Crime and Art

Dr. Naomi Oosterman is a permanent lecturer at the Department of Arts and Culture Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam, and an affiliated researcher at the Heritage under Threat research group; part of the LDE Centre for Global Heritage and Development. Naomi finished her PhD dissertation titled "Policing the art world: Contradictions in International and National Perspectives" in 2019. Her research specialisations and interests are the policing of art and heritage crime, sociology of deviance, and the illicit trafficking of arts and antiquities. ​Dr Donna Yates is an Associate Professor in the department of Criminal Law and Criminology at Maastricht University. Her research is focused on the transnational illicit trade in cultural objects, art and heritage crime, and white collar crime. Yates has recently been awarded a €1.5 million European Research Council starting grant to study how objects influence criminal networks,with a particular focus on objects such as antiquities, fossils, and rare and collectible wildlife. She’s interested in what draws people to these “criminogenic collectibles”, how they interact with them, and how these objects may inspire crimes.

• Introduction.- Part I: Methods.- Transiting Through the Antiquities Market.- Exploring Taste Formation and Performance in the Illicit Trade of Human Remains on Instagram.- #antiquitiesdealers.- Evaluating the transformative potential of Photovoice for research into the global illicit trade in cultural objects.- A New Method of Forensic Archaeology.- Part II: Theory.- Cuneiform exceptionalism?.- Crime, Material and Meaning in Art World Desirescapes.- Authentically Exotic and Authentically Beautiful.- “Blitzkrieg Against Black Magic”.- Art Crime and the Myth of Violence.- Part III: Data Applications.- Small Museums, Big Problems.- Guardians in the Antiquities Market.- More Than Just Money.- Offender Motivations and Expectations of Data in Antiquities Looting.- One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Clock.