2022 Jeremy Demian Marx Award Spotlight: Hannah Bivin

“Theorizing Reclaiming African Art from Western Museums: Reparations or Theft?”

By: Hannah Bivin

Hannah Bivin is one of the recipients of the 2022 Jeremy Demian Marx Award for Cultural Anthropology for their paper “Theorizing Reclaiming African Art from Western Museums: Reparations or Theft?” Here, they talk about their research process.

I actually wrote this piece in a cultural theory course taught by Professor Andrew Mathews. The paper uses theorists in order to explore institutional racism in relation to reparations of art to indigenous communities who are the rightful owners of often stolen works. The piece follows the incredible work of Mwazulu Diyabanza, a Congolese restitution activist, working to change this narrative through activism. The paper uses Franz Boas’s theories of cultural relativism and historical particularism, as well as W.E.B. Du Bois’s race theories and arguments for socialism, in order to explore the debate of whether Diyabanza is a thief or a hero. The paper concludes that not only is it morally right to return stolen artifacts, but it is also crucial in order for society to avoid repeating a long history of cultural erasure.

This is an important topic to consider because there are mixed feelings on the issue within the anthropological community. Many counterarguments by fearful museum curators are that if they returned all the stolen artworks they would have empty shelves; however, this is problematic given that the museums are reinforcing the idea that they are entitled to stolen works and that it is alright to hold hostage pieces of culture the museum literally and symbolically robbed. Activists like the modern-day cultural Robin Hood, Diyabanza, work to illuminate this injustice by actually stealing back the works and shedding light on why it is so crucial that we return stolen artifacts to their rightful place of origin. I was able to incorporate Boasian theory which assisted in understanding the importance of knowledge of one's culture in relation to other cultures through cultural relativism in order to avoid exoticization and “Othering," as well as Du Bois’s theories which served to highlight a long history of cultural erasure and alteration in order to understand the importance of returning the artifacts. My hope is that this piece helped influence the reader to understand the truly problematic nature of housing stolen artifacts in Western museums.

Anthropology is so important to me because it is rooted in the human experience and grounded in stories. As an anthropologist, it is our job to illuminate the lives of people around the world by telling their stories. Anthropology is a pivotal field because through the insight of these stories we are able to understand what makes us human and how we are all connected. It is important to note that historically anthropology has a dark anti-feminist and racist past, which means that modern anthropologists need to put in the work to challenge this historical narrative.