The dual control of Africa's cultural heritage

European private institutions were and still are involved and embedded in the possession, retention and strategic return of Africa’s heritage back to Africa. These private institutions  operate and live in the private domain, are not funded by governments, nor operated or  controlled by the same on a day to day basis.

These entities in the private sphere, worked hand  in hand with the European colonial governments that undertook colonialism in Africa from 1885 such as the German, Belgian, French and English governments.

The private actors in  question are the museums, medical institutions, research institutions, private families as well  as the universities that collected and retained Africa’s cultural and human heritage, such as The Charite in Berlin, Germany amongst others.

These private actors are often overlooked in  research, as regards their involvement in shaping the fate of the African cultural and human  heritage. These private actors in the recent years since 2000 and particularly since 2010 have been involved in selectively and strategically curating justice by releasing certain portions of  Africa’s heritage at certain intervals, which is precisely “control by opening” and “control by  closing” the archive of atrocities.  

Museums are often viewed as innocuous, uninvolved and neutral repositories of African human  remains, that perhaps received such by chance. There is often a sense, a narrative that museums  are neutral storers of human remains, and are merely displaying such to the public, just as  agents of history.

A deep dive into the origins of human remains, in European countries reveals  otherwise. The cultural artefacts and human remains in German museums are not merely there  by chance, they are there by design, by the deliberate involvement of such museums in the  collection of human remains, for scientific, political and exhibitionist purposes, which is all  central to colonialism and its justification from a “scientific” perspective. 

Various museums are at the center of restitution debates and these include, the British Museum,  the Louvre and Berlin Humboldt Forum amongst others. Following the Herero and Nama  genocide of 1904-1908, perpetrated by the German colonial force; Schutztruppe, hundreds of  bones and skulls were shipped to Germany for “scientific” purposes, which ultimately was used  to justify and prove the superiority of the whites over all the non-white races, and the blacks in  particular in the case of Namibia.

Various museums in Germany retained these human remains and displayed them to the public, conducted scientific research on them and ultimately generated knowledge and political authority which they used to reinforce colonialism. Over a 100 years from the collection of these human remains, they have still been retained by the  German museums, despite the formal ending of German colonialism over 105 years ago. 

Ever since the turn of the 21st century, there has been increased activism towards these private  institutions by African victim descendant communities, amongst others demanding the return  of the African cultural and human vestiges.

In the case of Namibia, the Herero and Nama victim  descendant activist organizations have waged a sustained campaign of activism for the return  of their cultural artefacts and human remains back to Namibia. Organizations such as the  Ovaherero Council for Dialogue (OCD), Ovaherero Genocide Council (OGC), Nama  Traditional Authority (NTA), Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA), NGO Alliance “No  Amnesty on Genocide!,” Otjisuta Otjetu Oveni Association, Nama Genocide Technical  Committee undertook activism through lobbying, media campaigns as well as protests and  demonstrations towards the German private actors such as the University of Freiburg,  University of Greifswald and the Lower Saxony State Museum. Through this sustained  activism, they returned some of the human remains back to Namibia in 2011, 2014 and 2018.  

Many returns that are made are not permanent, but conditional. The private institutions in  response to the sustained and persistent victim community activism send some of the artifacts  back to African countries on renewable loans, shared custody agreements or research  partnerships. In the case of Namibia in 2022, 23 cultural objects were returned from the  Ethnological Museum Berlin to the National Museum of Namibia, in Windhoek, Namibia as a  permanent loan.

This is the case of transitional justice being curated, a quintessence of the  Ethnological Museum Berlin engaging in “control by opening” of the archive of atrocity that  holds Namibian cultural heritage, and a swift simultaneous “control by closing” wherein conditions are attached to the return of Africa’s rightful cultural and human vestiges. 

The private actors’ engagement in “control by opening” is seen in Uganda 2023, wherein 39  ethnographic artefacts were returned to Uganda from the Museum of Archaeology and  Anthropology in Cambridge, England. AP News reports that these artefacts were returned on  a 3 year loan that is renewable.

This begs the question of why not permanently return and place  full ownership amongst the Ugandan authorities. The answer is simple, the private actors are  carrying out “control by opening” and “control by closing” the archive, to temporarily douse  the demands of the victim descendant activist organizations and African governments  demands. This is a way of reclaiming power and ownership over the African heritage, not in a direct blatant way, but a rather indirect way, one that gives Africans an illusion that they have  control and ownership over the heritage, simply because they are housing the heritage, albeit  without full permanent legal ownership and possession.

Why loan the artefacts and human remains instead of permanently returning them? The answer  lies in the political economy of cultural heritage. These African collections are valuable assets  to European institutions.

They attract visitors, sustain research funding and contribute to the  international prestige of the private actors. The sustained victim and government activism and  pressure and the diplomatic negotiations with African governments make outright retention of  these cultural artefacts and human remains difficult.

The sustained possession of the same  could lead to the private actors attracting negative publicity and having damaged public images, which could crack open the pandora’s box of their involvement in this looting, for colonial  justification purposes. 

Loans and shared stewardship agreements offer a compromise in that they allow the African  countries to gain access to artifacts and the ability to display them locally, while European  institutions retain legal ownership and long-term influence over conservation, research access,  and exhibition narratives.

In the case of the universities and research institutes they benefit  academically. They are able to forge new research collaborations with the private actors that  are returning the cultural artefacts and human remains, which thereby brings about fieldwork  opportunities and disbursement of joint grants with African scholars.  

Private families and collectors operate within similar dynamics. Many possess artifacts  acquired during colonial service or missionary activity. Rather than surrender ownership  entirely, they often donate objects to museums or lend them to exhibitions in African countries.  Such moves can improve reputations while preserving the financial value and legal status of  the collection.

Critics argue that these arrangements replicate colonial hierarchies. The same logic of  colonialism wherein Europe was the master and Africa the begging slave continues. African institutions frequently depend on European funding, conservation expertise, and insurance  structures to house returned artifacts.

As a result, the authority over African heritage  strategically shifts, the Global North-Global South power asymmetries are reinforced and  reinscribed. 

The supporting paradigm of this curated restitution deem these moves to be true, good faith  steps towards restitution in a complex legal and institutional landscape. They believe that is better than nothing, at least there is a return of cultural artefacts and human remains.  

Supporters, however, see the process as a pragmatic step toward restitution in a complex legal  and institutional landscape. What is clear is that the future of African cultural heritage will not  be determined solely by African governments. It will also depend on the decisions of the private  actors whose storerooms, archives, and collections still hold pieces of Africa’s past.

*Khumomotse, is a second year Master of Philosophy in Justice and Transformation.