Claims to the Past. A Critical View of the Arguments Driving Repatriation of Cultural Heritage and Their Role in Contemporary Identity Politics
Abstract This article explores the role that the worldwide movement of repatriation of human remains and cultural heritage from museums and other institutions to minorities and indigenous populations plays in contemporary identity politics. Beyond the obvious positive outcomes of this process, including a significant democratization of the field of archaeology, the repatriation movement poses challenges, mainly because it relies on concepts such as past present continuity that are sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly, problematic for legitimizing group identities and group claims to cultural heritage and human remains. It is argued that while archaeologists and anthropologists must continue to support the idea of increasing democratization of interpreting the past, they must also maintain the right to remain critical to all claims of the past by any particular group.