to European models, based on a Eurocentric evolutionary approach to the art. However, a contemporary perspective of Art History contemplating nonEuropean artistic agents and methods favors the distancing of these artistic deeds as found in places such as the present Andes. This article analyzes two paintings from the Andean colonial period, to understand how from the peculiarities of these works, there is a space of negotiation space between indigenous people and colonizers. Following the new approaches of both History and Art History fields, this analytical exercise seeks to unveil the agency of indigenous peoples in a period silenced by official history. Keywords Novissimi · Paintings · Andes · Colonial art

1 Introduction The colonization process in Latin America was, without a doubt, a process that involved different forms of violence. One of the first images that come to mind when referring to this historical period is that of punishments inflicted on enslaved peoples on the continent. This image itself refers to two types of violence: physical violence, and colonization itself, which involves the theft of land and resources from native L. Santos (B) History of Art Graduate Program, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_12

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peoples, the imposition of new languages and new means of production, and the Catholic faith. The imposition of faith required several mechanisms, such as the ban on cults, and the destruction of sacred symbols, including temples, statues, mummies, and natural/geographic elements associated with the sacred by native peoples. It also involved intensive indoctrination, the baptism and catechesis of native peoples and the African peoples kidnapped to the American continent, and the destruction and replacement of images were strategies for the conversion to Catholicism. When dealing with Spanish colonization in America, more precisely in the Andes region, it is possible to highlight the role of Christian images in the processes of indoctrination and colonization of non-European peoples present in that period. Art historians such as Jerome Baschet, Hans Belting and Jean Claude Schmitt present works that demonstrate how European Medieval society is related to its images, mainly in the religious context. This discussion can be extended to the use of Christian images by European colonizers/religious in the context of Andean colonization as sources to understand Spanish colonization/indoctrination in the Andes. In the past years, there is a discussion in the History of Art regarding the field of knowledge itself. During its professionalization in the late nineteenth century, there was a tendency to nationalize artistic production and fit it into artistic movements that evolved from one into another; nowadays, the History of Art’s questions are others. At the end of the twentieth century, the media propagated globalization as an inevitable process and Art History studies were forced to think about this process in order to update it. Hans Belting’s questioning about the end of Art History as a discipline brought to the discussion the need to expand the objects of the discipline beyond Wolflin’s formalism or Panofsky’s iconology, also studying non-Western artistic production. This questioning echoed in works dedicated to thinking about the scope of Art History and its epistemological bases, such as Donald Preziosi and James Elkin, to name a few scholars on the subject. Claire Farago presents Global Art History as a path toward a more relevant History of Art, through the mobilization of art historians in large and small educational institutions who perceive the need to rethink artistic historical studies in a global context. The author emphasizes that the production and exchange of cultural artifacts have been one of the main means of social interaction since humans have existed. Art, in the broad sense of anything of human manufacture, has a history that takes place in concrete institutional structures; it influences the way we think about ourselves, what we want, and, above all, what we understand the world around us to be. In short, everything that makes up our world is mediated by art: the world that humans make mediates the human experience of the world. Farago justifies the relevance of Art History in contemporary society as a narrative artifact about imagetic productions. Tools for talking about art and experiencing it, however, “it” is defined, are an important part of becoming responsible citizens in society—and this is increasingly the case in our virtual world of human contact through media. electronics (Farago 2017, p. 119). In general, we can understand the reflection on Global Art History not only as a concern to expand the studied objects but also how these objects relate and in what ways we can look at these objects. There is the realization that it is not just

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the choice of research objects that must leave the Europe–USA axis: lately, the very epistemologies used in the History of Art have been questioned. When thinking about a more integrative approach with other related areas, some art historians dialogue with postcolonial studies. Postcolonial studies are a conceptual perspective that seeks to reflect how certain people and places are constructed as subalterns in relation to those that are understood as developed and superior one strand of this critical thinking is decolonial studies. Inserted in the critical thinking movement that gained strength in the 1960s, decolonial studies, or Latin American critical thinking, seek to analyze the current world, global politics, and social relations from the perspective of colonial legacies in Latin America. This current arises within the critical debate of the Social Sciences, originally in the areas of Sociology and History. The History of Art is not alien to this discussion about coloniality, and it is a theme that has great reverberation in the area at this moment. Taking into account these discussions that have permeated the field of Art History, the question arises: How to make a Spanish-American Colonial Art History that addresses the issues of a Global or even decolonial History of Art? When we think of the category “HispanoAmerican colonial art”, colonialism is intrinsic, it is difficult to abstract from the processes of violence and domination that precede this production. However, working with this category can offer the opportunity to problematize the modern paradigm and its intricacies. To work with the category “Spanish-American colonial art”, it is necessary to give meaning to what this expression means. It is known that the native peoples of America produced artifacts with representations of images for various purposes before the arrival of Europeans on the continent (Farago 2017, p. 119), including for devotion. However, when referring to colonial art in the Americas, the tendency is to refer to art produced by Europeans or to the molds of what was produced in Europe by enslaved indigenous and enslaved Africans. For what was produced using the symbolic framework of native peoples or enslaved Africans in Portuguese America, the denominations used are, respectively, pre-colonial or indigenous art and AfroBrazilian art (Berbara 2021, p. 27). This distinction between the productions is an example of how the very epistemology of the History of Art is based on paradigms of coloniality, which take Europe as a reference to categorize and even hierarchize the History of Art. A global approach to the History of Art can take into account that the Colonial Art produced in the Americas, however, much it was carried out with the aim of also colonizing the mind and spirit of the original peoples and enslaved Africans was not mere reproductions of European productions. They often carry with them disputes, dialogues, translations and concessions with the symbolic framework of other peoples. The contextualization of modernity and coloniality helps us understand Colonial Art as a form of transculturation. In an extremely violent scenario for native peoples such as the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, colonial Christian art acted as an instrument of symbolic coercion. But symbols, unlike firearms and physical coercion, have no effect if used over your opponent’s understanding. If

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the function of a painting in an Andean church was to convey the message of Christ to the indigenous people, it was necessary to use elements that were recognized by them. Understanding in which instances the negotiations of meanings took place will certainly not make this process of domination less violent, but it may allow us to discover some resistance strategies and how the appropriation of these elements by Europeans was important for Christian indoctrination to have an effect on the indigenous people. By resorting to the strategies of recent discussions on the History of Global Art and History, we find the possibility of understanding artistic productions as constitutive elements of a society’s culture—both as passive elements and as agents of human relations. When analyzing the Christian paintings made in Andean churches of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries from the perspective of the circulation of images and materials; the institutional relations that these temples had with the religious orders and the surrounding community; and the possible imagery models of the original peoples that may have been incorporated by the painters, we can escape a History of Art that is based on the modern paradigm. There is no way to suppress the European tradition of colonial Christian art, certainly, but one can understand the production carried out in America in the colonial centuries based on local conditions, which were not exclusively given by the colonizers. When researching Christian colonial art, it is important to take into account that in religious translation processes—within the context of missionary work—semantic changes and transformations of visualization traditions occur that are characterized by hegemonic asymmetries (Kern 2022, p. 1). Such processes of religious translation are inserted in the processes of transcultural negotiation in this historical period marked by issues of identity and differences. There is a demand for recognition of the subject and the other to carry the message of Christ and fulfill the Christian purpose of the colonial project. Traditional art historiography regarding Andean colonial art emphasizes its proximity to European models, based on a Eurocentric evolutionary approach to the art. However, a contemporary perspective of Art History contemplating non-European artistic agents and methods favors the distancing of these artistic deeds as found in places such as the present Andes. We can see a change in this approach in the works of a new generation of Art Historians such as Ananda Cohen-Aponte, Ramon Mujica Pinila, Camila Mardones Bravo, Gabriela Siracusano, and others. For example, see the article of Camila Mardones Bravo about the representation of the local temples in the paintings of the same church. She questions the supremacy of the doctrinal role in the images of the eighteenth century, investigating the transcultural conceptions that the inhabitants of the Andes had on the Christian sacred space of their own communities (Bravo 2019, p. 107). This chapter will follow this approach, showing how some indigenous signifiers played a negotiation role in Christian paintings.

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2 Medieval Ethos and Modernity The European presence in the Andean colonial society was inserted in a Medieval ethos that attributed functions to images such as devotion and indoctrination. That is why the choice of certain themes to decorate the colonial church must be understood as with a pedagogical purpose for certain social groups, which can serve as a source for writing not only a history of Andean colonial Christian art but also the history of colonization tout court. It is from this key of interpretation that I analyze two paintings from the colonial period made for churches. Both have in common themes of the Novissimos and have been commissioned to appear in temples erected in ancient places of indigenous devotion. What I defend is that Christian images have well-defined functions in Andean colonial society, and therefore, they help to understand the context in which they were inserted. They reinforce Christian values, as would be expected, but furthermore, the indigenous element in these paintings demonstrates that terrorizing the public with images of punishment would not be sufficient to indoctrinate the native peoples, but that it was necessary to attribute to the indigenous a conciliatory dimension with Andean autochthonous people participating of the Christian life. To demonstrate my purpose, I will analyze two paintings from this period and how they demonstrate the possibility of negotiation between indigenous peoples and Spanish colonizers, even in a field in which the colonizer’s perspective is the basis. According to my analysis, we can see the negotiations coming from different ways: They can come from indigenous elements represented in the paintings to provoke identification of the indigenous public with the paintings; they can come from subverting Christian theology to meet indigenous expectations; they can come from the indigenous authorship of Christian paintings, and they can come from the adoption of techniques familiar to the indigenous people. The recommendation to build churches in places devoted to native cults is closely linked to the conquest of native peoples, and the use of Christian themes with a suggestion of violence appears, for example, in the work printed in 1585 by Antonio Ricardo (1532–1605/1606) entitled Tercero Cathecismo y Exposición de la Doctrina Christiana or Sermones1 (Third Catechism and Exposition of Christian Doctrine by Sermons) and is reinforced by Guaman Poma de Ayala’s Nueva corónica y Buen Gobierno (New chronicle and good government) (Poma de Ayala 2000, p. 104). The chronicler, a descendant of Inca nobility, argues that it was necessary to decorate churches for indigenous audiences with violent scenes of Hell and the Last Judgment as a form of persuasion. The themes of Hell and the Last Judgment are part of Novissimi. 1

Antonio Ricardo brought the first printing press to the Americas, and is considered an important disseminator of both Christian doctrine to the native peoples and their native languages (Quechua and Aymara) to the Old World. Antonio Ricardo produced a trilingual version of Tercero Cathecismo and Exposition de la Doctrina Christiana by Sermones, in the Aymara, Castilian, and Quechua languages, after the Third Limense Council (1583–1591) recommended the diffusion of the word of Christ among the autochthonous populations.

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3 The Novissimi and the Church of Carabuco Novissimi is a reference to the biblical passage from Ecclesiastical chapter 7, verse 40 in the Vulgate2 : In omnibus operibus tuis memorare novissima tua et in aeternum non peccabis (In all thy works remember thy last, and thou shalt not sin forever). The Ecclesiasticus, also known as Syracid, is one of the deuterocanonical books of the Bible, considered sacred by most Christian churches, mainly by the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Catholic Churches, and partially accepted by the Orthodox Churches and the Anglican Protestant. Other Protestant Churches do not include it in their canon because they follow the Jewish tradition, which considers it an edifying example, but not a holy book. The doctrine of the Novissimi preaches that men pass through the last four things: Death, Judgment, Hell, and Paradise. Death, of course, is a person’s final event in this life. The person is at the disposal of the Judgment. In the Novissimos doctrine, the Death theme is somehow attached to the Purgatory theme, which I will discuss a little in Diego Quispe Tito’s painting’s analysis. The first painting I analyze is Carabuco’s Infierno (Hell) (see Fig. 1) of the Novissimi series. The series is present and found in the Iglesia de Puerto Mayor, in Carabuco, in the former Viceroyalty of Peru. The Great Port of Carabuco is currently the third section of the province of Eliodoro Camacho in the department of La Paz, Bolivia. It is situated on the southeastern shore of Lake Titicaca and its native population is Aymara (Musso et al. 2010). The small agricultural village that houses the Iglesia de Puerto Mayor is not chosen at random. The reason behind choosing this specific location is the presence of a big cross buried in the ground (Cavalcante 2009, pp. 44–47), with no reasonable explication for the Spaniards. According to legend, this cross was the work of an apostle of Christ, who would have been in America before the arrival of the conquerors. This event is reiterated by the medallions present at the bottom of the paintings in the series of the Novissimi. This apostle would be Saint Thomas, as described in the first medallion that composes a narrative sequence in the panels. However, Medallion 7 mentions that Saint Bartholomew, to whom the church is dedicated, would have been responsible for making the cross. Whoever was the saint who built the cross, the Novissimi series of Carabuco was commissioned to the painter José Lopez de Los Ríos by the priest José de Arellano in 1683. José de Arellano ordered the decoration of the main chapel, and the choir bought the organ and also commissioned the large panels to be painted by José López de Los Ríos, who finished them in 1684 (see Gisbert 1998, pp. 49–59). We know little about José Lopez de Los Ríos through historiography. We do not know if he was of indigenous origin, or even if he was a qualified teacher by some association of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The Spanish conquest of the Andes began in 1532, and with it begins the double project of evangelization and Hispanization of the indigenous population, as the Christian catechizing mission is one of the legal justifications for the Spanish 2

Jerome. Vulgate Bible. Bible Foundation and On-Line Book Initiative. Available at: ftp.std.com/ obi/Religion/Vulgate. Accessed on 10 May 2022.

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Fig. 1 José López de los Ríos. Infierno. 1684. Carabuco church, Bolivia. Oil on canvas. Source: Mesa and Gisbert (2010, p. 23)

conquest. The importance attributed to the evangelization of the natives at the colonial level is incorporated into the efforts of a considerable number of missionaries and indoctrinators. In fact, in 1608, the priest Francisco de Ávila (1573–1648) put the colonial authorities on alert, denouncing his Andean parishioners for idolizing the autochthonous deities despite being baptized. This denunciation triggers the first campaign of extirpation of idolatries in the Archbishopric of Lima. Shortly after raising the alarm, in 1610, Ávila was entrusted with this mission by the Archbishop of Lima. Various efforts aimed at extirpation followed in the course of the seventeenth century. During these campaigns, thousands of people are condemned, and many representations of Andean deities were destroyed, in addition to artifacts related to their beliefs and the mummies of their ancestors. It was not enough to condemn and persecute what was considered idolatry: it was also necessary to consolidate Christianity among the native populations. Thus, since the arrival of the first evangelizers to the New World, the need arises to adapt the way of transmitting Christian dogmas to these peoples, a concern present in catechetical literature from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In contrast to the early catechism in Europe, where Christianity and paganism shared a common base of knowledge and tradition, evangelization in America quickly moves toward religious coercion, from which Catholic dogmas are introduced simultaneously, and in conjunction with, Western customs and values (MacCormack 1985, p. 466)—after all, we are dealing with social groups that had never heard of Christ and the entire mythological framework that sustains him. It is from this perspective that we need to consider the importance of images with Christian themes in the processes of conquest and domination of SpanishAmerican territories, which includes the series of Novissimi that are multiplied in

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these regions. While in Europe the concepts of the Last Judgment, Hell, and Paradise were established for centuries in the Christian imagination, in America they are implanted together with the entire eschatological doctrine of Christianity. These themes act as essential elements in the doctrinal work for the adequate conversion of indigenous peoples, which is the case of the Iglesia de Puerto Mayor series. The various series of Novissimi that we find in Spanish-American territories are a clear example of the weight and dimension of the inevitable that marks Christian history—linearly defined by a beginning with the creation of the universe, and which will end at the moment of the return of Christ at the end of time. In the history of ideas and images of Western culture, this circumstance was felt, thought of, and represented in the most diverse ways (Ariés 2007, p. 142). The Novissimi, therefore, is an indoctrinating theme that enjoys great popularity in the Viceroyalty of Peru, both literarily and iconographically. We find sources in the Andean literature that confirm that this topic is an important instrument of indoctrination.3 This ultraterrestrial imagery was systematically implanted throughout the territory during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as one of the ways to ensure the process of evangelization and conversion that began in the early years of the conquest. Visually, as in the European equivalents, it presents the struggle between good and evil, between the true and the false, and a message anchored in the relationship between the sin committed in life and the punishment to which it will be subjected in the afterlife. In this way, there is an effective visual strategy to carry out what Serge Gruzinski defined as “the colonization of the imaginary” (Gruzinski 1991, p. 197). It is in this context, then, that the series of the Novissimi de Carabuco is conceived. Commissioned by José de Arellano, the paintings of the series have big dimensions (Landa 2005) and, in addition to the main scenes, have 30 episodes of the story of the cross of Carabuco in medallions distributed throughout the paintings. For my analysis, I will focus on the painting of Hell. Mentioning Hell becomes a preaching buzzword, with the main purpose of instigating Christian ethics based on the articles of faith. In the elaboration of this dialectic between good and evil, vice and virtue, the religious were aware of the efficiency of the references to infernal punishments. The presentation of the rewards to whom awaited to be saved in Paradise was not an effective stimulus, since earthly tangible delights for the natives were obstructed by the Church as the ordinary delights were associated with all sins. Faced with the appeasing images of Eden, the apostolic discourse of the evangelizers designated the more nefarious punishments prepared for those despised by God than the dubious rewards associated with unimaginable well-being for human beings, accustomed to material problems. In this way, hell was an elementary piece of European and American catechesis and preaching. This Infierno (Hell) painting from the series is also organized into three levels: the bottom, with the familiar medallions; the middle, where souls are tortured by demons and monsters; and the upper one, which shows everyday scenes of the earthly world 3

On the importance of the theme of the Last Judgment, including the representations of Hell and Paradise, in the conversion processes of Christians—neophytes or not—in Western Europe, see, for example, Quirico (2014).

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with the interference of demons and Death himself personified by the Grim Reaper. I argue that the use of indigenous signifiers in this painting fulfills the function of establishing the identity of the indigenous audience with the work, implying that the idolatrous practices undertaken by native peoples at the higher level would result in the punishments present in the middle level of the painting. I will start my analysis at the middle level. In this part of the painting, the allusion is made that hell is under the earth, as there is a dividing line demarcated by the writings. At this level, all souls are sentenced to eternal torture by demons. In the lower right corner, we see the great mouth of Leviathan (monster mentioned in the Bible in Job 41:1; Ps. 74:14 and 104:26; and Is. 27:1) as a symbol of the entrance to hell, an element that also appears in the "The Last Judgment" painting. The painting, like the others on the same theme, is an agglomeration of naked bodies subjected to torture by an army of demons with different characteristics: all of them wear horns, some also have huge bat ears and wings, beak noses, and huge animal jaws. The objective of transmitting eternal horror to the indoctrinated seems quite evident. Even with the impressive message of the horrors of hell present in the middle level of the painting what intrigues me the most is the first level of the painting, which would allude to the terrestrial dimension. At this level, we have at least five different scenes, two of them with the representation of natives associated with the demonic and with a mountain range demarcating the landscape. I believe that these elements mentioned do not appear there randomly: they are instruments that reinforce the idea that the region and its natives are susceptible to the presence of the Evil One, especially concerning idolatry. Now, I will focus on the two scenes in which there is an allusion to the indigenous people. In the first scene, I identify a preacher in a pulpit (indicated by his robes) preaching to the population, mainly the natives. The natives are identified by the color of their skins, the absence of beards or mustaches in the two men standing behind the preacher, and the indigenous clothing of the two men kneeling in the front. There is also a black demon lurking around. Despite the people kneeling in the front of the scene can look as androgynous to contemporary eyes, it is clear to me that they are men due to the shape of the ponchos they are wearing. The ponchos contain geometrical patterns, as common in Andean aesthetics. The preacher resembles the portrait of Josep Arellano himself, which indicates his effort to evangelize, despite the Evil’s presence around. Nevertheless, I also raise the hypothesis that the preacher may be a Protestant preacher, which would corroborate the presence of the devil. Regarding the third scene, it is difficult to distinguish the demons from the natives, since they are dressed in the same clothes and colors, and they also play local instruments together. A plausible interpretation this meeting depicts an idolatrous ritual. In addition to identifying the characters with local attributes, an indigenous couple is kneeling for a demonic being, a clear allusion to idolatry. We only can see the head of the man of the couple, but the woman appears wearing a head scarf, a skirt, a chumpi (a Quechua belt), a black cape, and a tupus. The tupus was an ornament that identified native elite women in Andean society (Klein et al. 2021, pp. 23–24). This kind of pin usually measures no more than 20 cm but, in this painting, it was

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represented in an exaggerated size probably to reinforce its presence and associate its use with devil practices. Another indication of idolatry’s presence in this scene is the woman kneeling is trading beverages with a demon figure. The figure has a pair of horns and wears male indigenous attires, such as a poncho, and a brown blanket. They both have keros, a kind of vessel that was employed for the ceremonial drinking of chicha, an alcoholic beverage made of fermented maize and other grains, fruits, and plants. As a vessel with ceremonial purpose, the kero depicts the indigenous ceremonies, which were forbidden since Peru’s viceroy Francisco de Toledo established the importance of spreading Catholicism among the indigenous people in the process of conquering the region (Gareis 2004). The next pictures in the scene show two indigenous musicians and an indigenous couple dancing. The first musician, following the left to the right direction, wears a poncho, shorts, and a hat with white feathers. He plays a tambor and a zampoña, the Andean flute, at the same time. The second musician also wears indigenous clothes, but he has horns on his head. He plays a tambor and wears a maraca, an Andean leg rattle. At last, the couple of dancers wear clothes of Andean aesthetics. The woman wears a mixture of poncho and dress, stamped with stripes. The male dancer wears a poncho, shorts, and a black hat. The use of indigenous signifiers in this painting implies that the idolatrous practices at the higher level result in the punishments present in the middle level of the painting, which would be a bit of advice to the audience that still maintained those practices. The authors Windus and Baumgarten (2013) pose an interesting theory of the coexistence of temporalities and spaces present in the Infierno painting. It could identify the human present (upper level), the eschatological future (central level), and a past constructed from the perspective of missionaries (lower level). José López de Los Rios would have exhibited the temporal structure in which human existence is given by the Christian logic of condemnation of the individual, adapting eschatological knowledge to the local context. However, I do not believe that this theory provoked in the original peoples of the seventeenth century the effect of reflection on eschatology since it belongs to Christian logic. When thinking about the possible reception that this work may have received, it is important to take into account that the indigenous people of the region had their cosmovision, which differs from the Western vision of the present, past, and future (Gamarra et al. 2021).

3.1 The Last Judgment, San Francisco Convent The next painting that I will cover is the Last Judgment of the Convent of San Francisco, Cusco, painted by Diego Quispe Tito in 1675 (see Fig. 2). The arrival of the Franciscan friars to Cusco worship them in 1534 was located in a land in the Barrio de San Blas in the north of the city. In 1538, their church moved to the Plaza de Armas del Cusco, and its address is the same that the old Inca palace of Qasana. Finally, in 1549 they were installed on the land that still occupies nearby Plaza de

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Fig. 2 Diego Quispe Tito. Juicio Final. 1675. Convent of San Francisco in Cuzco. Peru. Oil on canvas. Source Mesa and Gisbert (2010, p. 29)

Armas. That was given to Hernando Pizarro when they surrendered the buildings newly founded city and where it came working, San Lazaro Hospital. As Mesa and Gisbert (2010) observed, the work unfolds in a grand size shape (5.82 m by 2.80 m). The painter has shared his Final Judgment’s composition in three great zones: a celestial one dedicated to la “Gloria” (Glory) at the upper part; a ground dedicated to the “Muerte” (Death) and the “Juicio” (Judgment) at the central part; and one dedicated to “Infierno” (Hell) at the bottom. The spatial continuity solution that Diego Quispe Tito achieves between these three zones is very skillful. The transitions of the background colors can create un space own for each scene without the need to break the idea that all of them belong to one general theme only. The rigorous perspective’s application in all their characters, according to whether they meet closer or further, allows one to distinguish with clarity the spatial position of each of them (Mesa and Gisbert 2010, pp. 28–30). The way of describing the space and the coloring technique used by Diego Quispe Tito in this work allows the spectator a clear reading of the complex scenes that form part of the "Final Judgment". The multiple narratives in this painting are managed by the use of the lights and the shadows, building a tripartite scheme of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Quispe Tito plays with his exceptional chromatic palette and the words of cues to delimit the border of each motif in his painting. These cues work as subtitles of each action in the picture, but it is good to remind that only a few people were literate in Spanish (Cohen-Aponte 2019), so the experience of watching was different for the illiterate audience. Even though, the images themselves could help in the indoctrination about Christian Eschatology. Not forgetting that the didactic use of Christian images is not teaching something new, those images act like a reminder of knowledge learned by oral lessons, as sermons or plays with a Christian theme (Quírico 2021, p. 75). The question of negotiation is found precisely in the representation of Purgatory present in this painting, and it is in this part of the painting that we will stop. Author

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Sebastian Ferrero suggests in his article “Have Mercy on Us” (Ferrero 2014) that the representation of indigenous elements in this painting demonstrates a theological boldness on the part of the Cuzco painter since accessing Purgatory is the certainty of Salvation, something that was not allowed to unbaptized people due to the Catholic church, like the Inka’s ancestors. In the middle of the crowd in the Purgatory’s part of the painting, Quispe Tito introduces among the souls rescued by an angel from the flames a figure wearing the regalia of Inca chiefs: mascapaycha (red woolen fringe, supreme sign of royal power), llautu (braided headband), and gold ear spools (Ferrero 2014). According to Ferrero, this figure refers to a representation of a Sapa Inca (Inca King) sharing the same place with, bishops, Franciscan friars, cardinals, and even Christian kings, evidence that the painter believes in Purgatory as a place even unbaptized Inca could be in. It can be true, but it is crucial to remind that the painting was commissioned by someone, who determined some aspects of the work, who could suggest, allow, or deny some representations of the painting. Despite the fact I could not have access to the contract of this painting in my research yet, Ferrero’s argument seems to be something that we must consider. Even the difficult to prove what someone believed or not, the presence of an Inca King among Christians in Purgatory seems a happy medium. Sapa Inca could not be in Heaven because he was not baptized, but if the living ones prayed for him, he could be saved. The image of an Inca ruler in Purgatory could work as a reminder to the indigenous audience that they had to pray for the souls, as taught by the priests in the community. Although the practice of using images as a reminder of the Christian teachings was something common in European Medieval times, I consider that the use of an Inca ruler figure in the painting shows how Spaniards had to incorporate natives’ elements in their discourses to reach indigenous people. Even though Diego Quispe Tito was an indigenous descendant, he was painting for an institution to defeat indigenous beliefs, the Catholic Church. So, even though the idea to insert an Inca icon in the painting was Quispe Tito’s idea, it had to be approved by the people who commissioned it, and they had to decide how much they could cease in theological terms. The presence of the Novissimi in the decorative paintings of Andean colonial churches is understood by the classical literature on the subject as a “medieval symptom”, such as the persistence of Christianity from the Middle Ages in overseas lands. Although my research has not yet been dedicated to the literature of New Hispanic or New Grenadine colonial paintings, it is quite likely that similar comments could be made on colonial paintings in these regions. The Purgatory, a theme related to the Novissimi, is also crystallized in the Catholic imagination during the Middle Ages. However, the presence of Purgatory in the Andean colonial Christian iconography opens the possibility of discussing how medieval themes are needed to react to the colonizing impulse and the demands of native peoples, leading to a transformation of the theme into something new and different in America. A faithful reproduction of purgatories painted in Europe might not achieve the goal of converting the audience destined for it in the Americas since the didactic use of the Christian paintings was to remind of Christ’s teachings. The use of the Purgatory theme allowed a theological happy medium: Diego Quispe Tito could represent beyond life, a concept that

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indigenous people were familiar with in their own cosmovision, with indigenous signifiers. The Incas have a different perception of Death comparing the Christians. To that Peruvian people, the end of earthly life is part of the cycle of the Jacquis, the fundamental substance of life. So, when someone dies, they are just experiencing part of the journey that all Jacquis must do and living people have to help in this journey bringing supplies that help the dead people to face their journeys in another dimension (Musso et al. 2010). This seems to me a good subject to connect the Andean cosmovision with the Christian one because of the effort the living people should do to help people beyond life. For me, this could be an analogy that priests did to reach the indigenous people and convert them. The author Sebastian Ferrero, in his article “Have mercy on us” (2014), uses the painting of the Last Judgment by Diego Quispe Tito as an example of this negotiation between Christians and Incas. Located on the left in the painting, Purgatory in this painting leads to the Celestial Jerusalem Gate. Ferrero draws attention to the presence of an Inca among figures of the Church and royalty. The painter’s attitude shows great courage, as an unbaptized soul would have been denied the possibility of accessing Purgatory and, even more, of accessing Paradise. The author even states that Quispe Tito’s attitude reveals a statement about the salvation of the rulers of Tawantinsuyu, ancestors of the noble curacas (caciques), the elite at the time of the city of Cuzco. The belief of these chiefs, the Inca cosmovision, involves a lot of respect for the ancestors, and according to Ferrero (2014), in the process of Christianization, some theological negotiations could be made. The missionaries taught the indigenous people that to go to Paradise, people would necessarily need to go through the sacrament of baptism. When asked by the indigenous people if their ancestors were in Hell, which was explained to them that it was a place of eternal suffering, a conciliatory solution could be to introduce the concept of Purgatory, a place where the ancestors of the original peoples could wait for the Final Judgment (Ferrero 2014). This could be a common theological negotiation in Spanish-speaking America, and in this line of thought, the presence of Purgatory paintings should be understood as a hope of salvation for the ancestors of these newly converted Christians. This hypothesis explains the popularity of the theme, along with the presence of the Virgin Mary and Saint Michael, popular elements in American Catholicism.

4 Conclusion The process of converting the native peoples of Spanish America to Christianity was a very complex phenomenon. By analyzing the case of the church of Carabuco, one can observe several layers for the catechization of the native peoples. It was not by chance that an indigenous village was chosen to erect a church, as the place chosen was probably a pre-Hispanic place of worship (Bravo 2019, p. 108). Its architecture at the same time dates back to a representation of the Heavenly Jerusalem as an evocation of the original tradition in which the towers played an important role in its

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cosmovision (Bravo 2019, p. 106). It was also a justification that the place was sacred to Christians because the cross found on the site would be the work of a miracle of São Tomé or São Bartolomeu, according to the narrative present in the medallions present at the bottom of the paintings of the Carabuco’s Novissimi series. There is also the hypothesis that the use of Purgatory paintings for evangelization collides with a point common to both cultures: the belief in Purgatory starts from the assumption that there is a life after Death, in which people would acquire a different form from the human materiality. This assumption is common to the Andean cosmovision, which would make the concept of Purgatory easy to translate to native peoples. The Christianization of Andean America, more than a “medieval symptom” (Stastny 1994), is part of the project of Spanish modernity (Mignolo 2017), in which the Catholic religion assumed either an auxiliary position of the Spanish Crown and a position of defender of the rights of native peoples, playing a dubious role. At the same time, the Catholic church seeked to evangelize the indigenous people, and then erasing their culture, the missionaries tried to protect the indigenous people from the physical violence of the Spaniards. The Catholic church, in all its jurisdictions, had to play a constant re-elaboration of medieval Christianity to assure its dubious role to help the Spanish colonization at the same time protected the indigenous people from the Spanish abuses. This re-elaboration of medieval Christianity to deal with, conquer, and dominate the indigenous people is, without a doubt, a hallmark of Spanish Modernity. The re-elaboration of medieval Christianity, as can be seen in the two paintings, meets a need for negotiation on the part of the colonizers/indoctrinators. Not only with threats and physical punishment did the Spaniards colonize and indoctrinate the Andean region. It was also necessary to establish dialogues and, visually, this dialogue was established with the representation of elements of the Andean peoples in the paintings of Novissimi.

References Ariés P (2007) Morir en Occidente: desde la Edad Media hasta la actualidad. Adriana Hidalgo editora, Buenos Aires Berbara M (2021) Brazilian colonial art and the decolonization of art history (in press) Bravo CM (2019) Jerusalén celestial en los Andes: apropiación iconográfica y autorrepresentación en la pintura mural tardo-colonial. Colon Lat Am Rev 28(1):106–127 Cavalcante TLV (2009) Tomé o apóstolo da América: Índios e jesuítas em uma história de apropriações e ressignificações. UFGD, Dourados- Brasil Cohen-Aponte A (2019) Diego Quispe Tito, last judgment, 1675. In: Smarthistory, 20 Oct 2019. http://smarthistory.org/diego-quispe-tito-last-judgment-1675/. Accessed 21 Dec 2022 Farago C (2017) Imagining art history otherwise. In: Davidson JC, Esslinger S (eds) Global and world art in the practice of the university museum. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 115–130 Ferrero S (2014) Have mercy on us: Inca Heritage, Christianity, and Salvation in Colonial Cuzco. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Accessed 15 Dec 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.826

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Gamarra MR et al (2021) Inka’s cosmovision, space, time, and Cosmos: a Western perspective. In: Proceedings, 9th international workshop on astronomy and relativistic astrophysics (IWARA2020): Mexico, United States, 6–12 Dec 2020, pp 31–38. Accessed 18 Dec 2022 Gareis I (2004) Extirpación de idolatrías e identidad cultural en las sociedades andinas del Perú virreinal (siglo XVII). In: Boletín de Antropología. Departamento de Antropología, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Ano 18:35 Geisler N (1999) Baker encyclopedia of Christian apologetics. Grand Rapids, Baker Gisbert T (1998) Catastro evaluación y estudio de la pintura mural en el área centro Sur Andina. Organización de los Estados Americanos-Viceministerio de Culturas-Dirección Nacional de Patrimonio Artístico y Monumental, La Paz Gisbert T, Mesa J (2010). Los grabados, el Juicio Final y la idolatría indígena en el mundo andino. In: Entre cielos e infiernos. Memorias del V Encuentro Internacional sobre Barroco. Fundación Visión Cultura, La Paz Gruzinski S (1991) La colonización de lo imaginario: Sociedades indígenas y occidentalización en el México español. Siglos XVI-XVII. FCE, Mexico Guamán Poma de Ayala F, Adorno R (2000). Guaman Poma - Nueva corónica y buen gobierno. Department of Manuscripts & Rare Books, Royal Library, Copenhagen Jerônimo. Vulgate Bible. Bible Foundation and On-Line Book Initiative. ftp.std.com/obi/Religion/ Vulgate Kern M (2022) St. Sebastian in Iberoamerica: transcultural negotiation on body images and concepts of sacrifice in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In: Berbara ML (ed) Sacrifice and conversion in the early modern Atlantic world. I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, Italy, p 273 Klein C, Quilter F, Jeffrey J (2021) Gender in Pre-Hispanic America: a symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 12 and 13 October 1996. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington Landa CMR (2005) Restauración de cuatro lienzos Monumentales: el Purgatorio, el Juicio Final, el Infierno y la Gloria. In: El Purgatorio, el Juicio Final, el Infierno y el Gloria: restauración de cuatro lienzos monumentales. Serie de Las Postrimerías. Templo de Carabuco. Ministerio de Desarrollo Económico,Viceministerio de Cultura, Dirección de Patrimonio Cultural, Dirección Nacional de Conservación y Restauración, La Paz MacCormack S (1985) The heart has its reasons: predicaments of missionary Christianity in Early Colonial Peru. Hispanic Am Hist Rev 65(3):443–466 Mignolo WD (2017) Colonialidade: o lado mais escuro da modernidade. Rev bras Ci Soc 32(94):11– 18 https://doi.org/10.17666/329402/2017 Musso J et al (2010) Cielos andinos, cielos cristianos: un recorrido por Carabuco. IN: XI encuentro de la red iberoamericana de cementerios patrimoniales. Paysandu – Uruguay, 20–23 Oct 2010 Quírico T (2014) Inferno e Paradiso. As representações do Juízo Final na pintura toscana do século XIV. Unicamp, Campinas Quírico T (2021) In ipsa legunt qui litteras nesciunt. Notas sobre as fun¸co˜ es das imagens crist˜as no per´iodo medieval. Brathair 21(2):72–85 Stastny F (1994) Síntomas medievales en el barroco americano. Documento de Trabajo, Serie de Historia del Arte. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima-Peru 63(1) Windus A, Baumgarten J (2013) The invention of a medieval present visual staging in colonial Bolivia and Brazil. Indiana Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut Berlin 30:51–76

Letícia Santos is a PhD student at the History of Art Postgraduate Program (PPGHA) from University of Rio de Janeiro State (UERJ) researching the project “Ahí se muestre la venida del señor al juycio, al cielo y el mundo y las penas del ynfierno: The Four Last Things in the Andes region of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries”. She has a Master degree of Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP). Her interest is to understand the possible relationship between Catholicism (and Christian art) and Spanish colonization through a decolonial approach.

Decolonial Approaches and Narratives in Latin America and the Caribbean and European Museums Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki

and Naomi Oosterman

Abstract The growing international academic and political discussions of the past five years have further stressed the urgency of finding strategies to address colonial legacies in cultural heritage. Cultural institutions are attempting to respond to this call, yet agents have different perspectives on the influence of colonial legacies in their museological approaches and collections. Some attempts at decolonising museum discourses and practices have therefore been criticised for their limitations in acknowledging the colonial past, without addressing the more rooted and prevailing issues of coloniality in museums. In this research, we explored how ideas surrounding colonial legacies in cultural heritage are interpreted in the narratives of museums in two regions: Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe. We studied this through the analysis of publications by museum councils, museum associations, and museum exhibitions. We identified three distinct types of narratives in our study sample: legal- and object-centred narratives, narratives of silenced stories and discomfort, and narratives of communities and reclamation of human rights. Although all selected cases under analysis aim to become more inclusive, we argue that the way these narratives are constructed impacts their frame of action and alignment with either authorised heritage discourses or decolonisation processes. Keywords Decolonisation · Colonial legacies · Museums · Latin America and the Caribbean · Europe

C. A. Malig Jedlicki Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] N. Oosterman (B) Department of Arts and Culture Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_13

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1 Introduction On 5 August 2022, the Arts Council England published their report, created in close collaboration with the Institute for Art and Law, entitled Restitution and Repatriation: A Practical Guide for Museums in England. This 33-page long guidance for the museum sector describes ‘best museum practices’ to responding to restitution and repatriation cases (Arts Council England 2022). Although the report leans heavily on discourses surrounding transparency (relating to provenance), collaboration (with countries and communities of origin) and fairness (in how the object is dealt with by the respective institution), there is still some criticism to be heard. For one, the report is criticised for relying heavily on technical and operational requirements of restitution (Hicks 2022, para 2), rather than on curatorial practice. Indeed, the document does not discuss changes to curatorial practice, but perhaps even more strikingly, does not once discuss the topics of decoloniality or coloniality, according to many scholars inherently linked to discussions of restitution and repatriation of cultural heritage (Curtoni 2022; McAuliffe 2021; Ruffer 2014; Van Beurden 2017). This, even though the year 2018 was seemingly going to be a turning point in the– predominantly–Western European restitution debate. In that year, the French study by Felwine Sarr and Benedicte Savoy titled The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage: Towards a New Relational Ethics effectively caused French president Emanuel Macron to famously vouch for the return of looted cultural objects and human remains present in French museums, to Africa. Despite the speech by president Macron widely considered to be a game changer, not much has happened in terms of restitution and/or broader decolonisation processes. Additionally, despite the involvement of (semi-)governmental actors in Europe, such as art councils, the process of decolonisation seems to remain a bottom-up approach, led by not-for-profit organisations, academics, and/or museum organisations. We notice differences and similarities here between, in our study, European colonising countries and those who were colonised, here the Latin America and the Caribbean region. In this chapter, we therefore analysed how narratives of decoloniality are discussed within museum publications in Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe, focusing on core museum documentations of these two regions. This chapter will start by discussing the relevant theoretical approaches concerning decoloniality by problematising coloniality in it different forms, focusing on questions of power and modernity. We will discuss the museum space specifically, and argue how museological practice has changed in the last decade, especially in reshaping and rephrasing colonial heritage. Additionally, we will discuss the broader return, restitution, and repatriation debate in the context of politics of representation, effectively not only asking who owns heritage (e.g. Smith 2017), but also who presents and displays heritage. After a brief discussion of our methodology, we will present the results of our analysis, showing the differences in formation of decolonial heritage approaches and narratives in Latin America and the Caribbean and European museums.

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2 Power, Coloniality, and Decoloniality Decolonial and postcolonial theories pose relevant concepts for studying issues of colonial legacies in heritage. These start by distinguishing between colonialism–the moment of colonial occupation–and coloniality–the historical legacy of colonialism that endures as a pattern of global power (Grosfoguel 2002, 2011). According to Quijano (2000), this becomes a perspective of knowledge as well as a mode of producing knowledge underlying the global model of power: Eurocentrism. Eurocentrist is at the base of what constitutes the European paradigm of modernity/rationality and became the hegemonic perspective because of what Quijano (2000) explains as two ‘founding myths’, which have become assumptions underlying Western and non-Western thought in current societies. First, the idea that there is a ‘universal’ paradigm of knowledge, under the assumption that Europe is the culmination of a civilising trajectory, and therefore advanced, rational-scientific, secular (in opposition to other civilisations). And second, as a ‘subject-object’ relation between Europe and the rest, which leads to the assumption that there are ‘natural’ (racial) differences (instead of realising that these are consequences of a history of power). The concept of coloniality of power therefore explains the articulation of Western dominance based on naturalised hierarchies of places, human beings, knowledges, and subjectivities, acting through discourses of ontological and epistemological dimensions, thus tracing different issues (Mignolo 2002; Mignolo and Walsh 2018; Quijano 2000, 2020). The ontological dimension ‘coloniality of being’ refers to the lived experience of how populations are considered inferior, thus related to the emergence of issues of race and ethnicity. The epistemological dimension ‘coloniality of knowledge’ regards the classification and hierarchisation of knowledge, thus concerning issues of subalternisation, folklorisation, or invisibilisation. Decolonial theories hence afford a critical analysis of narratives in heritage, one concerned with unveiling and contesting persistent structures of colonialism in (post)colonial societies. From this perspective, a critical analysis of narratives will centre its attention on the problematic ways of (non)remembering the past (Araujo 2021; Captain 2016; Hall 1997, 1999), and related issues of otherness, alterity, and representations (Said 1994; Spivak 1988) present in museums publications. A decolonial reading of these narratives should aim to liberate the production of knowledge from coloniality and question the ideas behind the European rationality/modernity. Regarding Latin America specifically, Walsh (2018) explains that ‘interculturality’ emerged as a way to decolonise praxis. Interculturality has been ‘signified by Indigenous movements as a counterhegemonic project from below’ (p. 58) that regards a negotiation process in which differences are affirmed in community-based terms. Such types of critical interculturality aims to make visible colonial legacies and how these are manifested in social structures and institutions, in this research, useful for the analysis of cultural heritage and museums. Mignolo and Walsh (2018) call us to think of interculturality and decoloniality as ‘cultural, political, economic, social, epistemic, and existence-based processes and projects in perennial action and continuous movement’ (p. 76), warning us not to consider these as a point of arrival

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or an end in and of itself. This research too should be considered as a contribution of the continuous process of exploring how to decolonise narratives surrounding cultural heritage, bringing forward the Latin American and Caribbean perspectives into the broader international academic discussion.

2.1 Decoloniality in the Museological Context Museum professionals are called upon to make more inclusive and diverse choices, but this remains a struggle until today (van Huis 2019). Social inequality in heritage persists due to colonial legacies in cultural values and practices. Our engagement with the past is often conditioned by an ‘authorised heritage discourse’ that naturalises certain cultural heritage values as being universally applicable (Smith 2006). When colonial legacies are not acknowledged, heritage protection then can be understood as an exercise of power, acting through dominant narratives (Turtinen 2000). Museums striving for the decolonisation of their discourses and practices increasingly attempt to reshape colonial heritage through strategies aimed at exposing colonial legacies, leading to museological and institutional changes (Bodenstein and Pagani 2016). Yet, not all attempts at challenging the authorised heritage discourse have led to the desired outcomes. Despite best intentions, some changes in discourses and museum practices are inclined to repeat Eurocentric assumptions, or are considered to become neocolonial initiatives (Smith 2017; Wintle 2013). Museums’ approaches to decolonisation vary in their aims and plans of action, leading to multiple trajectories in disentangling cultural heritage value from colonial pasts. In Europe, museums are practising decoloniality through very diverse initiatives aimed at improving transparency, creating visibility, and/or increasing inclusivity (Ariese and Wróblewska 2021), for example, by reconsidering contested words in the vocabulary of practices to empower peoples and cultures (Modest 2018). Other examples of decolonial practices in museums in the Latin America and the Caribbean context are integrating alternative curatorship and management practices by including previously marginalised communities (Kania 2019), and increasing the number of indigenous peoples and scholars involved in museums (Françozo and Van der Velden 2020). We think that analysing these trajectories becomes key to envisioning decolonial futures. Heritage can be understood as the multiple processes of (re)constructing and negotiating cultural and social values through the decisions to preserve places, objects, or intangible events; how these are managed, exhibited, or performed; and how visitors engage or disengage with them (Smith 2012). As such, it is about the negotiation of social change and disputes within and between community groups. This paper explores how diverse trajectories envisioning decolonial futures in cultural heritage by analysing museums top-down and bottom-up approaches, dialogues, and negotiation processes that can be observed in the narratives of museum publications.

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2.2 Return, Restitution, and Repatriation As can be seen from our selected documentation (see Sect. 3.2), many of the decolonisation discussions–especially in Europe–focus increasingly on the restitution of cultural objects. Conversations on the legitimate ownership and the restitution and repatriation of (colonially) looted cultural heritage are among the most prevalent discussions in the field of heritage studies today. More and more, people are starting to question the origins of cultural heritage in museums (Van Beurden 2022), leading to increased calls from so-called origin communities and countries for the return of their cultural heritage. The looting, and subsequent illicit trafficking, of cultural heritage was particularly rife in Latin America. Due to the rapid increase of European and North American ‘consumer’ demand since the 1960s, ancient Latin American heritage objects became increasing popular on art markets (Oosterman and Yates 2020; Coggins 1969). With ample examples of recent, large-scale seizures and confiscations of Latin American ancient cultural heritage, we know that the market demand remains high until this day. It is not surprising therefore that many Latin American countries have cultural heritage laws since as early as the mid-nineteenth century (Oosterman and Yates 2020). This effectively means that many Latin American countries can claim blanket ownership of their cultural heritage. However, there are numerous examples of cultural heritage objects being looted, illicitly trafficked, and sold that postdate these cultural heritage laws. Restitution requests however are hardly approved. This is because, despite cultural heritage having a protected legal status due to the ‘immeasurable’ immaterial values thereof and therefore, contradictory to public opinion, has a rather extensive international legal framework, the title of cultural heritage changes once it is bought (Campfens 2020). What happens when cultural heritage is purchased, even with (unknown) illicit origins, is that the status of the object goes from cultural heritage, to ‘commodity’, which transfers the object in question from administrative law, into private law (Campfens 2020; Vrdoljak 2014). However, as Campfens argues, the immaterial value of the object, its relevance and importance, its intangible qualities, do not change due to the purchase. They remain the same for source communities that consider these objects as part of their individual, community, or national identity. Therefore, there is an increased call to apply human rights law in cultural heritage cases, as ‘the significance of cultural heritage to the identities of nations, peoples, and other cultural communities is one of the main justifications given for the international protection of cultural heritage’ (Blake 2011, p. 223). Human rights therefore can be considered a strong dimension of cultural heritage protection laws (Blake 2011, p. 230). Within the fields of postcolonial and decolonial studies, authors such as Kania (2013) notice that discussions on restitution, but also broader discussions on who has the right to possess and have access to heritage, is clouded by certain neo-colonial attitudes and narratives. As this chapter is not concerned with legislation surrounding restitution and repatriation, we do want to indicate that restitution and repatriation

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have become, sometimes warranted and sometimes unwarranted, synonymous–or at least somewhat equal–to decolonisation. Many of the discussions in museums, ever since the Savoy-Sarr report from 2018 on the restitution of African cultural heritage to African countries and communities, have revolved around ‘decolonising the museum’. This, in certain ways, has become intertwined with the notions of restitution, next to changes in museological practices. However, it is important to acknowledge here that, despite the fact that restitution of cultural heritage can indeed be a big step into the reparation of coloniality, it should not be easily taken as synonymous to decolonisation. Decolonisation, as we discussed previously, is about larger and ongoing processes such as challenging the classification and hierarchisation of knowledge, challenging ‘Western’ notions of power and dominance and acknowledging the lived experiences of source communities. Colonial heritage, the illicit trafficking of cultural heritage, and restitution and reparation are but parts of a larger process to decolonise. And, as previously mentioned, restitution still only occurs occasionally, whereas changes in museological discourses and practices (as we will show later on in this chapter) have become more visible and prevalent.

2.3 Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe Comparative studies regarding decolonial heritage narratives in museums are still rare and mainly consist of intra-regional comparisons. This research took an interregional approach, between Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe, to search for nuanced differences in perspectives to understand colonialism, coloniality, and the decolonising of cultural heritage. While both regions are showing salient efforts in taking steps towards decolonial futures, they have different historical relationships to colonialism and coloniality. A comparison allows inquiry into divergent experiences of (dis)entangling colonial heritage from museums, understanding diverse strategies to promote change, and including knowledge of and from alternative/plural narratives (as suggested by decolonial scholars such as Massó Guijarro 2016). Additional historical aspects accentuate the relevance of the comparison among these specific regions. On the one hand, although Europe was the last civilisation to appear on the planet, it managed to extend its dominance over all other existing civilisations (Gómez Moreno and Mignolo 2012). Further and because of that, much of what is considered cultural heritage in Europe–and hence in authorised heritage discourse–originates when European countries were colonial powers (van Huis 2019). Hence, just like colonialism, decolonising heritage affects the constitution of modern European Union and the idea of European cultural heritage (Turunen 2019). On the other hand, Latin America and the Caribbean was the most extreme case of cultural colonisation by Europe, as the cultural repression and colonisation of the imaginary were accompanied by a massive extermination of Indigenous peoples (Quijano 2007). This was crucial for the emergence of Latin American decolonial scholarship, as well as for the exemplary museological changes that originated in the region, which have been influential in global museum applications. The contexts

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of these two regions thus provide exemplary perspectives to analysing decolonial approaches and narratives in museums.

3 Methodology 3.1 Data and Methods When searching for and selecting documents produced by museums, we could see how indeed the historical relationship with colonialism and coloniality of each region affects how museums conceive cultural heritage, colonial legacies, and how decolonisation processes should be undertaken. We found that the production of narratives differ and is related to different types of regional collaboration. Interestingly, even though the European Union is a supranational political and economic organisation currently consisting of 27 member states (and eight recognised candidates for membership), and one therefore could perhaps expect more regional and collaborative initiatives taking place in an already established framework, it is the initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean that take a more regional collaborative approach. One likely argument for this is the precolonial shared history that created a different but strong solidarity among countries and Indigenous peoples in the region. The use of terminology to refer to the content of their publications is not universal, either among or within regions. As museum organisations, professionals, and scholars use different terms, we searched for diverse regional/national heritage publications regarding decolonisation processes or other processes or guidelines addressing colonial legacies in museums and collections. Our analysis is based on eight documents concerning decolonisation processes in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean and European museums. Three of the documents correspond to council publications (Arts Council England, ICOFOM LAC, and ICOFOM-ICOM), two are museum association publications (British Museums Association and the Deutscher Museumsbund), and three are catalogues from museum exhibitions (by the Museum of Equality and Difference, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, and the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá). These publications were mostly written in English and/or Spanish, they were digitally-published and open access, and the document contents ranged from 4,215 to 165,845 words. We realise that there are more museums and more publications that could be of interest in an analysis like ours, for example, publications regarding special events, workshops, and other types of initiatives; however, rather than focusing on establishing an as large as possible sample, we focus on an indepth and thorough analysis of what we consider primary examples of museological projects aimed at decoloniality and addressing colonial legacies. How to deal with colonial pasts presents discursive and practical challenges. First, the discussions around cultural heritage and colonial legacies that underlie heritage

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and museum publications are subject to selective ways of remembering and forgetting (Captain 2016; Smith 2006, 2017). Cultural heritage can be considered as a discursive practice, constructed with a highly selective memory that can highlight or forget episodes and thus lead to different narratives (Hall 1999). In Europe, the reignited discussion on the return of colonial collections since 2017 led to the revision of museum guidelines (Pasikowska-Schnass 2021). Within cultural heritage discussions, debates on repatriation, return, and restitution can be especially controversial and have many ramifications (Apoh and Mehler 2020). European countries assess differently the practical, professional, ethical, economic, socio-cultural, and legal issues when dealing with the colonial pasts, as well as their responsibility in, and response to, such processes. By examining museum publications, this research aimed to understand, firstly, how coloniality of power persists or gets challenged in the strategies proposed to contest colonial heritage, and secondly, how memory and the use of language contributes to (dis)acknowledging colonial legacies in heritage. The discourse analysis therefore centred on exploring the underlying meaning of publications’ (a) approaches to decolonisation, by looking at the framing of problems and solutions and strategies to carry out such processes (Hajer 2006) and (b) the narratives within the publications, by examining the mentions and silences (Trouillot 2015) in the texts leading to the inclusion or exclusion of relevant terms to address colonialism, coloniality, and issues therein.

3.2 Sample Our analysis is based on eight documents concerning decolonisation processes in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean and European museums. Within Europe, we selected the council publications Restitution and Repatriation: A Practical Guide for Museums in England from Arts Council England of 2022; the museum associations publications Leitfaden zum Umgang mit Sammlungsgut aus Kolonialen Kontexten or Guidelines for German Museums Care of Collections from Colonial Contexts from the Deutscher Museumsbund (German Museum Association) of 2021, and Communicating decolonisation guidance from the British Museums Association published in 2021; and the exhibition catalogue from the exhibition Decolonial Dialogues with the Golden Coach from the Museum of Equality and Difference, edited by Rosemarie Buikema, Giorgia Cacciatore, and Astrid Kerchman in 2022. Within Latin America and the Caribbean, we analysed the regional council publications Latin American and Caribbean Perspectives on the New Museum Definition from ICOFOM LAC (Subcomité Museología para Latinoamérica y el Caribe), edited by Vinicius Monção Luciana Carvalho in 2022, and the publication Decolonising Museology: 1. Museums, Community Action and Decolonisation from ICOFOMICOM, edited by Bruno Brulon Soares in 2020; and two museum exhibition catalogues, one of the exhibition El canon revisitado. Una mirada al arte europeo desde América Latina (author translation: ‘The canon revisited. A look at European art from Latin America’) a joint curatorship between the Chilean Museo Nacional de

Decolonial Approaches and Narratives in Latin America and the … Table 1 Overview of selected cases

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Latin America and the Caribbean

Europe

ICOFOM LAC (Latin America and the Caribbean) ICOFOM-ICOM (Latin America and the Caribbean) Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA) (Chile and Mexico) Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá (MAMBO) (Colombia)

Arts Council England (United Kingdom) Deutscher Museumbund e.V. (Germany) British Museums Association (United Kingdom) Museum of Equality and Difference (MOED) (The Netherlands)

Bellas Artes (National Museum of Fine Arts) and the Mexican Museo Nacional de San Carlos (National Museum of San Carlos) in 2021, and the exhibition Estéticas Decoloniales (author translation: ‘Decolonial Aesthetics’) by the Colombian Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá (Museum of Modern Art of Bogota), edited by Pablo Gómez Moreno and Walter Mignolo in 2012. We chose these documents as they are prominent publications that specifically mention decolonisation as associated concepts (e.g., restitution, community co-creation, colonial legacies, etc.) both in local and regional contexts. An overview of our selected cases can be seen in Table 1.

3.3 Latin America and the Caribbean Cases The first two cases in Latin America and the Caribbean are regional publications. The first, Decolonising Museology: 1. Museums, Community Action and, is a shared document by ICOFOM and ICOM and is an edited collection of scholarly and professional works that focuses on the connection, collaboration, and (de)hierarchisation of power between museums, communities, and community action. It is written by a diverse group of experts from different Latin American and Caribbean countries and context, as well as with representatives from indigenous communities. Second, the document Latin American and Caribbean perspectives on the new museum, published by ICOFOM LAC, centres around the new museum definition, as proposed and accepted through ICOM in 2022, and how the new definition should, and can, make way for novel conceptual approaches in the museum practice. This especially relating to the discussion of (un)silencing histories on coloniality, and provides new (and reflects on old) approaches to what museums, and their practices, should entail since the definition change. The other cases selected for the regions are, first, the publication The canon revisited. A look at European art from Latin by the National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA). This was the result of an exhibition, which ran from 8 April to 21 August 2022, aimed to challenge and reconsider the archetypical principles of the Western artistic canon and its imposition on Latin American curatorial practice. The

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data consists of the exhibition catalogue and accompanying documentations. On a similar vein, Decolonial Aesthetics was an event that took place from 10 November to 15 December 2010 in the Museum of Modern Art of Bogota (MAMBO) in Colombia, which consisted of both academic meetings and art exhibitions challenging notions of coloniality and modernity in relation to artistic practice and aesthetics.

3.4 European Cases The European case studies consist of semi-governmental initiatives in three countries, namely the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands. The document entitled Restitution and repatriation: A practical guide for museums in England is a joint effort of the Arts Council England and the Institute of Art and Law. The document details how, in various stages, to work through a claim. The guidelines are therefore specifically designed to aid museums in the case of a restitution request or claim, and provides a template policy on how to deal with restitution and repatriation claims. Second, the Museums Association’s document Communicating decolonisation guidance is a practical guidance tool for Museums in the United Kingdom in relation to developing communication strategies concerning coloniality, enslavement, decolonisation, and social justice. The document provides a plethora of case-studies in which examples are provided of museum’s ethical reviews and communication strategies in relation to coloniality. The Deutscher Museumsbund’s (German Museums Association) Guidelines for the Care of Collections from Colonial Contexts is a document detailing advise on how German museum organisations should care for colonial collections, and how museums can collaborate and communicate with communities of origin including recommendations on curatorial practice. The document furthermore makes clear references to decolonising exhibition practices. Lastly, the publication Decolonial Dialogues with the Golden Coach by the Museum of Inequality and Difference (MOED), which is both an online museum as well as a community of scholars from Utrecht University’s Graduate Gender Program. MOED is an online platform where scholars, professionals, artists, and (museum) organisations can actively participate, contribute, and/or learn about and from studies and discussions on ‘marginalised histories’ from an intersectional perspective. The platform specifically mentions decolonisation and post-coloniality as distinct endeavours of intellectual work. It should be noted that, despite being an acronym, the Dutch word moed also translates to the English word ‘courage’. All data in our analysis was examined in the original languages, Spanish, Dutch, German, and English, and was collected and analysed between June 2022 and October 2022.

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4 Results The initial analysis of our sample uncovered that discussions around decolonisation often took place around two main questions: the first question concerns what needs to be decolonised and how, and the second question concerns who should be the driver of such decolonisation processes. With these questions in mind, we identified three distinct types of narratives in our studied museum publications, namely ‘legal- and object-centred’, ‘silenced stories and discomfort’, and ‘communities and reclamations of human rights’.

4.1 Legal- and Object-Centred Narrative The framing of problems and solutions behind this narrative comes from a practical guidance, and a technical, top-down and object-centred approach, that focuses on the role of the museum, and the action taken by museum experts. This narrative is observable in the publications of the Arts Council England in collaboration with the Institute of Art and Law and the Deutscher Museumsbund, the latter mainly in its ‘practical guidance’ sections. The strategy of this narrative centres around legal issues and procedures on collections, returning of collections, or the restitution or repatriation of ‘objects’. As such, it intends to ‘provide advice and best practices’ for museums on how to deal with issues coming from increasing demands of decolonising cultural heritage, rather than thinking how museums should engage in decolonisation themselves: ‘It sets out recommendations on all aspects of museum operations affected by these issues, guiding, and empowering museums to take proactive action’ (Arts Council England, p. 2). Said best practices and advices seemingly correspond to the knowledge shared by academics, heritage, and museum experts. The aim of these narratives is explained around concepts such as ‘transparency’, ‘collaboration’, and ‘fairness’ (Arts Council England) and ‘enhancing sensitivity’ (Deutscher Museumsbund). Yet, although these terms are introduced early in the documents, these are not clearly defined in the publications, nor are they distinctly delimited, or explained how to effectively operationalise them. In the case of the Arts Council England, the meaning of these terms seemingly change varying according to the context in which they are being used. Furthermore, this narrative makes reference to the social and ethical ‘responsibility’ of museums, yet largely issues are discussed along the lines of legal terms, over moral-ethical ones. In that sense, this narrative acknowledges the colonial past, and emphasises on good will, but does not necessarily indicate clear action on redressing colonial legacies: ‘The German Museums Association considers it essential that the colonial past of museums and their collections be reappraised. Most museums are aware of their responsibility and willing to undertake an intensive critical analysis of the topic of colonialism’ (Deutscher Museumsbund, p. 10). This can be further assessed by looking at the narratives around colonialism. These

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guidelines acknowledge the past by mentioning the term ‘colonialism’, but there are very few mentions of the consequences of colonialism, and no mention of looting, theft, or trafficking. Instead, terms like ‘gift’ and ‘exchange of articles’ seem to argue on the line of legal acquisitions over unethical or illicit removals. Indeed, this narrative heavily emphasises on discussing issues of ‘ownership’ and ‘acquisition’, delving on ‘legal frameworks’ and ‘conditions’ to contextualise the demands raised by ‘claimants’. Out of the three distinguished narratives in our analysis, this one frames its problems and solutions in the most practical and technical manner, to an extent that can be considered the least aligned with decolonising cultural heritage. Although this narrative is explicit in considering colonialism, issues derived from it are treated rather loosely, and these do not inform procedures over legal considerations. In that sense, it fails to see the important arguments behind said requests (Kania 2013) and working under this type of narrative can be considered as a rational technocratic procedure, as Hicks (2022) already argued. Now, it should be mentioned that the discussion of ‘claimants’ is a term mostly used by Arts Council England. This is quite important, as it also relates to how they conceive collaboration. As noted above, collaboration is an aim in this guideline, yet the subject with which to collaborate is also connotated as the ‘claimant’: ‘collaboration–ensuring that the most appropriate claimant is identified to safeguard the future of the object should it be restituted’ (Arts Council England, p. 16), and in that sense, their narrative also speaks of ‘interested parties’. Even when ‘communities’ are mentioned in the publication (using the terms ‘originating communities’, ‘countries or communities of origin’, ‘communities of origin, diaspora groups, and descendants of originating communities and individuals’), these appear with much less emphasis than ‘claimants’. Using terminologies as ‘claimant’ or ‘claimant communities’, as mentioned previously, inevitably invoke feelings of a dichotomous relationship or perspective. There is, after all, always a claimant and a defendant. This is different in the case of the Deutscher Museumsbund. Although their publication also speaks of claimants, they speak more frequently of communities (with the terms ‘communities of origin’, ‘community of origin, a country of origin, or individuals/groups of individuals’), and there is a notorious effort to consider these in the evaluation of cases and care of collections. The role of communities in these processes, however, is not clearly established, and the most concrete examples seem to apply to contexts that are not their own: ‘In countries where indigenous communities are at home historically, an often very sustainable collaboration has developed in recent decades (e.g. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Nordic countries, USA). Here, collections can be conserved, curated, and researched by appropriate specialists from the communities of origin, and exhibitions can be designed in direct collaboration with representatives of communities of origin’ (Deutscher Museumsbund, pp. 46–47). Yet, it is not clear how and to what extent communities participated on the knowledge creation of this publication; it seems like their participation mainly centres in the ‘background information’ section, but not so much in the guidelines per se. It should be noted here too that collaboration is desirable but also warned as something hard to do. Overall, the discourse and language used along this narrative limit the discussion of how to deal with colonial legacies to legislation, giving less space to considering

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human rights and the issues from the perspectives of the communities of origin. Furthermore, insofar it tends to propose a certain prescription of how to handle certain issues with a clear end, it does not align well with the idea of continuous process and negotiation required in decolonial projects (Walsh, 2018).

4.2 Silenced Stories and Discomfort By speaking of ethics and discomfort, this ‘silenced stories and discomfort’ is constructed around narratives, canons, and stereotypes that unveil silenced stories and therefore call for a critical look at the colonial past and a reinterpretation of museology, cultural heritage, art, and the museum as an institution. This narrative exemplifies a strong ethical position, where the rethinking of the museum practice comes from middle-out and bottom-up approaches. They call for museum agents to collaborate in different ways with communities and audiences, and the publications themselves are the result of working with communities and engaging with different audiences. This narrative is particularly observable in the publications of the British Museums Association, the exhibition catalogue from the Museum of Equality and Difference, edited by Rosemarie Buikema, Giorgia Cacciatore, and Astrid Kerchman (MOED), the ICOFOM LAC y Subcomité Museología para Latinoamérica y el Caribe—ICOM publication edited by Vinicius Monção, Luciana Carvalho (ICOFOM LAC), and the publication by Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de San Carlos (MNBA). This narrative departs from the problem that museums must unveil silenced stories, given ‘the silencing that global museology brings upon museology in the region’ (ICOFOM LAC, p. 18). The engagement with communities and audiences should enrich history and museology, one that can reframe the colonial narrative by engaging with controversial figures and in complicated conversations. As stated by the Museums Association: ‘The intention of decolonisation is not to erase history, or the history of the object, but to work collaboratively with communities to develop multiple perspectives to support a better understanding and deeper meaning’ (Museums Association, 9). This narrative furthermore seeks to transform the museum institution, by critically dismantling that museums have ‘served for the dissemination and reproduction of these Euro-Western models of representation, configuring whiteness as a symbol of greatness, power, and human’ (MNBA, p. 22, author translation) among Latin America and the Caribbean institutions. The same seems to be present in the Dutch case, where collective modes of thought challenge the ‘rhetoric of colonialism as a “civilising enterprise” (…) [and the] discourse that frames colonialism as fundamentally based on benevolence and altruism’ (MOED, p. 9). The exhibitions following this narrative strive to make visible the colonial legacies and its repercussions on the Western idea of museology, and to propose counter-hegemonic responses to this knowledge production and to the engagement between beings and the artworks–in concordance with the principles of decoloniality (Mignolo 2011; Quijano 2000; Walsh 2018).

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Unlike the legal- and object-centred narrative, under this narrative, the challenge of decolonising cultural heritage is acknowledged, embraced, and encouraged: ‘challenge norms and encourage taking risks within your institution. Sometimes ethical practice may not align with traditional “best practice” standards (…) be prepared to work through some discomfort’ (Museums Association, p. 4). This narrative gives the museum the role to facilitate discussion and engage in debate. In so doing, it allows ‘production of other forms of historical writings and narratives resulting from different viewpoints and discursive perspectives’ (ICOFOM LAC, p. 19). And so, the publications under this narrative share the aim of ‘engaging in debate’, ‘making new dialogues’, ‘alternative views and imaginaries’, ‘identify new experiences’, ‘developing multiple perspectives’, therefore aligning well with the principles of decolonisation projects (Massó Guijarro 2016). For example, the digital environment of the exhibition Decolonial Dialogues with the Golden Coach aims to serve as a dialogue between a scrutinised colonial narrative (depicted in the Tribute from the Colonies) and artists with postcolonial backgrounds, to acts as ‘context and facilitator of the virtual dialogue we aim to initiate between traditional colonial views and narratives, and the contemporary critique and alternative iconographies outlined above’ (MOED, p. 14), or with contemporary audiences that ‘allow direct dialogues to be established between the body of the works and the body of those who visit the museum’ (MNBA, p. 24, author translation). The documents under this narrative therefore provide a further attempt to address historical injustices by dismantling internal structures (like language and positionality) in museum practice (Mears & Modest, 2012).

4.3 Communities and Reclamation of Human Rights The final narrative provides the most critical perspective as it is assembled along the ‘challenge of redefining museology in coordination with the various communities’ (ICOFOM-ICOM, p. 51). Going further than the previous narratives on the engagement with communities, this narrative problematises and highlights the struggles of community museums and their limitations as agents of decolonisation as the basis of decolonising cultural heritage. It is a narrative that comes from middle-out and bottom-up human-centred approaches, articulating the need of agency of communities in a collective construction. This narrative is presented clearly by the Latin America and the Caribbean regional publications, those of the Comité Internacional para la Museología-ICOFOM, edited by Bruno Brulon Soares (ICOFOM-ICOM), and the exhibition catalogue from the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, edited by Pablo Gómez Moreno and Walter Mignolo (MAMBO). Following the idea of decolonial aesthetics, this narrative sees the decolonisation of cultural heritage as a counteract to coloniality of being and knowledge, ‘processes of disengagement, detachment, and tearing both from the regimes of aesthetics, and their modern, post, and transmodern variations, as well as from the cultural and culturalist, exoticising, and folklorising regimes of the human and social

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sciences’ (MAMBO, p. 18, author translation). This narrative considers the use of terms closely related to decolonisation and social justice, including ‘social recognition’, ‘human rights’, ‘representation’, ‘affirmation’, ‘contest’, ‘memory’, ‘unequal social systems’, and ‘negotiation’, among others. Moreover, it not only discusses decolonisation and social justice, but furthermore these are put into practice in the publications. The aim of these narratives is well exemplified by the aim of the ‘Special Project Museums, Community Action, and Decolonisation’ proposed by ICOFOMICOM: ‘to foster debates and develop reflexive bases for museum practice relating to the claims and actions of communities seeking greater agency through the forum of the museum’ (ICOFOM-ICOM, p. 52). The work with communities therefore is linked with the struggle of Indigenous people and adopting a perspective of critical interculturality (as pointed by Mignolo and Walsh 2018): ‘cultural heritage from the community perspective, therefore, is counter-heritage, crossing different times and sensibilities that make the community a platform for another time built through the negotiated revision of the past in the present’ (ICOFOM-ICOM, pp. 61–62). This approach and narrative hence become the best example of (re)construction and negotiation of cultural and social values (Smith 2012) among the analysed cases, and allows the possibility of empowering different actors in the process of constructing decolonial futures.

5 Concluding Remarks Through a decolonial analysis of publications coming from different museum institutions, this chapter sought to analyse decolonial approaches and narratives in Latin America and the Caribbean and European museums. This entailed considering how museums frame the problems and solutions surrounding colonial legacies, and strategies to carry out such processes, as well as the inclusion or exclusion of relevant terms to address colonialism, coloniality, and issues therein. Our analysis shows that the different museum institutions behind the selected publications have diverse aims and strategies when it comes to addressing decolonisation issues, related to the role these institutions attribute to changes needed in museological discourses and practices to acknowledge colonial legacies. Yet, not all these publications move forward from acknowledging towards redressing said legacies. The difference in their frame of action and alignment with decolonisation projects can be further observed in how they construct the narratives of their publications. Broadly speaking, these narratives range from legal-centred to human-centred approaches, entailing very different focus of action and actors involved. The more the narratives limit themselves to legal frameworks, the closer they remain aligned with authorised heritage discourses, and therefore the lesser they succeed in addressing colonial legacies and social justice issues–which appears to be a greater challenge for European museums. Regardless of their stance on decolonisation, museums must work on these aspects to make changes that truly challenge the power of colonial legacies.

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Beyond the implications at a discursive level, the analysis of museum narratives and the approaches stemming from them shows that addressing colonial legacies at a practice level is indeed best achieved when it comes in hand with engaging communities. While it is true that all sampled publications refer to working (or ‘collaborating’) with communities–though up to very different extents and in different ways of conceiving recognition and representation–, our analysis brings forward that museums must keep searching for strategies to truly engage with communities–and even more, to decolonise engagement. It is acknowledged by the academic community that the inclusion of the perspectives of communities in museum theory and practice has been important to activate dialogue on contested heritage and promoting justice (Golding and Modest 2013). Increasingly, scholars point out the need for local community engagement in research (Hofman and Haviser 2015; Sankatsing Nava and Hofman 2018; Taylor 2020), relevant to broaden museum audiences and address inequality (Fouseki and Smith 2013). Listening to communities to adjust museum practices has become fundamental to encouraging social justice (Ariese and Wróblewska 2021), whose perspectives expose dissonance and power relationships (van Huis 2019). With this study, we want to add to the voices stressing the relevance of community engagement when rethinking the past, the future and the present of cultural heritage, and in redressing colonial legacies in museums. Efforts coming from a true collaboration among communities, scholars, and museum professionals are key to exploring and defining how exactly we can best work to achieve social justice in the context of museums. We hope that this, more than being seen solely as a challenge, will be considered as an encouraging opportunity to the work of museum professionals. Finally, it is interesting to note that, at a first glance, it would seem like European museums are at the forefront of the production of publications in what concerns colonial legacies and the decolonisation of their collections and institutions. Nevertheless, the somewhat less evident focus of current Latin America and the Caribbean museum publications on the topic has to do with the fact that this discussion has been taking place in the region for much longer than in Europe. For example, by proposing ‘participatory museology’ and ‘ecomuseology’, or through the establishment of ‘integral museums’ and ‘community museums’, Latin America and the Caribbean museum professionals have been active on decolonising museology since the 1970s (as exemplified by the participation of Latin America and the Caribbean conference members at the IX General ICOM Conference of 1971). So, while decolonisation is seemingly finding a bigger place in current discussions among European museums, responding to the increasing demands of social justice movements, Latin America and the Caribbean museums are too responding to their own demands on its region and have already done so for many years. The latter are hence connecting with the latest social movements that call attention upon issues, among others, with the inequality in their democracies, violence against Indigenous peoples and women, and sustainability. While less immediately connected, these too are issues rooted in colonial legacies, and it will be interesting to see how attending to these will contribute in making colonial legacies visible, and in creating new instruments of negotiation in

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the process of decolonisation, relevant for thinking about decolonial futures in and outside the region.

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past into the future: archaeological heritage management in the Dutch Caribbean. Sidestone Press, Leiden, pp 353–354 Kania M (2013) Who owns, who decides and why not us? The debate on the ownership of archaeological heritage: old questions, new solutions. Stud Ancient Art Civiliz 17:371–384. https:// doi.org/10.12797/SAAC.17.2013.17.33 Kania M (2019) Indigenous peoples’ rights and cultural heritage: threats and challenges for a new model of heritage policy. Latinoamérica. Revista De Estudios Latinoamericanos 68:121–157 Massó Guijarro E (2016) ¿Giro decolonial en el patrimonio? La Liberation Heritage Route como alternativa poscolonial de activación patrimonial. Pensamiento. Revista de Investigación e Información Filosófica 72(274):1277–1295. https://doi.org/10.14422/pen.v72.i274.y2016.011 McAuliffe P (2021) Complicity or Decolonization? restitution of heritage from ‘global’ ethnographic museums. Int J Transitional Justice 15(3):678–689. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ija b028 Mears H, Modest W (2012) Museums, African collections and social justice. In: Sandell R, Nightingale E (eds) Museums, equality and social justice. Routledge, London, pp 294–309 Mignolo W (2002) The Geopolitics of Knowledge and the colonial difference. South Atlantic Quarterly 101(1):57–96 Mignolo W (2011) The darker side of western modernity: global futures, decolonial options. Duke University Press, Durham. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822394501 Mignolo WD, Walsh CE (2018) On decoloniality. Concepts, analytics, praxis. Duke University Press, Durham Modest W (2018) Words matter. In: Modest W, Lelijveld R (eds) Words matter: an unfinished guide to word choices in the cultural sector. National Museum of World Cultures, Rotterdam, pp 13–17 Oosterman N, Yates D (2020) Policing heritage crime in Latin America. Revista de Direito Internacional 17(3):275–290. https://doi.org/10.5102/rdi.v17i3.7030 Pasikowska-Schnass M (2021) Colonial-era cultural heritage in European museums. European Parliamentary Research Service. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/ EPRS_ATA(2021)696188. Accessed 13 Dec 2022 Quijano A (2000) Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism, and latin america. Nepantla: Views from South, 1(3): 533–580 Quijano A (2007) Coloniality and modernity/rationality. Cult Stud 21(2–3):168–178. https://doi. org/10.1080/09502380601164353 Quijano A (2020) Cuestiones y horizontes: de la dependencia histórico-estructural a la colonialidad/ descolonialidad del poder. CLACSO, Buenos Aires Ruffer M (2014) La exhibición del otro: tradición, memoria y colonialidad en museos de México. Antíteses 7(14):94–120 Said EW (1994) Orientalism. Vintage Books, New York Sankatsing Nava T, Hofman CL (2018) Engaging Caribbean Island communities with indigenous heritage and archaeology research. J COM 17(4):1–10. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.17040306 Smith L (2006) Uses of heritage. Routledge Smith L (2012) Discourses of heritage: implications for archaeological community practice. Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos. https://doi.org/10.4000/nuevomundo.64148 Smith L (2017) Heritage, identity and power. In: Hsiao HHM, Yew-Foong H, Peycam P (eds) Citizens, civil society and heritage-making in Asia. ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, pp 15–39 Spivak GC (1988) Can the subaltern speak? In: Nelson C, Grossberg L (eds) Marxism and the interpretation of culture. University of Illinois Press, Champaign, pp 271–313 Taylor JK (2020) The art museum redefined: power, opportunity, and community engagement. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham Trouillot MR (2015) Silencing the past: power and the production of history. Beacon Press, Boston Turtinen J (2000) Globalising heritage–on UNESCO and the transnational construction of a world heritage. SCORE Rapportserie 2000: 12, Stockholm Center for Organizational Research

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References Study Cases Arts Council England (2022) Restitution and repatriation: a practical guide for museums in England. Arts Council England. https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/supporting-arts-museums-andlibraries/supporting-collections-and-cultural-property/restitution-and-repatriation-practicalguide-museums-england. Accessed 14 Feb 2023 Brulon Soares B (ed) (2020) Decolonising museology: 1. Museums, community action and decolonisation. ICOFOM/ICOM, Paris. https://icofom.mini.icom.museum/publications/decolo nising-museology-series/. Accessed 14 Feb 2023 Buikema R, Cacciatore G, Kerchman A (eds) (2022) Decolonial dialogues with the golden coach. MOED. https://moed.online/exhibition/decolonial-dialogues-with-the-golden-coach/. Accessed 14 Feb 2023 Deutscher Museumsbund e.V. (2021) Guidelines for German museums care of collections from colonial contexts. Deutscher Museumsbund e.V. https://www.museumsbund.de/publikationen/ guidelines-on-dealing-with-collections-from-colonial-contexts-2. Accessed 14 Feb 2023 Gómez Moreno PP, Mignolo W (2012) Estéticas Decoloniales. Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, Bogotá. https://adelajusic.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/decolonial-aesthetics. pdf. Accessed 14 Feb 2023 Monção L, Carvalho L (eds) (2022) Latin American and Caribbean perspectives on the new museum definition. ICOFOM LAC. https://icofom.mini.icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/ sites/18/2022/11/Livro-ICOFOM-LAC_ISBN.pdf. Accessed 3 Dec 2022 Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (2021) El canon revisitado. Una mirada al arte europeo desde América Latina. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile. https://www.mnba.gob. cl/publicaciones/catalogo-exposicion-el-canon-revisitado-una-mirada-al-arte-europeo-desdeamerica. Accessed 14 Feb 2023 Museums Association (2021) Communicating decolonisation guidance. Museums Association, London. https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/decolonising-museums/communica ting-decolonisation. Accessed 14 Feb 2023

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Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry of Utrecht University. She holds a Research Master (MSc) in the Sociology of Culture, Media and the Arts. Her research interests include cultural heritage, colonial legacies, decolonisation, inequality and social justice. She is currently working on a research project on negotiating colonial legacies and social justice in cultural heritage. She has participated in several research projects in Chile and The Netherlands, mainly focusing on issues concerning heritage processes, decolonisation, social stratification and inequality, cultural participation and consumption, and arts education. Naomi Oosterman holds a PhD in Sociology from City, University of London, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Cultural Heritage at the Department of Arts and Culture Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She is specialised in (the policing of) art and heritage crime, the illicit trafficking of antiquities, and contested heritage in general. She is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies since December 2022, and Cluster Manager of the research group Heritage under Threat of the Centre for Global Heritage and Development. She is furthermore a member of ICAHM’s working group on Illicit Trafficking.

Frontiers of Decoloniality

“A Symbol of Alliance and Peace Among American Nations” Memory, Heritage and History in the Construction of the Columbus Commemorative Lighthouse Hevelly Ferreira Acruche

Abstract The construction of the Lighthouse commemorating Christopher Columbus in the Dominican Republic was subject of disputes and discussions around a Latin American collective memory. When reflecting on the construction project of the monument between the 1930s and 1940s, there was a proposal to build a collective heritage for the continent involving memory and identity. In addition, the Pan-American flight “For the Columbus Lighthouse” and the First Inter-American Meeting on Education had an important role as an instance of dialogue and international cooperation. I interpret the set of recommendations under the light of postcolonial discussions, showing that despite what some literature suggests, the South American countries were far from being instruments of United States imperialism for the continent. However, for various reasons, the execution of the project was only carried out on the eve of the V Centenary of the “discovery” of America (1992) and its inauguration was permeated with contestations around the past and the memory of the conquest. Keywords Columbus Lighthouse · Inter-American Relations · Heritage

1 Introduction Drips and Splashes –What on Earth is Columbus Lighthouse that the newspapers talk so much about? And Zezinho, who already has his entrance exam, explains: –Don’t you know? Columbus’ “lighthouse” was Américo Vespucci: Columbus discovered America and he made the “lighthouse”, giving it the name (Correio da Manhã, 11/25/1937, author translation). H. F. Acruche (B) Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_14

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The anecdote published in the Brazilian newspaper Correio da Manhã refers to the “discovery” of America by Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), in 1492. Another possibility expressed refers to Americo Vespucci (1454–1512), who named the continent after his voyage to the so-called “New World”, in 1498. The tone of the joke is interesting: it reduces the achievements of Columbus, who was the first to reach the islands that would be part of the American continent. On the other hand, Vespucci reached continental lands and had his name given to the new possessions of the Spanish crown. Vespucci would be the “light” of the New World to the detriment of Christopher Columbus. According to Felipe Fernández-Armesto, the erratic conduct of the Genoese admiral on his travels caused the crown to cancel its monopolies and privileges. Although he attested to the “continental nature” of his discoveries, other navigators took the credit (Fernández-Armesto 2017, pp. 238–239). The naming of the newly discovered lands in honor of Vespucci would have undermined Columbus’ fame and projects against the Spanish monarchy. In the text that follows, I intend to explore the Columbus Commemorative Lighthouse construction project, located in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic. The project, initially thought of in the second half of the nineteenth century, had its work completed in 1992, close to the fifth centenary of the “discovery”. The project had the tone of a nostalgic past around Columbus and the European arrival in the New World. At the turn of the twentieth century, the discussion around the monument gained space in order to proclaim a unique memory in order to homogenize the nations, where the public space was also a space of memory (Achugar 2006, p. 179). In the late 1920s, a contest of architects to choose the commemorative lighthouse was opened. The event is remembered today both for the large number of countries represented and for the number of architects competing for the prize. Representing Latin America, 39 proposals were submitted (Gonzalez 2007, p. 83). The result was published in 1931 in Rio de Janeiro, stirring the local press. The English architecture student Joseph Lea Gleave (1907–1965) was the winner. Criticisms regarding the choice of the winner resided in the youth of the student at the time, in the conservative character of the jury and in the fact that he was European, and not an American architect. In the Correio da Manhã newspaper, appears that the justification for choosing the winner was that the work presented was “of great simplicity and severity of lines” (Correio da Manhã, 10/17/1931, p. 3, author translation). In addition, the costs of the work fit into the budget provided for by the tender, reduced in the face of the economic crisis. With regard to United States foreign policy, it was urgent to think of a new way of relating to neighboring countries. Military interventions in Central American and Caribbean countries showed signs of exhaustion since the 1920s. According to Cristina Pecequilo (2011), the global impacts triggered by the economic crisis, together with the emergence of authoritarian political regimes in Europe and the political-institutional transformations in Latin American countries unleashed a new

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agenda for United States foreign policy, the “Good Neighbor Policy”.1 The government of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933–1945) was important to strengthen these initiatives. There was an interest in “building the unity of the continent on the pillars” of United States leadership and the inter-American conferences had a common tone in this direction (Pinheiro 2013, pp. 152–153). Therefore, it can be argued that the dissemination of common educational projects, the protection of the historical and artistic heritage of the American continent have become an important point of agenda against the rise of anti-democratic and/or totalitarian regimes in the Americas. In the pages that follow, I intend to show two events where the Columbus Lighthouse project was an important part of inter-American relations: the 1937 PanAmerican flight “For the Columbus Lighthouse” (Novo 2020, p. 661) and the First Inter-American Meeting of Ministers of Education (1943). These events are an important part of South American efforts in defense of the construction of a collective heritage that would involve North and South America. In this sense, the figure of Columbus gained varied meanings over time and the myth of the “discoverer” was reinforced (Trouillot 2016, p. 224). The Lighthouse project was another initiative in this direction. In this way, think about cultural relations between American countries from the point of view of postcolonial discussions can be elucidative of the protagonism and actions of the subjects involved, notably from Central and South America. Far from considering the dimension of the cultural imperialism as fundamental to discuss inter-American relations in the context of the construction of the monument, I thought of re-dimensioning this discussion in the light of South American initiatives in promoting the project. The construction of the monument opened an expectation of building a heritage that would encompass a collective identity and memory for the American region. The Farol space consolidated a colonial narrative around the “discovery” of America, with Columbus as the main actor. Additionally, in the first half of the twentieth century there was a desire to position America as a modern and civilized space, and bring it back on the international scene. Over time, it is possible to see that there has been a shift in meaning and memory with the Farol because of the sense of celebrations and the power relations established around the monument (Trouillot 2016, pp. 193–196). Looking at the construction process of the Columbus Lighthouse offers us an important dimension regarding American heritage, memory and identity, as well as the place occupied by the Americas before the world. The influence of United States was important, but it is not the only vector of decisions and policies pursued by Latin American countries (Pinheiro 2013). Thus, inter-American relations cannot be interpreted as a one-way street, where Central and South American countries would be at the mercy of “Uncle Sam’s” decisions. For the purposes of this text, I understand that the Pan-American flight and the First Meeting of Ministers of Education are examples to reflect on Latin American 1

The Good Neighbor Policy was a moment of greater diplomatic and commercial rapprochement between the United States and South American countries between the 1930s and 1940s. At that moment, there was a change in the attitude of the United States towards its neighbors, once marked by explicit violence and economic dependence (Pecequilo 2011).

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initiatives in favor of building a continental union from North to South. In this sense, we do not see the events as the fruit of imperialism pure and simple. When breaking with a model based on centers and peripheries, it becomes important to think about political aspects associated with the circulation of ideas, discussions in favor of mediation and cultural representations (Azevedo 2011, p. 285). The Columbus Lighthouse was inaugurated in 1992, during the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in America. At that moment, nations boycotted the inauguration. The criticisms coming from segments of the population of the Dominican Republic allow us to see the negative meaning attributed to the construction of the monument. In a context of the emergence of native peoples and the redemocratization of Latin American countries, the inauguration of the Columbus monument passed into the collective memory with tones of denunciation of the “discovery”. At that moment, the rehabilitation of the hero and his deeds for universal history gave way to another narrative. Columbus came to be seen as an assassin and exterminator of a race. The appropriations and meanings of the American past linked to the figure of Christopher Columbus offer a good overview of research on the construction of memories and identities that transcend the national space, in addition to evidencing resentments in the context of the history of the American continent as a whole, but also of a particular Latin American history.

2 The Construction of the Columbus Lighthouse and the Pan-American Flight The Columbus Lighthouse construction project was not a new idea when the competition for choosing the monument took place between 1928 and 1931. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Antonio del Monte y Tejada (1783–1861), author of a collection of books on the Dominican Republic, exalted the figure and achievements of Columbus, suggesting that the American people should be grateful to the Genoese navigator and “discoverer” of the New World. As proof of this, Monte y Tejada proposed the construction of a statue that should be sponsored by all cities in Europe and America. A monument in honor of the admiral in Santo Domingo: this was the intention proposed by the Dominican intellectual. In the 1880s, the president of the country, General Gregorio Luperón (1839–1897), reintroduced the idea. The monument would be raised to house the “discoverer’s” remains, kept in the cathedral of Santo Domingo, the country’s capital (Egaña Casariego 2012, p. 78; Mann 2012, p. 41). A few years later, the proposal was resumed in part motivated by the end of the First World War (1914–1918) and the need for unity between nations. The 1920s saw a process of reconsideration of the cultural heritage of American countries. The natives and African legacies have become part of the histories of the Nation States within a positive interpretation of the colonial past, marked by the emphasis on mestizaje in the construction of countries (Pernett 2014, p. 24). Other cooperation efforts made

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evident the erosion of the Big Stick Policy promoted by the United States vis-à-vis its neighbors. The Pan American Conferences opened the way for the discussion around the internationalization of the Monroe Doctrine by the Uruguayan delegation and the project of “Pan-Americanization” of the Pan American Union by the Costa Rica delegates, adding to the protests against imperialism (Donghi 2005; Dulci 2013, p. 65). In the space of the Fifth Pan American Conference, held in Chile in 1923, the delegates involved voted in favor of the construction of a monument to honor Columbus, which could be an architectural, sculptural, or funerary commemorative work (Le Goff 1996, p. 535). In this way, the construction of the Columbus Commemorative Lighthouse united the architectural monument to the funerary with the aim of building a collective memory in which life and death, progress, backwardness and civilization were in dialogue. In the context of the Chilean Conference, delegates reaffirmed the importance of international support and funding to carry out this work. From that moment onwards, the Pan-American Union was responsible for promoting a competition for the construction of the Columbus Lighthouse, “which should represent PanAmericanism to the world and the new place of America in the “concert of nations” (Novo 2021, p. 2664). In 1926, the Dominican Republic opened a fund of US $300.000 for the construction of the monument (Correio da Manhã, 10/31/ 1926, p. 4, author translation), which already showed the expensive nature of the construction. In 1928, the Pan-American Union published a program and rules for the contest that would choose the Lighthouse Commemorative of Christopher Columbus, “discoverer” of the New World. In addition to financial support, the institution advocated that each nation send a portion of land from its soil to deposit on the foundations of the monument, in addition to some art or industry product to decorate the building (Novo 2021, p. 2667). The “places of memory”, thus, interrelate with symbols and images produced from the meanings assumed by the monuments (Nora 1993; Choay 2017 [1992]). In the case of the Lighthouse, it can be said that it was a monument of great proportions, designed to house symbols of a continental heritage that had in Columbus a reading of a common American past. The decoration of the space consolidate a colonial narrative, which in turn also expresses “disputes over worldviews and their representations” and power relations established in a public space that intended to embrace a continental heritage (Navarro 2019, p. 3). Architects from all over the world were invited to participate in the competition, which gave a global sense to the selection. A guiding principle for the development of the works was to establish an easy-to-read Pan-Americanist work, where it was important to demarcate the European and indigenous presences, the colonial past and the modern present. The Lighthouse was supposed to be a guide for ships and planes arriving in Santo Domingo, which spoke to the idea of modernity and urban planning designed for the capital of the Dominican Republic. According to González (2007), three approaches were given to the elaboration of the Lighthouse projects: the innovative technologies of navigation by land and sea, an aesthetic that referred

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to the Mayans, and the use of clay and some iconic representations, coming mainly from the Soviets. It is a consensus among experts in the field that the Lighthouse project went beyond a simple tribute to Columbus. It was both a project to build an urban heritage and the result of a greater effort to consolidate an American identity, which has embraced several generations over almost 100 years of republican experiences (González 2007, p. 80). This American identity, in turn, referred to an image of European colonization mixed with indigenous elements. In a critical reading, this can be explored as a “dominant” and “traditional” narrative that aimed to bring the European and American worlds closer. Therefore, like any monument, the Lighthouse was also loaded with intentions around an official memory of the European presence in the New World (Le Goff 1996, p. 536; Achugar 2006, p. 180). It is important to think about the circulation and cultural exchanges within the scope of architecture and urbanism at the time of the competition. Its design, in two parts, sought to account for the breadth of the project. In the first phase, 48 countries competed with 455 preliminary projects, totaling 1926 architects engaged in the competition (Egaña Casariego 2012, p. 79). Only 10 preliminary projects were approved for the second phase of the competition. An ironic issue was the fact that no South American architects were selected, while three Americans from United States passed the finals, in addition to European professionals. This was a fact raised in press reviews, especially when it comes to the result of the selection (Egaña Casariego 2012, p. 87). The international jury to choose the winning works was initially composed of the American Raymond Hood (1891–1934), the Finnish Eliel Saarinen (1873–1950), and the Uruguayan Horacio Acosta y Lara (1875–1966). However, in the final stages of the contest, Hood was replaced by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959). This change was justified by the work that Hood performed in the construction of the Rockefeller Center (Egaña Casariego 2012, p. 84). The jury met in Madrid for an exhibition of the projects and the announcement of the finalists of the first phase in 1929. Two years later, they met in Rio de Janeiro for the final and awarding phase of the competition, held on October 12, marking part of the commemorations of the anniversary of the “discovery” of America. In the interval between those 2 years, there were changes to the rules for the final phase. In addition, the budget for the work was reduced due to the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange. The South American economies, dependent on international markets to export their products, witnessed the retraction of large-scale consumption and faced difficulties in financing their imports (Pinheiro 2013, p. 146). From a social point of view, the crisis fueled disbelief in liberalism and contributed to the promotion of other ways of doing politics (Hobsbawm 1995, pp. 90–112). Protecting the State through social policies became a touchstone for overcoming the crisis over the following years. The effect of the 1929 crisis in American countries led some nations to reduce or even withdraw their financial support for the Lighthouse project, considered the synthesis of a Pan-American architecture (González 2007; Egaña Casariego 2012, pp. 80–81). In addition to a shared dimension of American heritage and history,

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the Lighthouse project supported an important urban transformation around it, in a dialogue between past and present. According to Almenar (in Egaña Casariego 1982, p. 81, author translation), it was a “true Pan-American city that will rise on the other side of the Ozama River”. In 1930, faced with the damage caused by a cyclone in the Dominican Republic, Mr. Horace Knowles (1884–1954) draw attention in the press so that “architects who will meet soon in Rio de Janeiro” choose the best project for the Lighthouse “favoring a type capable of withstanding cyclones” (Correio da Manhã, 05 /11/ 1930, p. 1, author translation). The expectations that gravitated in the Brazilian press around the event were high, and newspapers began to cover the news involving the arrival of architects, members of the jury and authorities to announce the winning works in 1931. Dominican Minister Tulio Manuel Cestero (1877–1955) was sent to Rio de Janeiro to accompany the contest. It was a moment of exaltation of an American memory through a “work of pure idealism” that would be “one of the greatest monuments in the world” when completed (Correio da Manhã, 10/10/1931, p. 3, author translation). The presentation of credentials by the minister of the Dominican Republic marked the diffusion of an enthusiastic memory around the Columbus monument and the union between American countries. Minister Cesteros introduced himself as an extraordinary envoy on behalf of General Rafael Trujillo. In his speech, he attested to the pioneering role of the Dominican government in “erecting in the city of S. Domingos, in the cradle of America, a monumental lighthouse in memory of Christopher Columbus”, considered as a “benefactor of humanity for the stupendous undertaking of the discovery of the western hemisphere”. He also exalted the idea that the monument would unite the nations of America through the consecration of the bonds of ancient Spain in this “homage of collective love and gratitude” (Correio da Manhã, 10/10/1931, p. 3, author translation). Getúlio Vargas (1882–1954), at the time head of the interim government of Brazil, responded to the minister’s speech by stating that the Lighthouse project “received from Brazil, from the outset, full support, because my country is always sensitive to demonstrations of continental solidarity” (Correio da Manhã, 10/14/1931, p. 2, author translation). This was one of the moments in which Brazil projected itself as a mediator of diplomatic and inter-American cooperation projects and gradually built the image of a “conciliatory and trustworthy country” (Cervo 2001, p. 65; Pinheiro 2013, p. 144). The Gleave monument, seen from above, featured an enormous cross. When looking at it frontally, it presented a Mayan pyramid. The combination of these elements referred to a narrative of the encounter between, respectively, Spaniards and indigenous people. In addition, he realized the combination of two striking elements of their cultures: the cross and the pyramid; symbolizing both Catholicism and indigenous paganism. The monument represented, on the one hand, a civilizing reading in order to celebrate the achievements of Columbus in an imperialist way. The choice of a European project ratified this ideal. Through architecture, Columbus became a materialized myth in the Americas (Trouillot 2016, p. 198). According to Novo (2021), the preliminary examination of the projects chosen for the final phase

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of the competition allows us to point to the existence of varied styles in the design of the Lighthouse by showing the different positions and perceptions of architects around the pan-Americanism. Columbus could be evoked in an extended way in architectural productions, even though the result exalted the narrative of the encounter between winners and losers. Far from despising the architectural discussion, from the historical point of view the competition opens up a reading of transnational heritage in which the Lighthouse was projected as an inheritance and remembrance of a reading of the collective past shared by the inter-American community (Pomian 2000, p. 509). Such inheritance, therefore, rehabilitated Columbus and his accomplishments in a perspective of Universal History. Over time, the winning project was seen as funereal for not exalting the power and diversity opened up by the “discovery” of the New World (Egaña Casariego 2012, p. 85). Other news about the Columbus Lighthouse project appeared over the years following the award in Rio de Janeiro. In 1937, the newspaper Correio da Manhã reported the creation of a Brazilian national commission to carry out the financing and construction of the monument. The resolution took place as a stock split of the Inter-American Conference for the Consolidation of Peace, held in Buenos Aires in 1936. There was an expectation that the inauguration of the Lighthouse would take place in 1944 as part of the commemorations of the centenary of the Dominican Republic’s independence. In this sense, the monument represented “the perpetual expression of the American solidarity conscience, united, in justice and in gratitude to the genius that discovered America” (Correio da Manhã, 08/04/1937, p. 3, author translation). Another enterprise was the Pan-American flight. Correio da Manhã announced the event in August, 26, 19372 and showed the dimension of the Lighthouse project and the collective initiatives to sponsor the work. The flight was part of the tribute to the inauguration of the monument to Columbus, and had its start scheduled for October 12, 1937 in the City of Trujillo. The script was: starting from the northeast and east coasts of South America. Going up the Pacific coast to the western coast of Mexico, and from there to the United States and Canada through Mexico and Central America, returning to the starting point with stops in Cuba and Haiti (Correio da Manhã, 08/26/1937, p. 10, author translation).

The flight presented a reinterpretation of the Columbus voyage, with a clear tendency to exalt modernity and American advances to the world. Columbus, Santa Maria, Pinta, and Nina were the names of the planes, in reference to the voyage of 1492. The Dominican Army, the Pan-American Columbist Society, the Army and the Navy of Cuba financed them, respectively. On the flight, the distinguished aviators carry messages of friendship to the American governments, ministries, aviation, military and naval of all countries, promoting inter-American rapprochement and seeking to interest the countries of this hemisphere to contribute to the edification […] of the Columbus Lighthouse, a monument destined to perpetuate the discovery of America by the great Genoese navigator (Correio da Manhã, 11/13/1937, p. 3, author translation). 2

The title of notice is “Four Dominican planes will visit all the nations of the continent”.

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As already mentioned, the route of the Pan American flight included passing through all the countries of the continent. After passing through Brazil, they traveled to Uruguay and Peru. In the latter, one of the planes disappeared and was found the following day in the city of Pisco (Correio da Manhã, 12/18/1937). On December 30 of the same year, Correio da Manhã reported that the three remaining planes of the “Columbus squadron” were destroyed in a storm in Colombia, resulting in the death of the crew. The causes of the accident varied. They ranged from the difficult flight and weather conditions in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia to possible mistakes made by the pilots themselves. Upon learning of what had happened, the governments of Cuba and the Dominican Republic declared official mourning and took steps to repatriate the bodies in the following weeks. The Columbus squadron accident stands out as a case little explored in history. In this sense, I believe that the initiative was another instrument for the consolidation of inter-American relations, especially among the Latin American countries. Past and present modernity’s were in dialogue in the initial design of the Lighthouse project, emanating from other forms of cultural and material integration in those years. Measures in favor of regional cooperation and mobilization around the Columbus Lighthouse project were carried out between the 1930s and 1940s. This monument was a heritage of great proportions that served the construction of a collective memory and identity. However, such measures delivered a speech around a reading of the grandiose past for the Americas, being a reflection of the power relations in dispute at the time (Achugar, 2006). The American republics wanted to project their place in the world as a space of modernity and friendly relations. The process gained momentum with the outbreak of the Second World War (1939–1945), when the Americas strengthened their diplomatic ties in the name of the ideas of freedom and democracy, offering a counterpoint to the European world. The construction of the Columbus Lighthouse would return to the debate around the strengthening an education based on Americanist values, expressed in the resolutions of the First Inter-American Education Ministers Meeting, in 1943.

3 The First Inter-American Education Ministers Meeting: A Proposal for Valuing the Americas In this part, I intend to analyze the role of education in promoting greater continental integration. Between September 25 and October 4, 1943, the First Inter-American Meeting of Ministers of Education took place in Panama. This was the first of a series of Meetings that aimed to build forums for educational commitments between the countries of the American continent (Gouvêa e Silva 2020, p. 2). Organized by the Pan American Union, 21 countries participated. A commission made up of delegates from Colombia, the United States, Brazil and Haiti coordinated it. In this first meeting, were established some recommendations, resolutions, agreements and conventions around educational guidelines and a possible future for the

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countries of the American continent. Among them, we can mention the resolution on the use of radio for educational purposes to “carry out lofty purposes of good neighborliness, cultural dissemination and improvement of the teaching profession” (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, p. 1, author translation). The document presented recommendations regarding American teacher’s minimum rights. It also dealt with topics such as the teaching of American history and geography, the preservation of heritage, as well as the creation of libraries, museums and other assets in the name of American cooperation. Regarding the teaching of the history of the continent, the recommendation explained the need for the governments of the American republics to include in their educational programs “notions about the sociological, geographical and economic characteristics of the continent” (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, pp. 2–3, author translation). This provision came into force in Brazil in 1951 as part of the strengthening of intercontinental relations. In parallel with the implementation of this “compulsory course”, there would be a competition to write a text on American history to publish as a book. This tender would be under the responsibility of the Pan American Union, with an indication of a period of 3 years for the submission of proposals. The three award-winning works would undergo an assessment by competent bodies for an evaluation and, finally, the definitively approved text should be adopted as an “official text in the teaching of American History” (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, p. 4, author translation). On October 1, 1943, there was recognition of the work of educators in America, who “have been working for the spiritual elevation of the Continent since the first days of the Conquest”. For the members of the Reunion, the foundations of Christian civilization were the starting point so that, at that moment, masters and professors dedicated their efforts to the “struggle for the cultural elevation of the hemisphere” (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, p. 5, author translation). The recommendation for the commemorations of major commemorative dates also came in the sense of strengthening an American identity, based on solidarity and cooperation between the countries of the continent. On the one hand, there is appreciation of a European past marked by the tonic of civilization. On the other hand, it appears from the document’s efforts to build a historical and memorialist ballast common to America to elaborate a possible reading of American collective identity. In the eighth point of the Meeting’s resolutions, American folklore should be protected and disseminated. In the text, the need to “defend the native artistic heritage against exotic, harmful and destructive influences” was explicit and that folklore lent itself to “educate feelings of solidarity and sympathy” (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, p. 7, author translation), especially for the children’s audience. The recommendation was to intensify folklore studies at the Research Institutes, strengthen cultural exchange and investigations around folklore studies, disseminating publications of folkloric works throughout the American countries. In addition, there was a recommendation for the dissemination of literature and music in primary, secondary and normal education institutions in order to show the different expressions of art in “legends, narrations, episodes, myths, traditions,

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adages, beliefs, novels, poetry, fables, anecdotes, rounds, dances, songs, allegories, etc., with the contribution of teachers” (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, p. 7, author translation). There were attempts to promote these resolutions by American countries, but with the end of the war and concerns about a communist turn in America, the initiatives opened by the Inter-American Conferences on Education were left in the background. In a context of war and tensions from an international point of view, exploring American cultures and their potential opened up a different conception of the world from the European one. “While Europe descended into turmoil, “the Americas” would be a safe haven for civilization and democracy” (Pernett 2014, p. 22). This time, promoting mechanisms that encourage the study and preservation of an American culture was important to mediation and cooperation between American countries. Therefore, the Inter-American Conferences on Education were strategic to promote projects that would reduce internal conflicts and ensure a stable future in the South American republics at the end of the Second World War (Gouvêa e Silva 2020, p. 4). The conservation and restoration of archaeological monuments was discussed in order to value sciences such as Archeology, Anthropology and Paleontology. Investigations into the remains of American man were important so that the three areas of knowledge could “explain the different stages of indigenous life in America”. Ruins and archaeological and paleontological sites of scientific interest should be national property, whose exploration licenses would be granted to national and international institutions for “study purposes without any commercial purpose”. The exchange of historical and cultural materials was also part of the discussion, where the export of archaeological objects to other museums would only be possible if there were duplicates and, if there were none, a copy of the copy would be delivered to foreign museums, leaving the original in your country. Therefore, Archaeological, ethnographic and paleontological museums must send to similar ones in the countries of America, as a donation or exchange, the greatest possible number of duplicates or copies, also trying to keep a record, always updated, of bibliographic information and the results of investigations particular scientific studies (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, p. 9, author translation).

Still in the tone of solidarity and inter-American cooperation, a request was made for a contest that would elect an American School Anthem that, when sung, should express the optimism and enthusiasm of the American nations within a “school family of the Continent”. Therefore, the Anthem evoked the importance of “defending, honoring and loving” the continental family (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, p. 15, author translation). Another discussion that took place revolved around the creation of a select library of American works and a Pan-American school library in order to promote exchanges and translations of books considered important by the republics of the continent. In the twenty-sixth point of the document, the importance of material, cultural, academic and personal exchanges between countries was attested, in addition to the promotion of a policy of scholarships to strengthen intercontinental ties. On October 4th, the discussion on the care and conservation of historic and historic-artistic monuments was approved, in order to “conserve the riches of the

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American past”. In this recommendation, there was an incentive to create national commissions to take care of the preservation of historic heritage, aligned with commissions of a regional or provincial nature in order to conserve these assets and “increase the interest of historic culture”. An important dimension was, from the perspective of exchanges, sending photographs, decals, drawings to institutions in neighboring countries to “illustrate the teaching of History in universities, secondary schools or elementary schools” (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, p. 25, author translation). The use of images for teaching American history points to the importance that the continent gained, as well as a political effort to value memory, history and the heritage shared by countries. In practical ways, such exchanges spread other possible readings around the diverse American continent and its identities. As part of the general discussion on the conservation and preservation of the heritage of the American continent, the recommendation came around the contribution to the Columbus Commemorative Lighthouse. The document highlighted the importance of financial assistance from the countries of the continent “and others who wish to” for the construction of the monument. The contribution of the countries involved should be made to the Pan American Union as soon as the circumstances of the period allowed. As in the context of the choice of the work to be built in the Dominican Republic, the First Inter-American Meeting of Ministers of Education gave a perspective on the role that the monument played at that time, loaded with a heroic vision of the achievements of Columbus. The monument should be marked by a “collective tribute of gratitude, love and admiration of the American Peoples to the memory of the Discoverer of the New World” which “will also mean a symbol of union and peace among the American nations” (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, pp. 30–31, author translation). In this sense, the meeting intended the integrative space in various senses to the intended and distinct sphere of life in the sense of a Europe for people’s lives designed only for a Europe for people’s lives, but also the heritage and would mark the memory of survivors. It seems to me that the set of prerogatives in defense of the various fields of knowledge and material, cultural and personal exchanges offered a contrast to what happened in Europe, once the center of a creation of civilization for the western world. It is possible to perceive the alignment of an educational and cultural project with an integrative nature, “tending to the highest ends of tolerance and understanding”, throwing upon itself challenges and expectations for the post-secondary world-war (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, p. 29, author translation). The creation of an Inter-American University was an important part of this project, even though there were restrictions from the United States and Argentine governments to the “Convention on the Inter-American University” (Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos 1965, pp. 34–43, author translation). However, the historians have interpreted the Meeting in Panama as the result of United States imperialism, where the use of education as an instrument of diplomacy was part of an Americanization offensive in Latin America (Tota 2000, p. 43). Although the American role is important for reflections on American identity, I believe that look at the subject only from the point of view of American interests means reducing the possibilities of approach. Especially when we think about the

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management of opportunities for professionals such as architects, musicians, folklorists, archaeologists, anthropologists who exchanged ideas and materials in the exposed period (Pernett 2014). Even with United States support, the role played by South Americans in promoting memory policies around education, heritage and history is important because it proposes a view that goes beyond national borders. American identity was under discussion in Latin America and Columbus was a fundamental part of its construction between the 1930s and 1940s.

4 Conclusions In this paper, I showed how the discussions around a collective heritage for the American continent, extolling the memory of the “discovery” of the continent, mobilized governments and individuals in favor of continental integration in a context of world disputes and the advance of authoritarianism. From the perspective of the “Good Neighbor Policy”, the countries sought to promote initiatives to build a collective memory and identity, aiming at the unity of the diverse continent. This process also evidences the diffusion of a reading of the past, of memory and of the American collective identity, marked by contradictions. Although it is important to think about the United States role in these dynamics of circulation and cultural exchanges, it is important to discuss the Latin American role through initiatives for a more integrated future for their countries. The Columbus Lighthouse contest, the Pan-American flight and the First Meeting of Ministers of Education in Panama were part of collective undertakings in defense of a united and modern America, with Latin America at the forefront. Setting inter-American relations from the perspective of imperialism makes us lose sight of the potential found by Latin Americans to highlight their projects. On the other hand, the Columbus Commemorative Lighthouse project has lost some of its resonance over the years. Although news circulated about the monument and efforts to build it between the 1950s and 1960s, the dictatorial government of Rafael Trujillo curbed the possibilities of crowdfunding. The presidential terms of his successor, Joaquín Balaguer (1906–2002), were not considered democratic either. Finance the construction of the monument meant agreeing with the authoritarian actions of the government of the Dominican Republic. However, the Farol Lighthouse project was the object of Balaguer’s obsession, “with a pharaonic conception of public management” (Juliá 1994, p. 185, author translation). In 1986, the construction of the monument began, in addition to an urban renovation on the site. The official Dominican press attested that the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union supported the construction. Also from an international point of view, in 1988 the third Balaguer administration sought to endorse the resumption of the project at the VI Inter-American Conference of Commissions to Commemorate the Fifth Centenary of the Discovery of America, with moral support from the Catholic Church (Juliá 1994, pp. 191–192).

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When we think of the monument as a product of the societies through which they passed and the power relations established around it (Le Goff 1996), we see that there was a displacement of meaning and memory attributed to the Columbus Commemorative Lighthouse. The memory built between the end of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century began to be questioned in the face of the emergence of new social and cultural configurations and of giving voice to the then “invisible”. Hugo Achugar’s conception of “age memory” helps us to understand the process as the passage of time imprints different memories on subjects, even though they experience similar individual and collective experiences. The Columbus Commemorative Lighthouse began to have a double dimension: from a project that emanated a sense of continental union, of “homage of collective love and gratitude” with marks of a colonialist past; in the 1990s we began to question the legitimacy of this type of tribute. The process of re-elaboration of American identities based on multiculturalism, ethnicity, race and the visibility of social movements reveal the disputes around memory, history and the diverse nuances of being American (Achugar 2006; Wade 2018, p. 137). This memory and its places of enunciation echo in resentment. This resentment is associated with the violence suffered, where disqualifying “the values of the oppressor” and, therefore, revaluing their own and those of their communities gives new vigor to the oppressed (Ferro 2009, p. 14, author translation). This reading highlighted the memory of the conquest of America and its consequences in the societies of the continent until the present time, marked by the concentration of income, poverty and violence. The surroundings of the monument, surrounded by walls, “hidden” the favela as an attempt to silence the inhabitants of the place. In popular opinion, Columbus did not deserve any homage (Mann 2012, p. 46). This process continues when we read in newspapers and on the Internet about protests and the toppling of statues honoring people like Columbus in several countries around the world. The proposal of rewriting history through heritage reveals the construction of public memory projects that dispute the official memory and its reminiscences. The “place of enunciation” of memories gives a broader dynamic to the reception of monuments, subjects and institutions in countries (Mignolo 1996). In this way, in the present time, the memory built around the Columbus Commemorative Lighthouse permeates both the frustration and the resentment that subsists in the first conquerors of America, thus displacing the original meaning of their projection of the American past; who has in Columbus a common wound.

References Achugar H (2006) Planetas sem boca. Escritos efêmeros sobre Arte, Cultura e Literatura. Editora da UFMG, Belo Horizonte

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Azevedo C (2011) Relações interamericanas no século XX: percursos e debates acadêmicos. In: Azevedo C, Raminelli R (orgs) História das Américas. Novas perspectivas. Editora da FGV, Rio de Janeiro, pp 275–304 Cervo AL (2001) Relações Internacionais da América Latina: velhos e novos paradigmas. IBRI, Brasília Choay F (2017 [1992]) A alegoria do patrimônio. 6ª ed. Estação Liberdade/Editora UNESP, São Paulo Donghi TH (2005) [1969] Historia Contemporánea de América Latina. Madri: Alianza Editorial Dulci TMS (2013) Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (IBRI)/ Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI): desenvolvimento e integração do Brasil nas Américas (1954– 1992). Tese de Doutorado. São Paulo: Programa de Pós-Graduação em História Social da USP Egaña Casariego F (2012) El viaje de los arquitectos Luis Moya y Joaquín Vaquero a Río de Janeiro. El desenlace del concurso para el Faro de Colón (1931). Liño 18:77–90 Fernández-Armesto F (2017) 1492. O ano em que o mundo começou. Companhia das Letras, São Paulo Ferro M (2009) O ressentimento na história. Ensaio. Agir, Rio de Janeiro González R (2007) El concurso del Faro de Colón: Un reencuentro con el monumento olvidado de la arquitectura pan-americana. ARQ 67:80–87 Gouvêa FCF, Silva LO (2020). Imperialism and Education in Latin American: the Inter-American Education Conferences (1934–1963). Hist. of Ed. in Latin America, 3, e20839. https://doi.org/ 10.21680/2596-0113.2020v3n0ID20839 Hobsbawm E (1995) A Era dos Extremos. O breve século XX (1914–1991). Companhia das Letras, São Paulo Instituto Nacional de Estudos Pedagógicos (1965) Conferências Interamericanas de Educação. Recomendações (1943–1963). Min. da Educação e Cultura: Inst. Nac. de Est. Pedagógicos. Available via Domínio Público. http://www.dominiopublico.gov.br/download/texto/me001999. pdf. Accessed 15 Oct 2021 Juliá ER (1994) Faro del mundo, luz de América and La isla al revés. Inti: Rev. de lit. hispánica 39:177–194 Le Goff J (2013 [1996]) História e memória. 7ª ed. Editora da UNICAMP, Campinas Mann CC (2012) 1493. Como o intercâmbio entre o novo e o velho mundo moldou os dias de hoje. Verus, Lisboa Mignolo W (1996) Herencias coloniales y teorías postcoloniales. In: Stephan BG (ed) Cultura y Tercer Mundo, vol. 1. Nueva Sociedad, Caracas, pp 99–136 Navarro DCP (2019) Representaciones de los sujetos del Caribe hispano en los museos capitalinos de República Dominicana. Entramados. Ed. Y Soc (6):1–32 Nora P (1993) Entre memória e história. A problemática dos lugares. Proj História 10:7–28 Novo L (2020) Em nome de Colombo: exposições, estátuas e monumentos. Rev. Temporalidades 34(3):644–667 Novo L (2021) Como circulam as ideias? Escalas, temporalidades e embates a partir do Farol de Colombo. Anais do XVI Seminário de História da Cidade e do Urbanismo. Salvador: Bahia, pp 2660–2677 Pecequilo CS (2011) A política externa dos Estados Unidos: continuidade ou mudança. 3ª ed. Editora da UFRGS, Porto Alegre Pernett CA (2014) “Pela cultura genuína das Américas”: folclore musical e política cultural do pan-americanismo, 1933–1950. Rev. Bras. de Música 27(1):19–51. https://doi.org/10.47146/ rbm.v27i1.29188 Pinheiro L (2013) O Brasil no mundo. In: Gomes ÂC (coord) História do Brasil Nação: 1808–1810, vol IV. Ed. Objetiva/Fundación Mapfre, Rio de Janeiro/Madri, pp 143–177 Pomian K (2000) Memória. In: Romano R (org) Enciclopedia Einaudi, vol 42. Sistemática. Imprensa Casa Nacional da Moeda, Lisboa, pp 507–516 Tota AP (2000) O imperialismo sedutor: a americanização do Brasil na época da Segunda Guerra. Companhia das Letras, São Paulo

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Trouillot M (2016) Silenciando o passado. Poder e a produção da história. Curitiba: Huya Wade P (2018) Interações, relações e comparações afro-indígenas. In: De La Fuente A et al. Estudos afro-latino-americanos: uma introdução. CLACSO, Buenos Aires, pp 119–162

Hevelly Ferreira Acruche holds a Ph.D. in History from the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), supported by Capes. She is Assistant Professor of American History at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, and of the Graduate Program in History at the same institute. She is a member of the Laboratory of Economic and Social History (LAHES) and the Americanist Teaching and Re-search Group (GEPAM). She wrote the book The border and the people. Diplomacy, loyalties and sovereignties in the extreme south of Iberian America (1750–1830) (2019). Her topics of interest include History of Brazil, History of Colonial and Independent America, African and indigenous slavery, borders, Geopolitics, and International Relations.

Decolonialism, Paulo Freire and the Triangular Approach Ana Mae Barbosa and Lucia Gouvêa Pimentel

Abstract Cultural colonisation is still a reality in Brazil, and it sometimes causes Brazilian intellectuals to become agents in the destruction of their own culture. Initially, the country submitted itself to French and English values and methods of art teaching. In the 1960s and 70s, it was the turn of cultural colonisation by the USA. In subsequent decades, various multicultural movements pressed for the cultural liberation of art and art education and left a positive legacy. Paulo Freire, together with Peruvian sociologist Anibal Quijano, was a key figure in all this. His theory of decolonisation is based on the relationship between oppressor and oppressed, on dialogue, and on giving art the same status as the other major disciplines. In 2019, the Latin American Congress on Teaching/Learning in the Arts took place, the aim of which was to debate decolonisation in art education. This reinforced the importance of the “Triangular Approach”, which was developed by Ana Mae Barbosa. At the end of the text, we will give a practical example of our initial work with the Triangular Approach, and the result of a 2022 research stating that 54.9% of the art teachers in Brazil work with Triangular Approach. Keywords Triangular Approach · Arts education · Decolonisation · Paulo Freire · Participatory congress

1 Introduction: Historical Context There has long been a systemic and quasi-official process of cultural colonisation, by countries that consider themselves a civilising influence, of countries where there is material and educational poverty. In addition, intellectuals from those countries tend A. M. Barbosa (B) Graduate Program in Design, Art and Technology, University Anhembi Morumbi, São Paulo, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] L. G. Pimentel Department of Visual Arts, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_15

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to instil a mentality of cultural cringe in the target countries. As a result, intellectuals within the target countries often, largely unwittingly, become agents of the destruction of their own culture by repeating the arguments of the would-be colonisers. Thus, having become geopolitically independent from their principal colonisers (Portugal and Spain), Latin American countries continued to be culturally dominated by Europe, i.e. they became geopolitically independent from those colonisers but continued to be culturally dominated by European cultural codes. Cultural colonisation is an insidious and permanent instrument of domination, especially if it is not perceived by the colonised. However, although the teaching of art in Brazil was institutionalised and managed by Portugal in the nineteenth century, it was never culturally, conceptually or practically dominated by that country. The Portuguese court that settled in Brazil in 1808 was culturally dominated by France and England, and it was from those countries that models of art teaching were imported to Brazil, with the ironic result that the teaching of art in Brazil colony became more advanced than it was in Portugal. Brazil initially submitted to those French and English values and methods of art teaching, including—after the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia—those of the USA. However, Brazil never submitted entirely. Although, in the twentieth century, several multicultural movements pressing for the cultural liberation of art and art/education were not as successful as might have been wished, they left significant traces, e.g. Northeastern Regionalism (Gilberto Freyre and Vicente do Rego Monteiro), Anthropophagic Modernism (Oswald de Andrade), the Armorial Movement (Ariano Suassuna) and Tropicalism, the latter being the only surviving one because it was transformed into Public Policy through the Points of Culture (Pontos de cultura)1 project. In an interview in the Folha de S. Paulo (04/07/95), the North American film critic Robert Stam points out that multiculturalism is embedded in Brazilian culture. He says that Modernism, the Anthropophagic Movement and Tropicalia, as represented respectively by Mário de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade and the trio of Caetano Veloso, Helio Oiticica and Gilberto Gil are examples of a wider and more open concept of multiculturalism than the American one. Problems of politics and identity in Latin America intensified during the struggles against the dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s. In Brazil, during that period, the ministry of education thoroughly revised legislation, in respect of education at all levels, in line with direct—and openly colonialist—intervention from the USA, in particular from the University of San Diego. Most educators who advocated a more democratic system were exiled; amongst their number were Paulo Freire, Anísio Teixeira and Maria Nilde Mascelani. In the 1960s, with several South American countries under military dictatorship, Latin American sociologists created the Dependency Theory. The idea was that, in order to overcome underdevelopment, overcoming dependence was even more important than economic advancement. The principal originators of the Dependency 1

The sociologist Célio Turino was at the forefront of the project, and it was officially adopted by the Tropicalist artist Gilberto Gil when he was Minister of Culture (2003–8) in the first Lula (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) government.

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Theory were Ruy Mauro Marini, André Gunder Frank, Theotonio dos Santos, Vania Bambirra, Enzo Faletto and Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Ironically, when Cardoso was President of Brazil, from 1995 to 2002, he subordinated Brazilian education to Spanish norms by engaging Cesar Coll, a Spanish educator who had never lived in Brazil, to write the brazilian national curriculum. It was an act of explicit colonisation, and it was a disaster. To demonstrate the primacy of his curriculum, Coll prohibited any reference to Brazilian educational ideas and previous example of national curricula, despite the fact that, until the 1950s, Brazilian educators had to follow the restrictive Pedro II school curriculum. It was compulsory for the whole country. Destroying the history of the colonised is the easiest form of colonial domination. In the case of the art education, the objective of hidden Spanish domination in Brazil (in the 90’s) was not only to discredit Brazilian art/education but also to strengthen Spain’s commercial presence in Brazil, for instance, by purchasing publishing houses. It was only the economic crisis of 2008 that significantly diminished that Spanish influence.

2 Paulo Freire and Arts Education Paulo Freire (1921–97), alongside the Peruvian Anibal Quijano (1930–2018), was a pioneering opponent of cultural colonisation by stealth in 1990s Latin America. His decolonisation theory is based on the relationship between oppressor and oppressed, as set out in his book Pedagogia do Oprimido (1974) (Pedagogy of the Oppressed). Published first in 1968 in the USA and translated into more than 40 languages, it had immediate international repercussion, especially as it chimed with the demands expressed in the French Student Revolution of 1968. (Many of those demands were also being accepted, at the same time, in the Chile of Salvador Allende.) Having been exiled by the military dictatorship (1964–84), Paulo Freire returned to Brazil in 1980 as a hero. In 1989, he was appointed municipal education secretary for São Paulo, a move which saw art accorded the same importance as other disciplines. He invited Ana Mae Barbosa to coordinate the restructuring of the art curriculum and, under his guidance, she initiated the Triangular Approach in 702 schools, with a total of 720,000 students. That approach comprises making art, reading images and contextualisation. What differentiates it from other postmodern methodological approaches to art/education is contextualisation, i.e. “conscientisation”, i.e. awareness of the contemporary world. Contextualisation of what one expresses and what one critically analyses or sees, opens the mind to one’s surroundings; to social, historical and anthropological issues, systemic cultural colonisation, naturalised prejudices, inequalities and the need for a better quality of life, as well as to different forms of interdisciplinarity. Modernism has already proved the great importance of making art at all educational levels, by developing not only fantasy and imagination but also the intelligence necessary for other areas of knowledge. Postmodernism has added what it calls “image reading”, demonstrating that art is not isolated from our daily lives, our personal history, our emotions or our reasoning.

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Right-wingers hounded Paulo Freire right up until his death and managed to hollow out Triangular Approach until it became no more than a mere copy of the American “Discipline-Based Art/Education” (DBAE). Despite presenting itself as a postmodern methodology, DBAE consists of disciplines (aesthetics, criticism, art history and art practice as opposed to Triangular Approach, which prioritises mental processes, the most important of which is contextualisation. It is contexualisation that helps us to recognise the process of cultural and emotional colonisation to which we are prone, otherwise, to be unwittingly subjected. In the 1980s, attention was drawn to the most forceful foreign decolonisers and postcolonialists such as Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Richard Hoggart. And, with the emergence of decolonialism, we turned again to Latin America to study not only Paulo Freire but also authors such as Walter Mignolo (Argentina/USA), Anibal Quijano (Peru), Pedro Pablo Gómez Moreno (Colombia), Nora Merlin (Argentina), Ilana Goldenstein (São Paulo, Brazil) and Laura Catelli (Argentina). In the area of art/education, the following deserve particular note: Gabriela Augustowsky (Argentina), Mario Méndez (Mexico), Ethel Batres (Guatemala), Renata Felinto (Brazil), Fabio Rodrigues (Brazil), Fernando de Azevedo (Brazil), Rejane Coutinho (Brazil), Lucia Pimentel (Brazil), Afonso Medeiros (Brazil), Patricia Riqueman (Chile), Rocio Polania (Colombia), Ramon Cabrera (Cuba), Eduardo Moura (Brazil), Mario M Grovejo (Peru) and Myriam Montiel (Peru). All of them are publishing and doing research towards cultural decolonisation in art/education. In Brazil, study groups include the Borrando Fronteiras Study and Research Group in Art/Education (GEPABOF, Grupo de Estudos e Pesquisas em Arte/Educação Borrando Fronteiras) and the Research Group in Education and Art (GEARTE, Grupo de Pesquisa em Educação e Arte), both centred on art/education.

3 Congress on Teaching/Learning the Arts in Latin America: Colonialism and Gender In 2019, there were still few art educators debating colonisation issues. Then, we organised2 the Congress on Teaching/Learning the Arts in Latin America: Colonialism and Gender. This had more than six hundred participants and aimed to discuss decolonisation in art/education with themes such as: Colonialism versus international dialogue; how to avoid imposing misplaced ideas; what revolution in art/education do we need? cultural and emotional colonialism with regard to gender, race, social class and hegemonic cultural codes; decolonising pedagogical epistemologies; what history of art do we want to know, and what history of art/education are we building? non-European image reading; cultural policies and decolonising consciousness; pioneer women in decolonising art/education. An account of this 2

The organising committee of the Congress was composed by Ana Mae Barbosa, Analice Dutra Pillar, Lucia Gouvêa Pimentel and Rejane Galvão Coutinho.

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congress and its principal debates was published in the GEARTE Journal (v 6, n 3, 2019), which was edited by Analice Dutra Pillar.

3.1 A Participatory Congress A citation from Walter Mignolo opened the program: What is crucial to keep in mind is that ‘coloniality’ and all the concepts we have introduced since then are concepts whose point of origin is not in Europe but in the ‘Third World’. This means that all these concepts emerge from the experience of coloniality in the Americas. Entangled with modernity, to be sure, but no longer “applying” European-born categories to “understand” colonial legacies. On the contrary, we have converted Europe into a field of analysis rather than a provider of “cultural and epistemic resources (Mignolo 2013).

The main problem in organising the congress was to democratise speaking time, i.e. the participants/listeners, who usually only have 15 min for questions after lectures, were allowed the same speaking time as the lecturers. (This was unusual for an academic congress, and I will explain the reason later on.) Another challenge was asking teachers and educators, a year in advance, to prepare their students to discuss the themes of decolonisation and gender flexibility in the production and reception of the arts, which had been little discussed in the curriculum of arts degrees. In the last thirty years, the teaching/learning of art in Latin America, under different designations, e.g. Artistic education and Education through art or art/ education, has developed significantly. In large part, this has been due to the establishment of graduate courses and the social action of NGOs in favour of marginalised sections of the population. The theoretical anaemia of the 1970s was eventually overcome, and reliable foundations were created for the application of theory in schools. Non-formal education and NGOs have proven that the development of intellectual and critical thinking, perception and creative processes are just as important in art education as in other disciplines. Academically, however, Brazil remains significantly colonised by European and North American white codes. In Brazil, Business for Social Service (SESC, Serviço Social do Comércio) was one of the institutions that contributed to these achievements, including by hosting the Latin American Council of Education through Art (CLEA, Consejo Latinoamericano de Educación por el Arte) at the 2019 Congress. CLEA was created in 1984 at the World Congress of the International Society for Education through Art (InSEA) in Rio de Janeiro, by one of the Latin American representatives to the World Council of InSEA. We determined to use the opportunity to learn more about art/education in Latin America. CLEA has representatives from ten Latin American countries, which have been cooperating effectively ever since the organisation’s creation. Our differences are respected, and there is awareness of the need to resist the temptation of homogenising practices and theories—a practice that has been the scourge of art education in Brazil for the past 200 years as a result of cultural colonisation. Thus, we discuss different influences but reject any form of legal or quasi-legal cultural colonisation.

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In the 1970s, the Brazilian art-teaching system was designed by the University of San Diego (USA), in the 1990s, by a Spaniard who had never lived in Brazil. Since 2016 we were once again dominated by banks and other corporations that pressure the ministry of education, via the Base National Common Curriculum (BNCC), to remove art from the curriculum of primary and secondary education. As from 2018, art was no longer mandatory in high schools. The CLEA congress we organised in 2019 was intended to intensify awareness and actions to combat cultural, economic, educational and emotional colonisation (Nora Merlin). Given that most art/education in Brazil is provided by women (Fernando Azevedo), those women have to confront two challenges: the disqualification both of women’s work and of art/education. These and other prejudices were discussed at the congress. Priority was given to debate between all the participants. There were nine hours of these debates, which were systematically focussed on operational conclusions. As much time was devoted to the debates as to conferences and round tables. Throughout, an attempt was made to provide equality of speaking time for all the participants. We need to learn to value our culture and to prevent the destruction of museums that conserve and study our history. Two museums—in 2015 the Museu da Língua Portuguesa and in 2018 the Museu Nacional da UFRJ—have already been completely destroyed by fire.3 Every citizen needs to know about the history and the art of Brazil, or we shall continue to spend more on prisons than on education—a testament to administrative and human incompetence.

3.2 Preparation for Debates At the beginning of 2018, we invited 71 art/educators from different states of Brazil to help prepare for the CLEA Congress by discussing with their students the topics to be debated. Two comprehensive bibliographies were organised: one relating to cultural decolonisation, by Eduardo Moura and Sidiney Peterson, the other relating to feminism, by Ana Mae Barbosa. (Additions of more state-specific works were made at the request of representatives from the various states.) Three videos were also added. State representatives were asked to choose from texts or videos from the bibliographies (all of which were available on the internet) in order to initiate discussions with students, teachers and communities. They could also choose relevant material that was not listed in the bibliographies. These were just suggestions to stimulate debate. A positive response was received from about 80% of the Brazilian states, via open events, and artists and art/educators participating actively in discussions and facilitating suggestions for the debates at the congress. Mediators from the different 3

Recently, in January 2023, Jair Bolsonaro supporters destroyed a large number of works of art in the Palácio do Planalto (the presidential palace), which contains an important collection of Brazilian art, in particular from the Modernist period.

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states were invited to lead the debates. Prof. Ângelo Roberto Barros, from Maranhã, in addition to the two meetings he organised, managed to arrange for the building of the Independent Writers Association of Maranhão to be used as a space for information and discussion about the topics proposed for the CLEA Congress. From October 2018 to March 2019, the representatives from Pará—Ana del Tabor, Marisa Mokarzel and Rosângela Britto—organised monthly debates with intellectuals from Belém, accompanied by discussion with the public. All the participants of the meetings answering an inquiry considered the topics discussed to be of great relevance to their work. One hundred and fifteen people were directly involved in preparing for the congress. They included: the organising committee (6); producers (3); representatives of supporting institutions (10); disseminators via the internet (7); CLEA members (18); and representatives of the states (71). In addition, 21 lecturers and speakers, as well as the directors of the SESC divisions and the entire SESC Vila Mariana team, attended preparatory meetings. (For reasons we still cannot explain, the question of feminism was not raised in the discussions on cultural decolonisation—a surprising oversight.) However, this congress was an open up for the questions against colonisation in art/education, despite it had been discussed since 1977 by Ana Mae Barbosa in the article “A Chronology of Dependence”. At the time, it had hardly any repercussion. As a result of the congress, cultural decolonisation became a topic on most of the teacher training courses in the country. Particular recognition should be given to the work done by the Federal University of Pará in addressing the question through research on the local, Amazonian culture. All of this, however, is in a context where art and art/education in Brazil have been accorded the same importance as other disciplines only on three occasions: 1. The Rui Barbosa Reform (1882–1883, book published in 1941–1947), which, however, emphasised the teaching of drawing at the expense of other disciplines. (Rui Barbosa was inspired by Walter Smith’s presentation at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876). 2. The New School Movement, especially the Fernando de Azevedo Reform in the Federal District (Rio de Janeiro 1927) and the Minas Gerais Reform (1927– 1930). These reforms were inspired by the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute in Geneva. 3. The Curricular Reform of Paulo Freire in schools in the city of São Paulo (1989–1990). This reform translated Paulo’s ideas via the Triangular Approach. Although he did not write specifically about art/education, he left valuable pointers to how his ideas might be applied. In November 2021, at the 2nd International Art, Culture and Education Online Congress, a research took place with 1009 art teachers—as part of a celebration of the thirty years that the Triangular Approach had been in operation—on how this approach was currently managed by art educators in Brazil. The research was undertaken by: Glacy Antunes de Oliveira, Annelise Nani da Fonseca, Ana Flávia Tavares de Melo, Fábio de Castilhos Lima, and Fernanda Pereira da Cunha. Among

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these 1009 art teachers, 54.9% were already working with the Triangular Approach. Only 184 art teachers didn’t knew about the Triangular Approach: • • • •

73.7% were teaching arts in schools. 54.9% were already working with the Triangular Approach. 58.8% had completed undergraduate arts courses. 47.1% had studied visual arts.

As can be seen, the research exposed a big problem for Brazil: the overwhelming majority of art teachers have not studied visual arts. Such lack of specialised knowledge leaves the country wide-open to cultural colonisation.

4 The Triangular Approach The following example shows how the Triangular Approach can be put into effect and, in particular, how contextualisation can give rise to conscientisation. It concerns a project undertaken by the education department of the Contemporary Art Museum of São Paulo in 1992, which included an exhibition, a symposium and a publication. It was called Art and the Environment, was funded by the São Paulo city council, and involved participation by 10,000 children, from 7 to 15 years of age, during the winter holidays. The museum is placed in the Ibirapuera Park.

4.1 Contextualisation A project can start with any of the three processes: art making, reading the work and contextualisation. In this case, the work started with scientific contextualisation and was, therefore, interdisciplinary between art and science in order to get conciousness about ecology. This particular project was entitled A Árvore (The Tree). The botanists from Ibirapuera Park welcomed the children (see Fig. 1), and together they: • • • • •

discussed the importance of preserving the environment; explored the different types of trees, trunk texture and leaf shape; discussed differences in plant care—some needing more water, other less, etc.; talked about plant classifications; developed tactile games for interrelation with trees.

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Fig. 1 A Árvore. Picture taken by the author

4.2 Art Making The groups went to the museum, where they met the artist Otávio Roth, who had prepared a huge tree by drawing only the branches (see Fig. 2). He invited the children to help him fill the tree with leaves (see Fig. 3). They talked with Otávio about their experiences at Ibirapuera Park and about the importance of trees for ecology. The children were given sheets of self-adhesive paper, with the outlines of leaves on them for them to fill in (see Figs. 4 and 5). Otávio affixed the leaves to the tree (see Figs. 6 and 7), and the students signed their names on self-adhesive labels, which were placed at the base of the tree. The result: a huge tree as a collaborative work of art (Fig. 8).

4.3 Reading Works of Art The next step was to study the abstract representation of trees, via an installation of a coffee plantation (see Fig. 9), including the different stages of maturation of the beans—from the initial green to the yellow colour at harvest. It was important, in progressing from figurative representation to abstract representation, to show that abstraction is also a thought process.

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Fig. 2 Drawing of the tree by Otávio Roth. Photo taken by the author

Fig. 3 Children applying the leaves. Photo taken by the author

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Fig. 4 Participants drawing leaves on self-adhesive paper. Photo taken by the author

Fig. 5 Drawings. Photo taken by the author

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Fig. 6 Otávio Roth applying the leaves to the tree. Photo taken by the author

Fig. 7 Otávio Roth applying the leaves to the tree and adding the participant’s names to the base. Photo taken by the author

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Fig. 8 Result of the A Árvore. Photo taken by the author

Fig. 9 Participants engaged with the installation of the coffee plantation. Photo taken by the author

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Fig. 10 Student observing, and making notes of, an artwork. Photo taken by the author

4.4 Individual and Collective Readings of a Work of Art From there, the children went around the museum to see the works of art by themselves first (Fig. 10) and, in groups of 10–15, chose individual works to discuss with the help of educators from the museum (Fig. 11). They were given paper and pencils to write down their thoughts and questions.

4.5 The Tree (2018/2020) After 26 years, A Árvore was republished at SESC Bom Retiro in 2018 by Isabel Roth, the daughter of the artist Otávio Roth. Isabel is graduated in international relations and was three years old when her father died prematurely at the age of 41, shortly after completion of the project. She continued her father’s work by adapting it to new times, new spaces and new goals with the help of new technologies. She

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Fig. 11 This group chose a work by Flavio de Carvalho. Photo taken by the author

sliced the tree and turned it into a kind of mobile.4 But the work of making it grow continued with the schools that visited SESC and with the teachers who joined in this reinterpretation of the project when the Triangular Approach was systematised. Contemporary digital technology enables much richer images, as can be seen in the videos from the Otávio Roth Exhibition. Otávio reedited the exhibition A Árvore, and his exhibition was curated by Fabio Magalhães. The footage was taken by drone.5

5 Conclusion Since the beginning of this century, various multicultural movements have sought, through both research and action, to culturally liberate art and art/education in Brazil. This is creating a more appropriate framework for the teaching/learning of arts in schools and in other relevant settings. The legacy of Paulo Freire, together with that of other Latin American authors, including Ana Mae Barbosa’s Triangular Approach, has been of fundamental importance in that process. As Brazil continues to decolonialise its education system in general, and art/education in particular, due consideration should be given to that legacy. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Francis K. Johnson for the English revision support. 4 5

See: https://www.sescsp.org.br/unidades/bom-retiro/. See: https://vimeo.com/showcase/8712031/video/582266921.

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References Barbosa R (1941) Reforma do ensino secundário e superior (1882). Rio de Janeiro, Ministério da Educação e Saúde. Obras Completas, v.9, t.1. Barbosa R (1947) Reforma do ensino primário (1883). Rio de Janeiro, Ministério da Educação e Saúde. Obras Completas, v.10, t.1, 2, 3, 4. Freire P (1974) Pedagogia do oprimido. São Paulo, Editora Paz e Terra Mignolo W (2013) Entrevista. In: Gallas L (ed) Decolonialidade como o caminho para a cooperação. IHU Online (431). https://www.ihuonline.unisinos.br/artigo/5253-walter-mignolo Accessed 28 March 2023

Ana Mae Barbosa is Professor Emerita at ECA/USP and teaches at Anhembi Morumbi University. She did her Ph.D. at Boston University and a post-doctorate in England and New York. She taught at several Universities: Yale, The Ohio State, and Granada. She published 23 books. She has received several awards like the Herbert Read Award, Edwin Ziegfeld Award, Award for Contribution to Art Education in the United States (Miami University), the National Order of Scientific Merit, the National Order of Cultural Merit, and Itaú Cultural 30 years. She was president of INSEA, of ANPAP, and Director of MAC/USP. Lucia Gouvêa Pimentel is a Full Professor at the School of Visual Arts of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), specialising in Arts and Cultural Diversity in the PPGArtes and ProfArtes programmes. Leader of the Art and Contemporary Technology Teaching Research Group. Member of the Borrando Fronteiras Art/Education Study and Research Group. Vice Director of the Latin American Council for Education through Art (CLEA). Editor, together with Dora Águila from Chile, of the Revista CLEA.

The Mirror of Modernity The Modern World Heritage and Its Collection in Brazil Walkiria Maria de Freitas Martins

Abstract This article is the result of my doctoral research, the objective of which was to carry out a historiographical analysis of the patrimonialization processes of two Brazilian cultural assets that, until now, constitute the entire collection of modern cultural heritage in the country, recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage. These assets are: The Urban Complex of Brasília (Federal District) and the Modern Complex of Pampulha (Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais). The architectural complexes of Brasília and Pampulha are seen, therefore, as the beginning and end of an era marked by development, progress and modernity, scratched on the drawing boards of brilliant architects like Costa and Niemeyer and realized by visionary politicians and achievers like Vargas and Kubitschek. I try to demonstrate throughout the research how these memories were elaborated and/or appropriated from previous contexts and, finally, instrumentalized and updated in heritage processes that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. From these processes, they became official narratives about these cultural goods and about some episodes of the republican history of Brazil. In the article, I analyze, in light of decolonial studies, these narratives that bequeathed to the Brazilian people and humanity, a modernist architecture that intends to be a mirror of Brazilian modernity and national identity. Keywords Modern heritage · World Heritage · Decolonial studies · Memory policies · History of the present time

1 Introduction Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate. According to traditional practice, the spoils are carried along in the procession. They are called cultural treasures, and a historical materialist views them with cautious detachment. For without exception, the W. M. de Freitas Martins (B) Colégio de Aplicação João XXIII, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_16

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cultural treasures he surveys have an origin which he cannot contemplate without horror. They owe their existence not only to the efforts of the great minds and talents who have created them but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free of barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it is transmitted from one owner to another. A historical materialist therefore dissociates himself from it as far as possible. He regards it as his task to brush history against the grain (Benjamin 1969, pp. 256–257).

This article is the result of my doctoral research “Do traço de um belo horizonte à trama sob o céu infinito: a arquitetura modernista brasileira como patrimônio mundial”1 developed between 2017 and 2021 (Martins 2021a, b) and whose objective was to carry out a historiographical analysis of the patrimonialization processes of two Brazilian cultural assets that, until the present, constitute the entire collection of the country’s modern cultural heritage, recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. These assets are: The Urbanistic Complex of Brasília (Federal District) and the Modern Complex of Pampulha (Belo Horizonte, in state of Minas Gerais). Both are made up of buildings designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer and, in the case of Brasília, the urban design by the architect Lucio Costa. Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer, exponents of the Escola Carioca, built one of the strands of the Brazilian movement of modernist architecture. At the same time, Lucio Costa was recognized as intellectual of the theory of architecture and urbanism and of the field of Brazilian cultural heritage and Oscar Niemeyer was recognized as an artistic genius of Brazilian modernity. Due to specific historical circumstances, these two architects and the movement in which they participated reached a prominent place in two governments that marked the political history of Brazil in the twentieth century: the Estado Novo of Getúlio Vargas (1937–1945) and the government of Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–1961). The architecture served as a seam between these two country projects, creating a line of succession between them. The national and international success achieved by Brazil’s architectural modernism helped to ensure a positive memory of those governments. The architectural ensembles of Brasília and Pampulha are thus seen as the beginning and end of an era marked by development, progress and modernity, scratched out on the drawing boards of brilliant architects such as Costa and Niemeyer and carried out by visionary politicians and achievers such as Vargas and Kubitschek. We tried to demonstrate, throughout the research, how these memories were instrumentalized and updated in patrimonialization processes that took place in the 1980s and 1990s. I analyze, in light of decolonial studies, the narratives of consecration of the two cultural assets and the institutional contexts of the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage National, IPHAN2 ) and the World Heritage Committee that made these recognitions possible and bequeathed to the Brazilian people and humanity a modernist architecture that is intended to mirror Brazilian modernity and national identity. 1

From the outline of a beautiful horizon to the plot under the infinite sky: Brazilian modernist architecture as a World Heritage. 2 Brazilian federal agency for the preservation of cultural heritage.

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In this article, I bring specific reflections related to the field of World Heritage and, more specifically, about the emergence of the field of Modern World Heritage, which includes the cultural assets in question, and the relationships that Brazil has established with it so far. We know that the nominations of cultural property for the title of World Heritage, as well as the preparation of dossiers that support those processes, are initiatives of the States Parties, signatories of the World Heritage Convention. However, our analysis of the trajectories of consecration of Brasília and Pampulha as World Heritage Sites would be severely compromised, therefore, if we did not consider, in this process, the role of UNESCO and, more specifically, of the World Heritage Center (WHC), of the World Heritage Committee and of some of Organs that provide them with assistance, like the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), for example. Evidently, it is a relational process that involves sectors of the Brazilian State and a specific division of a supranational body, which is the United Nations (UN) and, more specifically, one of its action fronts, which is UNESCO. It turns out that UNESCO is still a very broad universe and a very generic term, commonly used as if it were an organism with a life of its own and as if it did not have different characteristics depending on each historical context and the social agents that are personifying it in each one of them. In the universe that is UNESCO, we will deal specifically with the scope of the World Cultural Heritage and, within it, we will approach the category of modern heritage, focusing, in particular, on its formation and the way in which it has been understood by the World Heritage Committee, throughout of years. Jurema Machado, the architect who coordinated the Culture Sector of the UNESCO Representation in Brazil, between 2002 and 2012 and presided over IPHAN between 2012 and 2016, explains the close relations that Brazil has established with the UN and UNESCO since their creation. Brazil’s participation in the creation of the UN in the post-War period and, specifically, in the initiatives that culminated in the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, of 1972—the Convention of 72—evidence the importance that the country attributed to such an initiative and the role that he strove to occupy in the field of World Heritage (Machado 2021). However, the specific period of 30 years between Brasília’s candidacy in 1986 and Pampulha’s obtaining the title in 2016 is the one on which I intend to focus the analysis. As it is a historiographical analysis, our main concern is not to lose sight of the historicity of the World Heritage field, which would mean neglecting the different historical contexts of each of the candidacies and the changes that occurred in the field itself in the space of 30 years between them. Thus, it is necessary to clarify that the narrative that unites these two cultural assets and unites their historical contexts of production and their historical contexts of patrimonialization was elaborated by agents of these same historical processes. These are not natural and self-evident connections, but intellectual constructions that have been created and/or recreated by the heritage field, made official and widely disseminated. My intention is to sweep these narratives against the grain, highlighting their constructions, intentions and consequences and promoting reflections on them.

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I consider that one of the most important contributions of history to the field of cultural heritage is to demonstrate how goods are historically invested with values and how this meets specific interests and is related to the context in which each patrimonialization process takes place. While the patrimonialization narratives end up putting the context and the historical agents in the background, and presenting the value of the cultural asset and some memories associated with it as natural, the historian’s work goes in the opposite direction. My objective is to highlight the historicity of heritage practices, that is, I consider patrimonialization a historical process, and, therefore, an object of study of history. And, from that point, out gaps and other possibilities to make Brazilian cultural heritage as representative and democratic as possible. Based on this backbone, I analyze documents issued by the World Heritage Committee and/or bodies that assist it, in addition to the bibliographic production concerning World Heritage and, in particular, the Modern World Heritage. As I intend to demonstrate, three important social phenomena have provoked significant transformations in those fields since the last decades of the twentieth century: the social struggles for civil rights historically denied to groups that were subordinated, the epistemological turns brought, first by the new history and, later, by the decolonial studies and the consequent expansion of the concept of cultural heritage. Regarding these three phenomena, I consider that modern heritage, both within Brazil and at UNESCO, has established very superficial relationships with each of them, which makes it, in our view, one of the most conservative modalities in the macro-field of cultural heritage. These and other questions will be developed throughout the article, mainly aiming to highlight the changes and permanence of specific practices and concepts in the field of heritage, as well as the worldviews expressed through it.

2 The Modern World Heritage: Considerations on the Emergence of a New Field in the World Heritage Scope The emergence of the so-called modern heritage within UNESCO dates back to the beginning of the 1990s, when the field of World Heritage completed 20 years, amidst various criticisms and began to mobilize to respond to some of them. In this topic, I intend to reflect on the emergence of this sub-field of World Heritage and elucidate issues that permeated this moment. An example of these questions is what was understood, at that time, as modern heritage and what were the agents that stood out in the construction of this category of World Heritage. In a moment of carrying out a balance of the works carried out in its first two decades of existence, the World Heritage Committee launched in 1994 the Global Strategy for a Representative, Balanced and Credible World Heritage List (hereinafter, Global Strategy). According to the WHC/UNESCO website, the aim of the initiative was to ensure that the World Heritage List reflects the world’s “cultural and

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natural diversity of outstanding universal value”. For this, the List would need to be more representative from the point of view of the types of heritage protected and also more balanced among the signatory States of the Convention of 72. Also according to the WHC, the objective of the Global Strategy was to broaden the notion of heritage, in addition to offering a “broad structure” and an “operational methodology” to deal with those new assets. Another important aspect of that initiative was the incentive for new countries to become signatories of the Convention of 72, to make the List increasingly representative. The WHC also explains that the Global Strategy was conceived based on a study carried out by ICOMOS between 1987 and 1993. The institution that collaborates in the analysis of cultural heritage applications for the title of World Heritage would have found that “historical cities and Christian religious monuments as well as elitist architecture” had been overrated by the World Heritage List, while “vernacular architecture”, “living cultures” and “traditional” were under-represented. First of all, it is necessary to explain what “magnification” the WHC was referring to. According to the geographer and professor at University of Brasília (Universidade de Brasília, UnB), Everaldo Batista da Costa, this idea of “expanding the concept of heritage” was based on the definition of heritage until then adopted by UNESCO and which had been defined by the Athens Charter of 1931 (Costa 2009). Fruit of the 4th CIAM, which took place in Athens, Greece, in that inter-war context, the Charter would have privileged, according to the author, the goods considered “monumental”. Furthermore, despite being a document focused on the city—the “modernist rational city”—the monuments were not thought of in their contexts, but in isolation. In this sense, Costa believes that the Athens Charter had a very limited view of cultural heritage, which, at a given moment, began to be questioned and criticized. In 2004, at the 28th session of the World Heritage Committee, a new assessment of the measures taken within the scope of the Global Strategy was carried out, ten years after its implementation. ICOMOS concluded that the gaps in the World Heritage List were due to problems of a structural nature, relating to the nomination processes and the management and protection of cultural properties, and, of a qualitative nature, relating to the way in which proposed nominations were identified and evaluated. In 2003, the periodical Cahiers du Patrimmoine Mundial launched a special issue on modern heritage (Oers and Haraguchi 2003). In the Preface to issue 5 of the journal, dedicated to the topic Identification and Documentation of Modern Heritage, the then President of the WHC, Francesco Bandarin, explains that the Global Strategy intended to include new countries on the World Heritage List, but the second priority was to include “new categories of assets”. Among these new categories would be modern heritage, which, according to Bandarin, “comprises the architecture, town planning and landscape design of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” (Oers and Haraguchi 2003). This explains our journey through the Global Strategy. Even in 1992, when Léon Pressouyre wrote his assessment of the deeds and effects of the 72 Convention on the commemoration of its 20th anniversary, the “twentieth century heritage”—as he called it—was one of the subjects to which he devoted himself (Pressouyre 1996). The

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French historian and professor was the one who gave the opinion on the candidacy of the Plano Piloto de Brasília for the title of World Heritage, as an ICOMOS technician. In his review of the first twenty years of the Convention of 72, Pressouyre mentioned a certain resistance on the part of the World Heritage field to recognize the heritage value of contemporary works. It concludes that the rejection of twentieth century architecture as a World Heritage site would be related to a traditionalist view of heritage, to a refusal by specialists to go beyond an “elitist view” linked to “great artists” and, finally, to the refusal of developed countries to accept “new elements to the already long list of honors of rich countries” (Pressouyre 1996). One of the organizers of issue 5, dedicated to modern heritage, was the Dutch urban planner Ron van Oers, a WHC member and ICCROM contributor from 2000 to 2015, when he died, during a UNESCO technical mission in Tibet. In the Introduction to number 5 of the World Heritage Papers, Oers states that at the beginning of the implementation of Convention 72, little attention was paid to educational aspects, post-registration and the representativeness of the World Heritage List (Oers 2003). He also cites the study carried out by Leon Pressouyre and talks about the disproportionality both in terms of heritage categories and regions of the world, concluding for a Eurocentrism on the part of the World Heritage List. In his opinion, all those works would have resulted in the Global Strategy and, since then, the evaluation criteria, the concepts and the geographic representativeness began to be reviewed (Oers 2003). Long before the meeting held in Paris in 2001, ICOMOS International had already asked the International Committee for Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites and Neighbourhoods of the modern movement (DOCOMOMO), in 1992, to prepare a document on modern heritage and its relationship with the World Heritage List. Who signs and explains the document is the Dutch architect Hubert-Jan Henket, co-founder of DOCOMOMO International and then President of the institution. According to Henket, DOCOMOMO was tasked with evaluating the criteria used by the World Heritage Committee and whether they would apply to modern heritage. Types of buildings and sites to be preserved should also be suggested, as well as organization and selection methods. Finally, a list of approximately 20 representative buildings, sites or complexes of modern heritage was requested, which DOCOMOMO would assess as having “outstanding universal value”. According to Henket, the document was prepared by the International Specialist Committee on Registers (ISC/R) of DOCOMOMO International. Henket also explains that, for the list, all DOCOMOMO national groups were summoned, which should select their buildings, sites or sets and send them to the central body. The selection would be made by the local groups; however, these groups should be based on the criteria defined by the ISC/R. The fundamental criteria that should guide the selection of modern heritage are clear: “to reflect technical, social and aesthetic innovation”, in addition to possible historical justifications. According to Henket, this innovation criterion “provided a valuable qualitative baseline for the concept of modernity, which helped ISC/R build the listing”. In addition, the selected goods should be internationally recognized, that is, not only did DOCOMOMO offer the criteria, sheets and selection methodologies, but also, it was based on common sense or what we could call a traditional history of modern architecture, or still, in

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the most famous architects, in the most famous works, etc., to guide the selections. It was not, ultimately, a choice of each country, but a European vision of what would be the modern heritage and the countries adapting to it. The President of DOCOMOMO International sought to anticipate possible criticism, assuming that the list received by ISC/R—that is, not under the responsibility of this body, but under the responsibility of the working groups of the Member States and, for reasons that he does not explains—demonstrated a limitation that was already expected. The limitation would be geographic, since regions such as South and East Asia, as well as the entire African continent, had not been mentioned. Henket claims that these “blind spots" should be investigated “in the near future" by DOCOMOMO. It is worth asking, however, whether DOCOMOMO International, which admittedly already expected that “geographical limitation”—a discussion that was then part of the agenda within the scope of World Heritage and its Global Strategy— should not have also anticipated in the proposal of an immediate solution for that problem. This solution, evidently, involved a self-reflection by DOCOMOMO about its own views on what would be the modern heritage, which would be the works of international value, its evaluation criteria, its records, its guidelines, in short, its role in all that movement. Furthermore, if the fundamental criterion for the selection of modern heritage was “to reflect technical, social and aesthetic innovation” and the second criterion was “historical importance”, we must ask ourselves what history DOCOMOMO was referring to and about the memorialistic narratives, temporal, geographic and symbolic that these selections generated. It means thinking that, in the opinion of DOCOMOMO International and its working groups spread across the Member States, including Brazil, the peoples who inhabit South and East Asia, as well as all of Africa, are not recognized as peoples who have offered any contribution to world “technical, social and aesthetic progress” throughout the period between the end of the nineteenth century and the end of the twentieth century. Consequently, they are outside that story suggested by the international body. The most alarming thing about this finding is that these were exactly the regions colonized by the imperialist nations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which the DOCOMOMO list referred to as “the most important” contributors to “technical, social and aesthetic progress” and to history. It is significant that this document was produced in the last decade of the twentieth century, in the same context of the then nascent decolonial debate, which was not mentioned. It is clear, therefore, that the work done by DOCOMOMO for the WHC, at the request of ICOMOS, concerned only modernist architecture. Based on all these explanations, Henket states that DOCOMOMO indicated recognition as a World Heritage Site to the works of European architects Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and to the American Frank Lloyd Wright. DOCOMOMO’s indications reveal that the history to which Henket was referring was the traditional history of modern architecture, as found in works such as that of Benevolo (2016). Henket assumed that the selection made by countries was geographically limited. It lacked an analysis of the “geography of modernism” presented by the final list that the institution he then chaired, delivered to UNESCO.

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After this main list, other works were added, among them, the Conjunto da Pampulha, located in Brazil and praised as the work of Oscar Niemeyer and Roberto Burle Marx. Another important observation is that DOCOMOMO’s choices coincided with those that Michel Parent had put in his report produced in the 1960s. And coincided with both reports, Brazil’s decisions, when forwarding to the World Heritage Committee, first the candidacy Brasília and, later, the candidacy of Pampulha. The Modern Heritage Program was created, according to information from the WHC, by ICOMOS International and DOCOMOMO International for the “identification, documentation and promotion of the built heritage of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries”. The program has the financial support of the Netherlands and aims to offer a “framework for conceptual reflection on the meaning of this heritage and on its preservation, identification and valorization”. The WHC also explains that this structure is being built through regional meetings on modern heritage. The edition of the World Heritage Papers dedicated to modern heritage features articles by several authors, including Kenneth Frampton and Jean-Louis Cohen, as well as studies and reflections on the modern heritage of African countries, India and other countries that are not part of that special group on the DOCOMOMO list (Oers and Haraguchi 2003). Our focus, however, will be on the definition of modern heritage, offered by Francesco Bandarin and Ron van Oers in the Preface and Introduction, respectively, of No. 5 of the UNESCO World Heritage Papers. According to Bandarin, modern heritage “comprises architecture, urban planning and landscaping of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” (Oers 2003). Complementing this definition, Oers argues that, in addition to individual works, “urban models, infrastructure, engineering works or landscapes” should also be included for protection (Oers 2003). I also saw earlier that the then President of DOCOMOMO International, Hubert-Jan Henket, made it clear in the document prepared at the request of ICOMOS in the 1990s that UNESCO’s Modern Heritage Program referred specifically to the so-called Modern Movement, that is, to modernist architecture and urbanism. Based on these definitions, it is possible to observe the formation of a list made available on the WHC website, with the assets recognized until 2006. According to the definition given to the Modern Heritage Program, described above, and, considering that this program was part of the WHC’s Global Strategy, as a way to remedy gaps such as the geographic concentration of World Heritage and the recognized heritage categories. The country with the highest concentration of goods recognized in this category is Germany, with six entries, but the country with the most modernist buildings recognized as World Heritage Sites is France, which has only two entries in this category, the most recent being “The architectural work by Le Corbusier, an exceptional contribution to the Modern Movement”, recognized in 2016, the same year of the recognition of the Pampulha Modern Ensemble. The “Architecture of Le Corbusier” was a cross-border inscription that encompassed 17 properties located in seven countries.

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I return, therefore, to the question raised by Léon Pressouyre at the beginning of the 1920s: the fact that modern architecture was sown around the world by the works of the same group of architects, who worked in different locations, is an obstacle to achieving a geographically balanced World Heritage List? According to Pressouyre, no, because in that fact resides, exactly, the universality of those works and, therefore, their value as World Heritage sites. In our opinion, the answer would not be so categorical, given the need to consider some nuances of both statements. Firstly, the Eurocentrism present in a vision of the Modern Movement as something that was born in Europe and was only sown in other parts of the world, as ideas that were simply imported, should be stressed. Second, I consider that, although Pressouyre’s opinion has solved what he considered the problem of the lack of acceptance of modern architecture in the field of World Heritage, it does not solve the problem of the imbalance of the List, as I am trying to demonstrate. The second consideration, this one even more delicate, in our view, concerns the inscriptions that are justified as examples of European modernism, sown around the world, as in the cases of the city of Rabat, in Morocco and the city of Asmara, in Eritrea, both African countries. This is not about promoting a dispute over the genealogy of modernism. It is intriguing, however, that the heritage of a people is narrated as a legacy of the domination of another people and that such a narrative is elaborated by groups from the very country to which the cultural property belongs. What interests would these groups have? And what is the role, both in action and in omission, of UNESCO, represented here by the World Heritage Committee, its advisory bodies and its technicians, in cases like these? Why is this type of narrative still accepted by World Heritage Sites? The country builds the narrative it has of itself and presents the goods that it actually chooses or presents the cultural good and the narrative that it considers will have greater chances of being accepted, in a process that takes place in Europe or is organized by it, and under mostly European rules? What images does the World Heritage field attribute to each people so that certain cultural assets and certain narratives are considered suitable for each country’s candidacies? These questions, in turn, bring us others, which can be considered their fruits or their consequences: what are the diffuse epicenters of techniques and references for those considered “experts” in the field of World Heritage? What is the geography of knowledge, conceptions and worldviews that have been hegemonic in this field since its inception? Who, ultimately, defines the best forms and techniques of environmental, urban, cultural, etc., management of each country that launches the candidacy of a cultural property to the title of World Heritage? We believe that a good way of conducting such reflections has been proposed by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, when he tells us about the abyssal thought, that is, the thought that creates “radical lines that divide social reality into two universes”— the universe that exists on each side of the line (Santos 2010, author translation). According to the author, the main characteristics of this thought would be that, necessarily, one side cancels the existence of the other and, consequently, the coexistence between them is seen as impossible.

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UNESCO was created from a modern utopia, strongly anchored in the Enlightenment, as a path to the creation of a new world, from the wreckage of the Great Wars of the twentieth century. According to Santos (2010), modern thought is anchored in Modern Science, which, in turn, is forged in opposition to two other great sources of knowledge: theology and philosophy. It also acquired, as the author explains, the “monopoly of the universal distinction between true and false”, a monopoly that would have become the “center of modern epistemological disputes between scientific and non-scientific truths”. The question to think about, in this sense, is “how this relates to other possible truths” (Santos 2010, author translation). In this sense, there is a need for the World Heritage to be decolonized, not only in the sense that UNESCO recognizes cultural, natural or mixed assets from an increasing number of countries or promotes a rotation between them in the composition of the Heritage Committee. But Santos’ proposal goes much further: it is not about giving access to countries that until then had little or no incorporation into the world of World Heritage. It is, rather, an attitude that fights the “abyssal line” that separates those who have adequate knowledge and, consequently, those who do not; those who can offer training courses, prepare document models, dictate the rules of the process, define concepts, found institutions that spread to different parts of the world, taking their seeds of conception about that same world and, in this specific case, of patrimony. For that, a sociology of emergencies is necessary, which aims to expand symbolic and meanings, with regard to the understanding and transformation of the world (Santos 2010). It means saying that “post-abyssal thinking comes from the idea that the diversity of the world is inexhaustible”, although it still lacks “an adequate epistemology” (Santos 2010, author translation). In this sense, we can ask: what are the assumptions inherent in a proposal to create a common heritage for all humanity? We already know that it was being thought of by the countries that won the two World Wars, as one of the ways to establish a new world order. The 1972 Convention justifies itself by stating that there is a heritage of “exceptional universal value”, belonging to “all the peoples of the world”, which should be taken care of by the “international community”. This care would be carried out by a committee of countries, representing “the regions and cultures of the world”. At least four Enlightenment premises would support the style through which the “universal nation” would imagine itself: (1) the belief in a universal human nature; (2) the cult of memory as a source of national identity (in this case, human/world identity); (3) the idea of document-truth, through which the artifact is seen as evidence about “the past”; (4) the belief in the technical, moral and social progress of humanity; (5) nature as a resource. If, as Laurajane Smith states, heritage is the “mirror of the nation” (Smith 2011), the Heritage List is intended as the “mirror of humanity”, and it is through this mirror that the universal nation imagines itself as such. It is evident, therefore, a fundamental and inherent contradiction of modernity, of UNESCO and the World Heritage. Fundamental, because it is part of its roots. Fundamental because it was in the midst of the crumbling nationalism of the second half of the twentieth century that the institution was born that intended to work for world peace by uniting nations and making them work collaboratively and use the

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tools of their civilization to combat what they increasingly they had preserved: their nationalisms, their exclusivisms, their narcissisms and their barbarism. At the same time that this field acts as an archeologist and brings to light many of the “wonders” produced by humanity, it also does the opposite work, an archeology in reverse, burying all the ills that this same humanity produces. And what is worse: to the extent that it extols the values of Modernity and enhances them through heritage, but silences or does not give the same evidence to the numerous and serious problems of Modernity, UNESCO starts to act in an ideological way, intentionally or not. It ends up corroborating a project that maintains a cultural imperialism of the countries at the center of the modern/colonial world system over the countries that are on the periphery of that same system. It is from this dialectic between the exploration of what is good and the burial of what is bad in the modernity/coloniality system, that World Heritage has been imagining the “universal nation” for almost half a century. Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein considers that there are three types of appeal to universalism: first, the idea that the policy followed by the most powerful countries in the “pan-European world”, defends “human rights” and “promotes something called democracy”; secondly, there is the presupposition that “Western” civilization is superior to “others”, as it is the only one based on universal values and truths; the third appeal is the belief that states have no alternative but to accept the rules of neoliberalism (Wallerstein 2007). It is not, therefore, to say that the Declaration of Human Rights is something only negative and that it has not contributed to combating the barbarism of Modernity. However, pointing out its limits can contribute to the search for alternatives to improve the defense of human dignity. In this sense, we believe that the concept of “ecology of action” proposed by Edgar Morin is important, according to which “in politics, mainly, actions can go against intentions, and then have effects that destroy them. Those who ignore the ecology of action are doomed to be permanently mistaken” (Morin 2005, author translation). This weighting is especially important for reflecting on policies related to wealth. Hence, the need for heritage practices to be constantly reviewed, so that mistakes and deviations from the route can be corrected or, at least, softened.

3 Brasília and Pampulha Modern World Heritage Sites 3.1 Conjunto Urbanístico De Brasília (1987) Completing 60 years in April 2020, almost silently, in the midst of a pandemic that turned the world upside down and a government that strives tremendously to erase much of the democratic and social legacy of the Brazilian twentieth century, Brasília reach the best age!

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And as Ficher (2000) pointed out, Brasília is many: it is Brazilian and it is global, because it is a mix between the urban proposals of the international modern movement and those of the twentieth century modern movement; it is national and World Heritage, it is the capital of Brazil, but it is known around the world as the largest and most complete modernist urban experience in the world. Brasília is modern and traditional: it reflects the urbanism of the Athens Charter of 1933 and is intended as the realization of the dream of the so-called patriarch of independence, José Bonifácio de Andrade, of building a new capital for Brazil. Brasília was a present that was intended as a future, and today, it is a future that has become the past; but that remains materially and symbolically present, thanks to its patrimonialization process. A legacy for the present and future generations. And what legacy does Brasília represent, exactly? What Brazilian modernity does it communicate to the world, since it is part of the World Heritage List? Recognized by the French intellectual André Malraux as the “capital of hope” (Peralva 1988), Brasília became known as one of the great human adventures of the twentieth century. The first city entirely planned and built in a modernist architectural style, it still adds the specificity of having been designed to be the new capital of Brazil. Added to this, the facts of having been the great enterprise of a country that voraciously searched for modernity, of being linked to the government of Juscelino Kubitscheck and of having counted on the work of Brazilian professionals recognized worldwide, such as Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa. For all this context, Brasília would attract attention in different parts of the world, having become the target of harsh criticism and, also, of passionate analysis. A significant architectural, urban and political experience—not to mention the embarrassing social and economic aspects—Brasília stood out for the boldness and hope it came to represent, becoming, for this reason, an object of analysis before, during and after its construction. One of the outstanding moments in the trajectory of patrimonialization of Brasília was the creation of the Grupo de Trabalho para Preservação do Patrimônio Histórico e Cultural de Brasília (Working Group for the Preservation of the Historical and Cultural Heritage of Brasília, GT-Brasília), through Decree no. 5.819/1981, in the management of Aloísio Magalhães at the head of IPHAN. The research group was made up of representatives from IPHAN, the government of the Federal District (DF) and the University of Brasília (UnB). In that context, GT-Brasília had the fundamental purpose of studying the urban reality of Brasília, about 25 years after the city’s inauguration, and proposing measures for its preservation that took into account the dynamics of a city and the cultural references of those who lived in it lived. Brasília’s candidacy dossier was prepared by the GT-Brasilia team. The group’s proposal was to escape the traditional instrument of protection of cultural heritage, the tipping, considered too crystallizing for a dynamic reality such as a city. The justification for its preservation was no longer just the fear that it would lose its character and began to focus on a management system for the city. It would value a vision of the city that went far beyond Lucio Costa’s pilot plan, considering the

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multiple facets and cultural references related to it, including its social and urban problems (Perpétuo 2015). In the case of Brasília, the VUE was justified by the historical and artistic values attributed to it. Thus, the city was considered a historical fact turned cultural artifact, that is, a project that permeated the different moments of the history of Brazil and that had become reality in the twentieth century. In addition, Brasília had also become a cultural artifact to be protected, as it was a city entirely built according to the precepts of modern thinking in architecture and urbanism. In addition to being the only entirely new and modernist capital built in the twentieth century, Brasília is also described as having artistic value through the works of art by internationally renowned artists. The justification for including Brasilia as a World Heritage Site continues with the narrative that the experience of building the city would exert universal influence and also put Brazil in a vanguard position on the international scene. Oscar Niemeyer is mentioned as a world-renowned architect renowned in specialized literature, both inside and outside Brazil. And in addition to the international repercussion, the authors of the dossier highlighted what they considered the importance of Brasília for the national scene. However, ICOMOS made reservations to this narrative in its first evaluation of the Brasilia candidacy, submitted by the Brazilian government in December 1986. The Rapporteur of the Brasilia process to the World Heritage Committee, Léon Pressouyre, recommended in his May report 1987, that the registration of the cultural property in question be postponed. According to Léon Pressouyre, “the creation of Brasília, due to the great challenge, the boldness of the project, the breadth of the means employed, is, undoubtedly, a fact of the greatest importance in the history of urbanism” (Peralva 1988). However, he emphasizes that this important milestone of the twentieth century would not be properly defined in terms of the area to be protected, in the dossier sent by Brazil. In this way, UNESCO’s opinion on Brasilia’s candidacy for the title of World Heritage Site would start a new stage of the process, in Brazil, now focused on the elaboration of legislation that would effectively define and protect the area to be recognized. At this moment, Lucio Costa himself, author of the pilot plan for Brasília, and Ítalo Campofiorito, a second-generation architect of the Escola Carioca and a disciple of Costa and Niemeyer, enter the scene. It was up to Campofiorito, then President of IPHAN, to seek a solution to what the World Heritage Committee had demanded. On September 23, 1987, Ítalo Campofiorito sent a letter to the Governor of the Federal District, José Aparecido de Oliveira, reporting on the mission entrusted to him, to think of a viable alternative for the creation of legislation to protect the cultural heritage of Brasília. Campofiorito proposed the preservation of Brasília’s scales (monumental, gregarious, bucolic and residential), using the instrument of tipping—an artifice, as he himself admitted, since the tipping would apply to material goods and not to an urban design, which is an idea. Apparently, achieving such a tipping would not be the problem, but it would not be possible to do so in time to consecrate the government of José Aparecido as responsible for such an act. Therefore, the architect proposed the regulation of article 38 of Law no. 3.751/60,

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which had been created by Juscelino Kubitschek, days before the inauguration of Brasília. That article determined that any changes made to the city’s pilot plan would need to be authorized by Federal Law. The Decree proposed by Ítalo Campofiorito would regulate the protection of the Plano Piloto of Brasília and would determine the part of the urban fabric of the Federal District to which it would refer. An important point in this context is that the main texts that supported Decree no. 10.829/87, written by Campofiorito, were written by Lucio Costa: the Descriptive Memorial of the Plano Piloto, delivered along with its proposal for evaluation by the tender committee to choose the project for the construction of the new Brazilian capital and texts published in the 1980s: “Brasília, 57–85: from the pilot plan to the Plano Piloto”, and “Brasília Revisitada”, published by Projeto magazine, in 1987. In this way, the recognition of Brasilia as a World Heritage site is based on a dossier in which Lucio Costa’s pilot plan is only a part of a larger heritage, but, in practice, due to interventions by the World Heritage Committee and a certain political and cultural group in Brazil, what was recognized as “Brasilia” and as a World Heritage Site was just the urban area resulting from Lucio Costa’s pilot plan and defined by him, almost 30 years after the city’s inauguration (Martins 2021b).

3.2 Conjunto Moderno Da Pampulha (2016) In July 2016, in Istanbul, Turkey, UNESCO declared the Pampulha Modern Complex, located in Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais, as a World Heritage Site. According to the application dossier of the cultural asset to the title of World Heritage (IPHAN 2014), the Complex is formed by the buildings and gardens of the former Casino, now the Pampulha Art Museum, by the Casa do Baile, which became a Reference Center in Urbanism, Architecture and Design, by the church of São Francisco de Assis and by the Iate Golfe Clube, currently the Iate Tênis Clube. Also according to the dossier, in addition to these four buildings, the cultural asset is composed of the water mirror and the part of the lake shore where the buildings are. The lake is considered the articulating element of the Ensemble unit (IPHAN 2014). The buildings date back to the 1940s and were created as a leisure and tourism area in the capital of Minas Gerais, during the government of the then mayor Juscelino Kubitschek. The set was designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer and also had the participation of other renowned professionals inside and outside Brazil. Pampulha was the second Brazilian nomination for a cultural asset representative of modern architecture for the title of World Heritage Site, after more than 25 years of Brasilia’s inclusion in the UNESCO List. Would there be a narrative that would link these cultural assets or would Pampulha’s candidacy represent another moment for IPHAN and Brazilian heritage policies? Which memories were selected and which valuation narratives were elaborated and made official for Pampulha? What are the ruptures and continuities in the fields of Brazilian and World Heritage between these two patrimonialization processes, with regard to the Brazilian modern movement and the memory that was elaborated about it?

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The so-called Conjunto Moderno da Pampulha has three heritage processes in Brazil—one state, one federal and one municipal—in addition to recognition as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Each of these processes presents a different composition of what this set would be. The broader one, both in terms of buildings and in terms of cultural references encompassed, the municipal listing, carried out in the early 2000s, strictly considering the buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer in the 1940s, was proposed by IPHAN in the 1990s and reiterated almost entirely in the dossier sent to the World Heritage Committee prepared at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century (Martins 2021a). The dossier’s narrative is focused on the trajectory of the carioca school and the relationships between it and the trajectory of the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier; therefore, this is the prevailing approach when it comes to modern architecture. The dossier still recalls Lucio Costa and his statement that Pampulha was “a landmark” that inaugurated a “new era in modern architecture”. Hence, its seminal character as a work that would have introduced Brazilian architecture to the rest of the world, starting with the exhibition and the Brazil Builds catalog, organized by MoMA in New York (USA) and, according to the narrative, would have influenced several other works, including Brasília (IPHAN 2014). There was still no lack of mention of what would have been an insurgency of the curve against the right angle, a predominant characteristic of Le Corbusier’s architecture, for example (IPHAN 2014). In the wake of a modernist perspective on the history of Brazilian architecture, the Eclecticism of the nineteenth century was not spared, being considered a “copy and reinterpretation of styles already outdated” (IPHAN 2014, author translation). Niemeyer’s curves were presented as the result of an architecture of “free forms”, which brings the idea of “architectural surprise” and maintains a strong connection between the architectural volumes and the site, creating “unusual and iconic shapes” (IPHAN 2014). Another point that I highlight in the narrative of the dossier refers to the images of two agents who became prominent in the political history and in the history of Brazilian modernist architecture: Getúlio Vargas and Juscelino Kubitschek. Together, their governments serve as scenarios in which the stories of the “birth of modern Brazilian architecture”, the Conjunto da Pampulha and its supposed daughter, Brasília, unfolded. Regarding the definition of a Brazilian identity and its historical context, the general idea is that the Pampulha complex is a synthesis of elements from the International Modern Movement, the characteristics of the Brazilian colonial tradition and the genius of Oscar Niemeyer, with his curves and its fight against pure formalism, as I saw earlier. According to the narrative, that Brazilian identity that the ensemble would represent, an identity based on colonial artistic traditions—especially those of the eighteenth century Minas Gerais Baroque—and on the characteristics of Niemeyer’s architecture, inspired “by the mountains and the sensuality of Brazilian women”—was in line with a larger movement of “affirmation of Latin American national identities that distinguished them from the European countries that protected them” (IPHAN 2014, author translation).

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Although the dossier textually expresses that Brazilian identity was forged in opposition to the Portuguese colony, I saw above how colonized the very narrative of national identity that the dossier sustains and that serves as a substrate for the declaration of exceptional universal value remains, demonstrating what the whole of Pampulha would represent locally and globally. From a decolonial perspective, Mignolo draws attention to the fact that the very conception of “Latin America”, which dates back to the nineteenth century, was not created by Creole intellectuals, who defined their identity, but by external imperial forces (Mignolo 2003). Demarcating a difference between the decolonization processes of the second half of the twentieth century and those that took place in Latin America in the nineteenth century—called by the author “post-independence” movements—Mignolo states that “post-independence nations, if articulated within the liberal ideology of the modern world system. ‘Decolonization’ as a final horizon did not yet exist in the nineteenth century. The horizon was the nation. Or, better still, the ‘res-public’” (Mignolo 2003, author translation). Therefore, the definition of independence, that definition coming from the dominant countries, placed “America” as different from Europe, but part of the West, therefore part of the “colonial/modern world system” (Mignolo 2003, author translation). Thus, in the nations of Asia and Africa that were born out of decolonization processes in the twentieth century, “political independence was accompanied by a symbolic independence in the geopolitical imagination” and “local histories (in this case, the rise of national histories) came together with the planning articulation of global projects” (Mignolo 2003, author translation). From this point of view, it is easy to understand why narratives such as the one in the Pampulha dossier are so successful in the context of UNESCO and World Heritage. The same world view that gave rise to that institution and the field of World Heritage also underpins narratives of national identities such as the one we find in the dossier: it is the modern world view. On the other hand, at least in what we see in the Pampulha dossier, the country continues to attribute to some of its cultural patrimonies values that belong to a certain social group and that they want to be seen as national values. In this way, there is a risk of creating World Heritage, but not local, or at least not for the reasons presented in the dossier and which justified the inscription of the property on the World Heritage List. An important issue in this candidacy is that the dossier was written indicating the cultural asset to be recognized, such as an architectural ensemble. However, the opinion of the World Heritage Committee requested some changes to the text, indicating that the candidacy should be made in the Cultural Landscape typology (unfortunately I will not be able to analyze this typology in the scope of this article, but this reflection is part of the thesis that originated it). After some modifications that weighed much more on the technical issues related, for example, to the management of the Pampulha lagoon, than on the narrative of valuing the cultural asset, the inscription was obtained in the typology of cultural landscape. However, since the narrative is not specifically suited to this typology, there is a mismatch between the property described in the dossier and the one that, in fact, was considered a World Heritage Site. This difference is not small either from a

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practical point of view and even less from a symbolic one. The dossier basically deals with the buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer and the works of the other artists who worked with him, especially Roberto Burle Marx. However, the management that the government of Belo Horizonte and IPHAN have taken to ensure that the title is maintained concerns a much larger area and involves much more complex issues from the point of view of preservation. From a symbolic point of view, the dossier presents a very canonical view of Brazilian cultural heritage and national identity and communicates values that belonged to certain groups in the past and still belong today to other certain groups as a legacy to be protected and valued. However, his narrative does not establish links with so many other groups not linked to specialists in the field of architecture or the fine arts, or even to the intellectual, economic and political elites of Brazil in the second half of the twentieth century, but to the common people who enjoy of these public spaces in the present, which have a reference in them and which attribute different meanings to them. The analysis of the processes of patrimonialization of Brasília and Pampulha within the scope of World Heritage revealed an interesting coincidence that marks in its entirety, until now, our list of modern heritages recognized as World Heritage Sites. The first has a dossier that is much larger in size and meaning than what was effectively preserved and recognized; and the Pampulha dossier presents a cultural asset that is smaller, also in both senses, than what was effectively consecrated as a World Heritage Site. The coincidence is worth a reflection on the practices of the Brazilian and World Heritage fields and on what really matters, in the last instance. I consider that the two cases demonstrate that, although there is a vehement narrative on the part of UNESCO about the objectivity of the process, the extraofficial arrangements and political interests that configure the field of World Heritage spoke louder, with in both cases Brazilian modernist architecture recognized as a World Heritage Site, a mismatch between what is presented in the nomination dossier and what has actually been recognized and preserved.

4 Final Considerations With this analysis, I realized that, when it comes to considering the geographic representativeness of the World Heritage List, the simple count of countries and the fact that all regions have inscribed properties present a very superficial view of that representativeness. However, if on the one hand this field acts as an archeologist and brings to light many of the “wonders” produced by humanity, it also does the opposite work, an archeology in reverse, burying all the ills that this same humanity produces. And what is worse: to the extent that it extols the values of Modernity and enhances them through heritage, but silences or does not give the same evidence to the numerous and serious problems of that same Modernity, UNESCO starts to act in an ideological, intentionally or not. It ends up corroborating a project that maintains a cultural

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imperialism of the countries at the center of the modern/colonial world system over the countries that are on the periphery of that same system. It is from this dialectic between the exploration of what is good and the burial of what is bad in the modernity/ coloniality system, that World Heritage has been imagining the “universal nation” for almost half a century. Faced with these questions, we ask ourselves: who can define what is and what is not World Heritage? What does the weighting made by the Convention of 72 mean for heritage sites that apply, but are not accepted for the World Heritage List? The “Convention” explains that the refusal does not mean that the goods do not have an “exceptional value” in another context. Why is the word “universal” suppressed in this case? The word “universal” is deleted because if the cultural property has “universal value” it means that it is a World Heritage Site. Otherwise, it can be heritage, it can be considered exceptional, but it will not be included in the World Heritage List. This answer, in turn, takes us to the heart of the question: what will and what will not be considered “universal”? How did the people who drafted the Convention of 72 understand this term? In fact, does the Convention seek to endorse heritages from around the world considering valuation criteria from around the world or does it define criteria based on an idea of universalism that comes from the Enlightenment and, therefore, is European and imposes it on the rest of the world? As highlighted in the epigraph of this text, Walter Benjamin draws attention to the fact that cultural goods are spoils of conflicts between different cultures, and the stories that are told later and the cultural goods related to them that are preserved, communicate the versions of those who came out victors and not from the defeated. In this sense, “every document of culture would also be a document of barbarism”. Taking up Benjamin’s proposition, the Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg analyzes works of art made by great artists from colonial nations, which bring representations of the colonized world. In this regard, Ginzburg problematizes the unequal relationship of forces between different cultures and reinforces the importance of “reading the testimonies backward, against the intentions of those who produced them” (Ginzburg 2002, author translation). “Only in this way”, argues Ginzburg, “will it be possible to take into account both power relations and what is irreducible to them. […] The instruments that allow us to understand cultures different from ours are the instruments that allowed us to master them” (Ginzburg 2002, author translation). The analysis of the list of modern cultural properties recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage, raised many questions that we consider important, regarding the representativeness of this heritage and regarding the images of some peoples that it communicates. From this point of view, the World Heritage List can be considered to be a perfect catalog of modernity: it perfectly summarizes the notion of the most Eurocentric history possible; it reflects the division of the world into rich “high cultured” or civilized countries and poor holders of natural resources. The List is also a showcase of European and American colonial expansion, which allegedly spread civilization to the rest of the world, demonstrating the ability to adapt to different and inhospitable environments, military power, scientific development, cultural superiority and white supremacy.

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From the point of view of geographical representativeness, therefore, the World Heritage List remains Eurocentric and this Eurocentrism is not only reflected in the concentration of goods located in Europe, but also and perhaps above all in the narratives of the vast majority of cultural properties that located in the territories of other countries, but which are narrated as European legacies, almost always implying a positive or uncritical view of these legacies. If we specifically consider the list that is a result of the “Modern Heritage Program”, these same characteristics are found. The list is Eurocentric because it concentrates most of the inscriptions on goods located in Europe and it is also Eurocentric because many countries construct narratives of these goods as legacies of colonizers and having something to add to them. In the case of the 2 Brazilian cultural assets, as the history of Brazilian modernist architecture was already marked by a struggle by Lucio Costa and his group to narrate it as an art inspired by European modernism—in spite of the work of Le Corbusier—but, transformed in the country into a “modern Brazilian architecture”, the narratives of the dossiers also take this path. In the Pampulha dossier, much more than in Brasília, references to Le Corbusier and the international modern movement appear as a narrative resource that aims to meet a current demand from the World Heritage Committee. With increasing technical rigor and specialization occurring over time, the dossiers of recent years must be able to demonstrate how the goods are representative of both a local and a global culture. This formal requirement did not exist in the 1980s or was just a guideline, when Brasília was registered. The dossier model itself, with pre-formulated questions and a standardized model for all countries, was much simpler compared to the one used in recent years. In general, it can be said that the list of modern World Heritage does not advance from the point of view of geographic representativeness, nor in relation to the typologies of heritage, to a large extent. Architecture is still the privileged representation. Dealing specifically with the case of Pampulha, we saw that the typology of cultural landscape was an ICOMOS incentive and that Brazil needed to adapt the dossier in order to narrate that heritage as a “landscape of the Brazilian modern movement”. However, at the time of selecting what would be the main part of the heritage to be preserved and in the elaboration of the consecration narratives that appear in the dossier, both the representatives of ICOMOS (and therefore of the World Heritage Committee) and the Brazilian teams responsible followed canonical criteria and missed the opportunity to take advantage of the potential of the typology of cultural landscape and the Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscapes, also at that initial and so important stage. In the end, the process ended up gaining a much more political connotation, so that Brazil would have one more inscription in the typology of cultural landscape and to demonstrate the expansion of representation regarding the types of protected heritage, which properly, a recognition of all that landscape in all its material and symbolic complexity. But all this does not mean that the Modern Heritage Program has failed. Quite the opposite. First, if we compare the list prepared by DOCOMOMO International, at the request of ICOMOS, in the 1990s and the current World Heritage List, we will

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see that a significant part of what was indicated as essential and what was indicated as complementary, already was recognized as a World Heritage Site. It does not seem to us, however, that this “expansion of the heritage concept”, encompassing a new architectural language, recognizing urban landscapes or less ancient heritage sites, has meant a significant qualitative advance in relation to the representativeness of the World Heritage List. Modern heritage has been duly protected, which is great, but this has not significantly contributed to making the list more representative of the cultural diversity of modernity, given the different places on the planet, but also the different forms of manifestations of this modernity and the different experiences of being modern and being in modernity, considering the most diverse possible loci of enunciation. Such a perspective, far from narrowing the horizons of the modern World Heritage, can be interpreted as a broadening of perspectives, considering the many modernities not yet represented by the UNESCO List. We hope that the reflections presented here will contribute toward highlighting gaps, but, at the same time, offering subsidies so that new solutions can be thought out. The most important thing, in our view, is that the rights to memory and heritage are maintained and that all those involved in the field, including those who, like us, take it as their object of study, are in a constant exercise of reflection on practices and assumptions. We believe that this is a path of continuous construction of public policies regarding cultural heritage, with the objective of making it increasingly plural, democratic and representative of the cultural wealth produced by humanity.

References Benevolo L (2016) História da arquitetura moderna. Trad. Ana M. Goldberger. 2ª reimpressão da 5ª ed. Perspectiva, São Paulo Benjamin W (1969) Theses on the philosophy of history. In: Arendt H (ed) Illuminations. Schocken, New York, pp 256–257 Costa EB (2009) A dialética da construção destrutiva na consagração do patrimônio mundial. O caso de Diamantina, MG. Dissertation, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), pp 38–39 Ficher S (2000) Brasílias. Revista Projeto 242 Ginzburg C (2022) Relações de Força. História, retórica, prova. Trad. Jônatas Batista Neto. Companhia das Letras, São Paulo IPHAN (2014) Dossiê de candidatura do Conjunto Moderno da Pampulha ao título de Patrimônio Mundial da UNESCO. Machado J (2021) The Brazilian experience of UNESCO world heritage sites. In: Christofoletti R, Olender M (eds) World heritage Patinas. Actions, alerts and risks. The Latin American Studies Book Series, Springer Martins WMF (2021a) O traço do moderno no compasso da memória: Ítalo Campofiorito e a consagração do patrimônio modernista brasileiro (1986–1997). Revista Memória em Rede 12(23) Martins WMF (2021b) Do traço de um belo horizonte à trama sob o céu infinito: a arquitetura modernista brasileira como patrimônio mundial. Dissertation, Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO)

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Mignolo WD (2003) Histórias locais/Projetos globais: colonialidade, saberes subalternos e pensamento liminar. Trad. de Solange Ribeiro de Oliveira. Editora UFMG, Belo Horizonte Morin E (2005) A colonialidade de cabo a rabo: o hemisfério ocidental no horizonte conceitual da modernidade. In: Edgardo L (ed) A colonialidade do Saber. Eurocentrismo e ciências sociais: perspectivas latino-americanas. CLACSO, Buenos Aires Oers R (2003) Introduction. World heritage papers 5, UNESCO Oers R, Haraguchi S (eds) (2003) World heritage papers 5, UNESCO Peralva O (1988) Brasília: Patrimônio da Humanidade (Um Relatório). Ministério da Cultura: Coordenadoria de Comunicação Social Perpétuo TP (2015) Uma cidade construída em seu processo de patrimonialização: modos de narrar, ler e preservar Brasília (Dissertation). IPHAN, Rio de Janeiro Pressouyre L (1996) The World Heritage Convention, twenty years later. UNESCO, Paris Santos BS (2010) Para descolonizar Occidente: más alla del pensamiento abismal, 1st edn. Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales—CLACSO, Buenos Aires Smith L (2011) El ‘espejo patrimonial’. Ilusión narcisista o reflexiones múltiples? Antípoda. Revista de Antropologia e Arqueologia 12, Bogotá, Colômbia Wallerstein IM (2007) O universalismo europeu: a retórica do poder. Trad. Beatriz Medina; apresentação Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira. Boitempo, São Paulo

Walkiria Maria de Freitas Martins holds a Ph.D. in History at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro—UNIRIO, Rio de Janeiro—RJ, in the line of Heritage Research, Heritage Teaching and Historiography, with research on the Brazilian modernist historical heritage, recognized as world heritage (Conjunto Urbano de Brasília and Conjunto Moderno da Pampulha). She has a Master (2016) in History from the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV)—MG (Professional Master in Cultural Heritage, Landscapes and Citizenship). Teacher of History at Colégio de Aplicação João XXIII, of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF)—MG.

Coloniality, Race, and Indigenous Knowledge in Reports of Nineteenth-Century Explorers in Southern Brazil Daniele Weigert

Abstract The chapter is aimed at analyzing texts by Brazilian and foreign explorers who came into contact with the Southern Brazilian indigenous group Kaingang, as well as outlining the framework of the laws that regulated the relations between colonizers and indigenous people in the mid-nineteenth century. Documents produced by colonizers revealed elements referring to the coloniality of power, a structure based on racial categories that relegated non-white populations to a condition of biological inferiority and social subalternity (Quijano 1995). It is understood that such ideas have established abyssal structures of thought (Santos 2007), making it impossible for authors to recognize the importance of the knowledge presented by indigenous populations. In addition, the context under discussion concerns the formation of Brazil as a representative monarchy in which elective positions were distributed to representatives of the provinces, and mostly concentrated by the dominant classes, thus ensuring representativeness to the regional slave-owner elites. In these terms, citizenship and representativeness were linked to the continuity of colonial structures within the Empire, as they were based on criteria monopolized by those very dominant colonial classes. This power structure supported the implementation of policies aimed at confining indigenous populations, subsequently inserting them into subaltern classes of society, thus allowing not only an intervention in their way of life, but also the physical extermination of resistant groups. Keywords Indigenous people · Kaingang · Coloniality of power · Race

1 Introduction Kaingang is the name of the indigenous people who lived in the vast fields that included the present-day territories of the Brazilian states of São Paulo, Paraná, and Santa Catarina, as well as regions in Argentina and Paraguay. During the colonial D. Weigert (B) Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_17

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period, they resisted the encroachment of the Portuguese crown’s subjects; however, the situation changed when the Portuguese royal family moved to their colonies in the Americas. In the early nineteenth century, the transfer of the Portuguese court to Rio de Janeiro, because of the Napoleonic invasion, triggered a series of changes in the American colonies. Among the measures taken by Prince Regent Dom João, historians highlight the enactment of the decree opening ports to friendly nations (1808) and the elevation of Brazil to the category of a kingdom, united with Portugal and the Algarve (1815). However, the royal family’s relocation to Brazil had other consequences, such as the implementation of an aggressive policy against indigenous peoples. In November 1808, Dom João declared war and enslavement against the “Bugres”1 a pejorative name that the settlers called the Kaingang, an indigenous people who lived in that region, in the place known as Campos de Guarapuava (Câmara dos Deputados 1808). The conquest of territories resulted in the integration of Portuguese crown land among the southern provinces, facilitating the displacement of goods and troops throughout the region and opening new areas for cattle-raising activities. In the years following this declaration, a military troop was sent to the Campos de Guarapuava to conquer the region; however, this was only the beginning of the colonizing advance through the territories where the Southern Jê lived. This advance continued throughout the nineteenth century, consolidating the domination of the Brazilian Empire in the area and intensifying the conflict. However, since the colonial period, the colonizers knew that the conquest was not effective only through war but also included political alliances and friendly approaches with native peoples because the success of colonization depended on the geographical knowledge of the natives and a good relationship with them, almost always mediated by indigenous go-betweens (Metcalf 2005). The colonizers’ dependency on these alliances and knowledge was concealed by the depreciation of indigenous people and the unscrupulousness of colonizers, who frequently disregarded agreements made with the natives. These demeanors comprised colonialist tactics that continued in Brazil’s post-independence period and were reinforced by the expansionist agenda undertaken by the Brazilian Empire on indigenous territories. Brazil’s independence (1822) was characterized by the formation of a monarchy led by the Portuguese Prince Dom Pedro, who has since been crowned king of the new Empire of Brazil. This monarchy was established with the support of slave owners, but the large Brazilian territory encompassed various political interests, forming a fragile unit that required the accommodation of the regional elites’ demands by the monarchy, whose court was based in Rio de Janeiro. Among the regional elites, some 1

According to Guisard (1999), the word “Bugre,” of medieval origin, referred to heresy. In Brazil, it came to designate the natives because it was synonymous with immorality and backwardness, and the term was used in the sources describing conflictual contexts, but there is the suggestion that it was linked to specific native groups.

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were cattle farmers who lived on the frontier of Brazil, whose interests in attaching new areas to their own land were in line with the expansionist policy of the Empire. In general, the ownership of slaves, land, and the presumption of a distinct racial identity in contrast to the dominant populations (blacks and indigenous peoples) contributed to the cohesiveness of this diverse dominant social stratum. Although irrelevant in the Brazilian economic scenario, cattle ranchers on Brazil’s borders were the representatives of this social layer. These men shared with the other Brazilian elite groups the same sense of superiority and presumption of belonging to an ascendancy that separated them from the subordinate groups. However, the indigenous ancestry of the dominant groups produced an evident contradiction. The dominant groups responded to this by redefining the significance of their own ancestry by attributing a supposed ethnic distinction to the native peoples from whom they descended as opposed to the indigenous peoples, who continued to survive and were identified as belonging to an inferior race (Monteiro 2001). The structure of domination, therefore, was not only related to the economic conditions of the dominant social stratum but also to the elites’ self-recognition as belonging to a superior racial identity, which had been generated in the colonial period. In these terms, Brazil was marked by coloniality because social power was constituted based on the criteria that emerged from colonial interactions (Quijano 1995). In this chapter, I analyze accounts of interactions with indigenous peoples by individuals who moved through the territories where the Southern Jê lived, especially the interactions with the Kaingang. Most of the texts studied were produced by men in the service of the Empire, with the function of informing the government about what was happening on the borders, mediating conflicts, and promoting the integration of the region. As instruments of the Imperial State, these texts reproduced colonialist discourses impregnated with racial ideologies that influenced political decisions. First, I examined the dominant groups’ classification of the Kaingang, which was initially based on ethnic differences that gradually acquired racial attributes, implying a link to biological factors. I then examine how the ruling classes legislated issues pertaining to indigenous peoples, which directly affected the lives of the Kaingang.

2 Naming and Classifying Indigenous People In the mid-nineteenth century, the expansionist project began with wars against the devastated indigenous Kaingang territories, about which narratives produced by various colonial agents accumulated. During this period, the Kaingang were described as a “treacherous” people, linked to the “Tapuias,” the name the colonizers gave to the resistant Indigenous populations living in the interior. The “Tapuias” were represented in the colonial imaginary in contrast to the “Tupi” allies. The opposition built during the colonization and conquest processes summarized the perspectives that were consolidated in the nineteenth century: Tupi represented the Indigenous allies who heroically contributed to the consolidation of the Portuguese presence,

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the primordial ancestors of the Brazilians; Tapuia portrayed the enemy natives, characterized as “treacherous” and “uncivilized,” the reason they survived, still resisting in the backlands of Brazil (Monteiro 2001). The generic designation of resistant indigenous populations did not account for the ethnic diversity that was perceived by the colonizers, requiring other ways to classify the people. They used external aspects to name the native groups, such as haircuts and body adornments. In this context, the Kaingang populations received several designations, standing out in the sources “Bugres” and “Coroados.” The designation “Coroado,” a Portuguese word that can be translated into English as “crowned,” referred to the haircut of the Kaingang groups, who had a tonsure on their heads that distinguished them. The term “Bugre” nevertheless had many explanations. According to Aires de Casal (1817, p. 105, author translation), who worked in Brazil in the late eighteenth century and early decades of the nineteenth century, the Paulistas called the “Bugre” the “barbaric gentiles” who dominated the lands from the Tietê River to the Uruguay River. They belonged to four “nations”: “one of which pierces the lower lip; another shaves the hair in the shape of a crown; another scratches the cheeks with certain ink.” Casal’s references associate the term “Bugre” at least with the Southern Jê, that is, the Kaingang and Xokleng peoples, both of whom had the same custom of shaving the hair on top of the head and of making facial paintings in the form of lines, but only the second group used the famous lip plate. Indigenous populations living in the central regions of Brazil used this ornament and were also called “Bugres;” however, for them, the designation “Botocudo” stood out, referring to the lip ornament known in Brazil as “botoque.” The use of the word “Bugre” received meanings beyond the designation of specific indigenous groups. Casal (1817, p. 105), for example, suggests that there were “Bugres” whites with beards, like Europeans. Thus, the word was not only related to physical traits or a specific biotype but was also related to certain forms of behavior. In the reports by Mabilde (1983, p. 7) on the Kaingang, the Belgian engineer living in Brazil presented a theory about the origin of the word. For him, in the province of Rio Grande do Sul, “Bugre” could be the “warrior name” used by the colonizers to differentiate the “Coroados” from the Guarani, an indigenous people from the Tupi groups. Mabilde (1983) also suggested that the name might refer to a high-pitched shout that the indigenous emitted to warn of the arrival of strangers in their dwellings, with a sound similar to that of the pronunciation of the word “Bugre.” For the engineer, the “Bugres” belonged to the “tribes of the Coroado Nation,” which inhabited the territories of the provinces of Mato Grosso, São Paulo, Paraná, and Santa Catarina (Mabilde 1983, p. 7). Therefore, “Bugre” referred to an ethnic sub-group of the “Coroados Nation.” The designations were used by colonizers to name and classify indigenous populations based on inaccurate ethnic markers. These markers gained meaning in conflict regions, indicating distinctions between indigenous peoples and justifying violent “preventive” actions against natives who bore the distinctive traits of the “Bugres.” Thus, the term “Bugre” carried dehumanizing meanings.

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This pejorative name was not the only one available. In 1835, Mabilde (1983) visited an aldeamento2 in the Province of Rio Grande do Sul, which was in the past managed by the Society of Jesus, where he met Guarani indigenous elders who reported that the Jesuits encouraged them to call the “Coroados” “Curupira.” Curupira are forest entities feared by indigenous Tupi populations. Anchieta (1900) described this entity as a demon to which the natives made offerings of feathers, arrows, and other similar objects, thus preventing the entity from harming the natives who walked through the forest. Pejorative designations go beyond physical appearance. The classifications contained in the accounts were enriched with ethnographic descriptions and crossed with moral and religious judgments. Along with these dimensions, discussions on civilization and race appeared in nineteenth-century accounts, influenced by the debates that took place at the centers of power in educational and research institutions. Layers of prejudice affected the experiences and interactions with indigenous people reported by travelers and state agents. However, there are descriptions of discoveries that surprised travelers, and some travelers displayed indignation at the violence of the colonizers against native peoples. Kaingang was one such peoples. The Kaingang lived in regions with Araucaria forests (Araucaria angustifolia). Araucaria is a tall pine tree that produces an edible seed known as “pinhão” (a kind of pine nut), the basis of the diet of the indigenous people living in this region and recognized as a food rich in protein, fiber, and carbohydrates. In addition to providing food, Mabilde (1983) identified the Araucaria as an important element in the selection of territories where they established their dwellings and in the territorial division of family groups (Mabilde 1983). According to the Belgian engineer (Mabilde 1983), the “Coroados” who lived in the province of Rio Grande do Sul installed themselves in the highlands amidst the Araucaria trees, even if this meant being located far from water fountains. They chose the tallest Araucaria tree and built their lodgings near it, which served as a lookout point from which they could see strangers approaching. The ancestors of the Kaingang organized themselves into family groups led by a man who excelled in hunting and warfare; the leadership was called “pay.” The leaders of the family units (pay) were subordinate to the authority of the paybang, the most feared warrior chief in a particular region. The pay-bang granted the best warriors the right to form separate dwellings in the territories they dominated; however, these areas were connected by tracks (Nimuendajú 1993). According to Mabilde (1983), territorial units were divided based on the per capita proportion of Araucaria available for each family group, with the limits between the territories marked on the bark of those trees by drawings, which also adorned the arrows of the natives. The consumption of Araucaria seeds in a determined territorial unit was prohibited among individuals from other units, and disregarding the norms could provoke wars (Mabilde 1983). Such rules reveal the importance of the Araucaria seeds in the

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The name of the indigenous village administered by the Empire.

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indigenous diet, which included the pinhão as the main food in the winter months, a time marked by food scarcity. The process of colonization of indigenous lands, however, caused the natives to be displaced to villages administered by the state, for which there is no information regarding the division of pine trees among the natives, but the seeds of Araucaria continued to be an important source of food. According to the governor of one of the Empire’s southern provinces, the beginning of the harsh winter in the highlands of southern Brazil, which coincided with the maturation of the pinhão, was viewed as the period when the natives who inhabited the villages would stretch toward the interior, confident that they would find healthy and abundant food (Andrade 1882, p. 2). For Friar Cemitille (1888, p. 265), a priest who worked with the natives in an aldeamento, one of the difficulties in catechesis and civilization was the ease with which the natives could sustain themselves in the forests. The rhetoric of the authorities legitimized the cruel attitudes of the colonizers established near the borders. In southern Brazil, farms occupied vast fields interspersed with Araucaria forests. The wealth of these trees attracted natives during the pinhão season when they built temporary habitations in these areas. In this regard, when passing by one of these farms to assess the construction of a road, the French engineer Frederico Hégréville (1857, p. 3) narrated the existence of huts made by the natives but which had been abandoned before the collecting of the pinhão, because the “owner” of the land threatened them. The colonizers’ objections to the activities traditionally practiced by the natives were not limited to the collection of pinhão. As the farmers began to take over the territories, they started to attack natives who tried to develop activity in the areas appropriated under the justification of protecting their properties. Even without resources and food in the aldeamento, a place where the state confined the indigenous, the work done by the natives in the areas that they traditionally used was looked upon with great contempt; the state’s agents did not even recognize the activities as fundamental to the survival of the groups. For this reason, it was common for natives living in an aldeamento to appeal to visitors, who often stopped in these places to obtain information about the territories, and translators to accompany them on their journey through the indigenous territories. At this time, the natives asked for agricultural tools and claimed that visitors would inform the competent authorities about the deplorable state in which they lived. In one of these moments, a pay-bang living in an aldeamento in the Province of Paraná asked engineer Henrique de Beaurepaire Rohan to accept the governor’s request for land and improvements to the aldeamento’s dwellings. Rohan (1855) was sensitized by the indigenous leader using the space of a report sent to the provincial authorities to describe the Indigenous people’s requests and denounce the settlers who confined them to marshy and infertile lands. The “civilized” who plundered the lands of the “savages” argued that the goods they brought with them would present enormous advantages to the natives. Abranches (1875, p. 29, author translation), governor of the Province of Paraná, said it was necessary to link these goods to the “natural propensities” of the natives for the

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benefit of the whole society. Among the “races” of men, according to him, the “savage Indians” seemed “amphibious.” Their propensity to fish would lead them to be filled with joy and enthusiasm before the spectacle of the fishing nets that, all at once, harvested thousands of fish (Abranches 1875, p. 29, author translation). Meanwhile, the traditional indigenous forms of fishing, done by the technique called “pari,” were prohibited by municipal laws (Pimentel 1881, p. 1). Notably, Abranches’ discourse was in line with the debate about races. During this time, the classifications were used to include the indigenous populations in the categories for the many human species, finding in the physical attributes the explanations for what was considered the “backwardness” of the natives. Racial arguments emanating from the centers of power sought to contain the atrocities that took place on the edges of the Empire. Therefore, the defense of the “usefulness” of the indigenous race can be considered a “softened” variation of the dehumanizing discourse. The “mild” report of Abranches (1875, p. 29) nevertheless contains elements that make explicit the hierarchical insertion of the “savage Indian,” who would benefit from the technologies brought by the “civilized.” The interests of landowners over territories and indigenous labor benefited from these racial theories, legitimizing colonialist conceptions. Such conceptions not only influenced the power structure but also blocked the understanding of the social and cultural dimensions surrounding native activities, resulting in the disqualification of indigenous knowledge. The coloniality of knowledge devalued fundamental knowledge by degrading its bearers. As Santos and Meneses (2009, p. 7, author translation) state, besides all domination, colonialism “was also epistemological domination, an extremely unequal relationship of knowledge-power that led to the suppression of many forms of knowledge […] of the colonized, relegating other knowledges to a space of subalternity.” The dominant groups’ explanations, therefore, were based on what Sousa Santos (2007) calls “Abyssal Thinking.” This system entails the construction of radical lines that divide social reality into two distinct realms in which one side of the line does not exist. Abyssal Thinking describes the impossibility of the two sides coexisting, where the hegemonic gaze ceases to see the other side, making it invisible and non-contemporaneous. Coloniality legitimized the interference of the state in the indigenous peoples’ ways of life, consolidated by policies that guaranteed the interests of the agrarian elites, an economic group that acted in the Legislative Assembly and Ministries of the Empire. The quest for the Empire’s affiliation with Western civilizing ideals at that moment meant that some actions of the colonizers on the borders were questioned. Thus, issues such as enslavement and war against the indigenous peoples were in the sights of legislators who needed to update their coloniality.

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3 The Empire of Laws Brazil’s emergence as an independent country was marked by the rise of the Eurocentric model adopted by the ruling classes. The Empire was a representative monarchy that classified its citizens. The Empire’s constitution granted Brazilian citizenship to all free men born in Brazil but restricted the right to vote and to be voted by imposing income requirements, which were even higher in the higher-ranking elective positions. These conditions guaranteed the concentration of representation in the Legislative Chambers in the hands of slaveholding landowners. This structure, formed at the center of power, replicated itself in the units of the Empire, guaranteeing the continuity of colonialism. Colonialism is a relationship of direct, political, social, and cultural dominance established by Europeans over other continents through a colonial power structure that produces social discrimination. According to Quijano (2007), these structures of dominance continued even after political emancipation because they remained the framework within which other social relations operated. The disintegration of metropolitan control led the colonial elites to power in America, ratifying social hierarchies that were initially based on the idea of the purity of blood and ancestry. Political emancipation in Brazil meant the reiteration of slavery and the monarchical regime, which were viewed by contemporaries of independence as crucial factors of control and stabilization in that scenario of great transformations affecting the American continent, which were considered threatening by the new Brazilian ruling classes (Jancsó and Pimenta 2000). At this time, it was necessary to avoid themes that could generate fragmentation in the country that emerged from the union of the former Portuguese colonial provinces. The Constitution of 1824 established a centralizing monarchy, but it had to encompass regional representations at the core of the Empire’s organization, as foreseen in the first constitutional draft or included by the additional act of 1834. Municipal Councils, Provincial Councils, and the National General Assembly expanded political representation without widening the scope of voters and eligibility, which was limited to a select number of citizens (Presidência da República 1824). The qualifiers for the full exercise of citizenship nullified the possibility of indigenous peoples being represented. Conversely, many individuals who held elective offices at the local, provincial, and national levels were intrinsically involved in advancing into territories where indigenous people lived, with no opponents having political rights. Studies have revealed the victory of a centralizing project in Brazil, with the succession of periods of greater and lesser imperial control, which could mean the implementation of policies by the central power in disagreement with local interests (Carvalho 2007; Dolhnikoff 2005; Mattos 2017). In regard to the “Indigenous issue” in the first decades of the Legislative Chambers, the debates were intense and permeated by themes involving land, labor, and catechization but without actually resulting in comprehensive legislation, which only emerged in the Second Reign, specifically in the 1840s.

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The lack of a definition regarding the “Indigenous issue” in the first decades after Brazil’s independence, however, was not related to tensions between levels of power but rather to the superimposition of other political factors in the troubled environment of those years. Sposito (2012) highlights the existence of projects on the subject, even when Brazil, united with Portugal, participated in the Cortes for drafting the Portuguese Constitution. This debate continued for the first few years after Brazil’s independence. In 1826, parliamentarians established committees to discuss topics and related themes. According to Sposito (2012), the “Indigenous issue” was in line with the problem of labor and colonization because of the possible end of the Atlantic slave trade.3 However, the solution of using indigenous labor instead of African slaves ran into difficulties in the state’s control of the natives. On the borders of the Empire, the determinations for war and the enslavement of indigenous peoples decreed by Dom João continued in force until the beginning of the Regency. At the suggestion of the Province of São Paulo, the National Legislative Assembly discussed the repeal of these determinations, which became a bill that was hotly debated among senators (Sposito 2009). In November 1831, Dom João’s deliberations were revoked by a decree approved by the Regency Legislative Assembly. This decree also determined the establishment of a tutelary regime and the release of native prisoners who were kept as temporary servants. That is, the law granted freedom to enslaved prisoners of war, implying the abolition of indigenous slavery (Câmara dos Deputados 1831). These debates were in parallel with discussions about the implementation of measures to curb the slave trade. For parliamentarians, the approval of legislation involving slavery was sensitive, but it was necessary to signal to European trading partners, including the British, that Brazil was committed to ending the slave trade (Mamigonian 2017). This context of the insertion of independent Brazil into the global setting permeated the debate, including discussions that involved the approval of the law to repeal Dom João’s determination. The legal possibility of enslaving natives was absurd to the illustrious senators, who questioned how it was possible for individuals born free to be enslaved in 1831. Global repercussions were also part of the concerns of legislators, who believed that foreign countries were unaware of the existence of indigenous slavery in Brazil (Senado Federal 1914). The justifications for ending indigenous slavery demonstrate the contradictions of a country that remained enslaved until 1888. The senators’ arguments demonstrated the desire to soften the Empire’s image toward the nations they considered “civilized,” but the favorable outcome for the natives occurred because they were not the basis of the Empire’s economy. Nevertheless, just like the law prohibiting the Atlantic slave trade, approved in the same year, 1831, the end of indigenous slavery was yet another ineffective measure. According to Morel (2018), the lack of enforcement necessary 3

The law prohibiting the Atlantic slave trade in 1831 was enacted to signal compliance with treaties signed with England in 1826 but ended up not being respected, despite early attempts. In the 1850s, a new prohibition law (known as the Eusébio de Queirós Law), followed by repressive measures, mitigated the African slave trade (Mamigonian 2017).

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to reverse indigenous slavery contributed to the practice continuing in a disguised form throughout the nineteenth century. Notably, the law established a tutelary regime regulated by the Ordenações Filipinas,4 a compilation of civil laws dating back to the colonial period, which continued to be referenced after Brazil’s independence. For this reason, the fate of the Indigenous prisoners was the responsibility of the Orphans’ Court judges, who should ensure the tutelage of the natives to those willing to pay wages or marry the “protected” in exchange for the labor of the natives under their tutelage (Almeida 1870; Câmara dos Deputados 1831). The magistrates were required by the Ordenações to register the tutorship, but historians discovered no document indicating the conditions under which the Indigenous people were subjected (Almeida 1870). According to reports, indigenous people lived in the territories administered by the province of São Paulo as unrelated persons (agregado) of colonizers. Furthermore, there are documents indicating the continuity of native enslavement, which confirms the ineffectiveness of the law (Souza 2015). The years that followed the enactment of the tutelage law were marked by the additional act of 1834, which instituted the old provincial councils with the title of Provincial Legislative Assembly, formed by parliamentarians responsible for promoting the catechesis and civilization of the “Indians” in each province (Câmara dos Deputados 1834). According to Carneiro da Cunha (1992), the change was significant because the old provincial councils could then propose policies that had to be approved by the National Assembly and the emperor. With the new prerogatives, the provinces began to act directly, taking more aggressive initiatives against the indigenous people until the establishment of national policies. In 1845, Decree 426, known as the Regulation of the Missions, was promulgated, which created an administrative and bureaucratic structure to attend to the aldeamentos (state-run indigenous villages), together with Catholic missionaries responsible for the instruction of Christian doctrine. This decree reinforced policies of containment of the Indian population in aldeamentos under the responsibility of the Directors General for each province designated by the emperor and specific directors of the aldeamentos assigned by the Presidents of the Provinces. In addition, there had to be a treasurer and a surgeon5 in the aldeamentos, and these positions could be held by the same individual. The hierarchy of the positions had military symbolism; while holding the posts, the person would have an honorary military rank and would wear the uniform of the Army General Staff (Senado Federal 1845). The priests responsible for catechesis were from the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor, linked to the Propaganda Fide of the Vatican, but were hired directly by the Brazilian government. By being inserted into the bureaucratic structure of the aldeamento, the missionaries had a significant role in catechesis, understood by them not only as the learning of Christian doctrine but supported by the idea of “edifying 4

A set of laws first copied in the reign of Felipe I, King of Portugal and Spain, which remained in effect in Brazil after independence. 5 They were responsible for taking care of the medicines and surgical instruments but did not need to have specific training (Senado Federal 1845).

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example” through their conviviality with Christian laborers (Amoroso 1998). The Capuchin missionaries conceived the conversion of natives into laborers in the aldeamento as a means of catechizing, employing a “civilizing” meaning to the religious discourse, which legitimized the policies of the Empire. From the mid-nineteenth century on, aldeamentos played a significant role in attracting natives, favoring the de-occupation of territories that would later become European immigrant colonies. Therefore, the Regulation of the Missions was related to the set of propositions of the political elites that sought to bind the country to Eurocentric ideals of civilization and modernity. However, in Brazil, the determinations that emanated from Rio de Janeiro, the capital of the Empire, coexisted with persistent practices of enslavement and war on the borders, indirectly legitimized by the civilizing discourse and permissiveness of the state. Beyond the Assemblies and ministerial offices, Brazilian historiography has demonstrated the indispensable role of educational and research institutions as legitimizers of the interests of the elites (Schwarcz 1993, 1998; Lopes 1997; Carvalho 2007; Kodama 2009; Morel 2018). The institutions of higher education created after independence formed a class of intellectuals who cohesively defended the power structure marked by coloniality. This formation was reiterated in institutions responsible for formulating national memories and promoting scientific research. In these terms, the revocation of measures considered retrograde and the formulation of positive laws were in line with civilizing debates on the social circuits of the Brazilian ruling elite. Experiences on the Empire’s borders fed back into the civilizing discourse emanating from the centers of power. The Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute (IHGB), which was created to build an official history for the nation, based part of its production on the publication of ethnographic accounts concerning indigenous peoples (Schwarcz 1993; Kodama 2009). The National Museum, as well as other museological institutions founded in the provinces, also invested in publications; however, their motto was to collect objects from the natives, many obtained through looting in areas of conflict (Schwarcz 1993; Lopes 1997). Furthermore, various reports were published in newspapers and magazines with regular circulation in the courts and capitals of the provinces, spreading biased narratives about indigenous populations. In this sense, Brazil’s consolidation as an independent country was related to the development of institutions under the Eurocentric model, which signified not only the exclusion of the subaltern population but also the endorsement of a depreciative speech that has been present since the colonial period and was now legitimized by an elite that considered themselves the owners of the truth. Thus, the articulation of the institution’s beholding of power over an excluding order created mechanisms of self-legitimation that replicated the colonialism of power.

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4 Conclusion The formation of the colonial world inaugurated a power structure articulated in the diverse relations of labor exploitation that produced new identities and imposed them as basic categories of the relations of dominance. However, this structure was based in Latin America on the concept of race, that is, on a category that attributed differences related to one’s own biological constitution. Intrinsic to the colonial world, the racial category defined power relations in America. According to Quijano (1995, 2000), the extinction of colonialism as a political system did not mean the end of this power structure; on the contrary, the criteria originated in colonial iterations gave rise to a new power that grounded the relations between Europe and the populations of the rest of the world. In Brazil, this meant the continuation of unfavorable relations with Europe, but an indelible mark of coloniality was contained in the internal distribution of power itself. This inequality, theoretically based on categories such as ownership and income, was constituted on a colonial basis; that is, it referred to social hierarchies built around racial and ethnic belonging. These characteristics limited the possibilities for subaltern groups to be represented in the institutions that held power, creating conditions for the self-reproduction of coloniality that favored the dominant classes. At the borders of the empire, the absence of public buildings did not mean that these places were outside that structure of dominance. The incursions into indigenous lands described in travel reports circulated by power centers emerged as a factor that corroborated the construction of a national identity in opposition to “indigenous races” considered inferior. However, the otherness that the Empire attributed to the natives needed to be assimilated by the insertion of native groups into the structures of domination; that is, the ethnic differences among the natives needed to be explained by racial categories. In addition, the dubious nature of the imperial government’s policies gave rise to direct violence against indigenous peoples by the colonizers. Thus, structures of dominance were present even when the state was absent. The coloniality of power in Brazil, therefore, included measures for the insertion of indigenous populations into subaltern classes, as well as the extermination of resistant indigenous peoples.

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Daniele Weigert is Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of São Paulo, with financial support of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development—CNPq. She received a Ph.D. from the University of São Paulo (2020), and her current research covers indigenous peoples in the South of Brazil during the nineteenth-century.

Correction to: Denaturalization and Occidental Narrative to the Detriment of the Materiality of Moche and Tupinambá Jeremy Gibran Dioses Campaña

Correction to: Chapter 11 in: C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_11 In the original version of the chapter. The coauthor name “Marcos Olender”. which have now been removed and Jeremy Gibran Dioses Campaña is the only author for Chapter 11. The book and the chapter have been updated with the changes.

The updated version of this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_11

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 C. A. Malig Jedlicki et al. (eds.), Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation, The Latin American Studies Book Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37748-8_18

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