Contested Holdings

Felicity Bodenstein is a lecturer in the history of museums and heritage studies at Sorbonne University, Paris. She is also a principal investigator of the digital humanities project, financed by the Ernest von Siemens foundation, “Digital Benin” (https://digital-benin.org/) that will bring together data from close to 200 museums holding pieces from the 1897 British colonial expedition to Benin in their collections.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsAbbreviationsIntroductionFelicity Bodenstein, Damiana Oţoiu, and Eva-Maria TroelenbergPart I: From Objects Back to People: Ways of Life and LossChapter 1. The Value of Art – a Human Life? Works of Art in the Crosshairs of the Persecution of Jews under National SocialismUlrike SaßChapter 2. Return as Reconstruction: The Gwoździec Synagogue Replica in the Museum of Polish JewsEwa ManikowskaChapter 3. The Other Nefertiti: Symbolic RestitutionsRuth E. IskinPart II: The Subject of Return: Between Artefacts and BodiesChapter 4. Blurring Objects: Life-Casts, Human Remains and Art HistoryNoémie EtienneChapter 5. Of Phrenology, Reconciliation and Veneration: Exhibiting the Repatriated Life Cast of Māori Chief Takatahara at the Akaroa MuseumChristopher SommerChapter 6. Ancestors or Artefacts: Contention in the Definition, Retention and Retun of Ngarrinderji Old PeopleCressida Fforde, Major Sumner, Loretta Sumner, Tristram Besterman and Steve HemmingPart III: ‘The Making of Law’: Politics and Museum EthicsChapter 7. A Long Term Perspective on the Issue of the Return of Congolese Cultural Objects : Entangled Relations between Kinshasa and Tervuren (1930–1980)Placide Mumbembele SangerChapter 8. ‘How Would You Like to See Your Great-Grandfather in a Museum?’: The Issue of ‘Human Dignity’ in Repatriation Processes (Cases Involving French Museums)Cristina GolomozChapter 9. (De)Museifying Racial Taxonomies: The Display and/ or the Restitution of Human Remains of Indigenous Peoples from Southern AfricaDamiana OţoiuPart IV: Partial and Paused ReturnsChapter 10. Baroque Returns: The Donations and Reuses of Francesco GualdiFabrizio FedericiChapter 11. Getting the Benin Bronzes back to Nigeria: The Art Market and the Formation of National Collections and Concepts of Heritage in Benin City and LagosFelicity BodensteinChapter 12. What Future for Looted Syrian Antiquities?: The Clash Between the Law and Practice for the Repatriation of Cultural Property to Countries in CrisisErin ThompsonConclusion: Unfinished Projects of 'Decentering' Western Museum PracticesFelicity Bodenstein, Damiana Oţoiu and Eva-Maria TroelenbergIndex

“Contested Holdings makes a refreshing and invaluable contribution to the rolling discussions surrounding restitution and reparations. The editors have successively produced a comprehensive and invaluable resource – a volume anchored to the sturdy groundwork of the contributors’ meticulous and exhaustive research.” • The International Handbooks of Museum Studies“This is a timely book that tackles controversial, pressing issues from a range of angles in an innovatove way. The editors and authors indeed manage to reach beyond the currently predominant focus on provenance research, restitution and repatriation by foregrounding actors and challenges as well as political and epistemic aspects of appropriation and return.” • Annette Loeseke, Bard College, Berlin