Rethinking Repatriation: New Beginnings, Not an End
Systemic and policy issues surrounding repatriation
By Sadiah Boonstra
This article is a part of CHECK-IN 2024, our annual publication, which comes in at 313 pages this year. You can buy a limited-edition print copy at SGD38 here.
Batavia Museum (1930). Collection of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), inv.nr. A344.38.520.
A global call for historical justice
A shift towards critiques of entrenched systems and structures is gaining an unprecedented momentum worldwide, as demonstrated by decolonial and anti-racism frameworks. This has driven calls to decolonise the museum as an institution and pushed demands for the return of cultural objects acquired in colonial situations. Former colonised peoples no longer accept the historical injustice and the ongoing inequalities created by colonialism, which are perpetuated in certain museum policies and practices. This informs the way they collect, exhibit, as well as create knowledge and meanings. In the wake of the increasing demand for return, provenance research methods have developed rapidly to inform repatriation-related policymaking and decisions.
The Netherlands and Indonesia have a long history of debates about the return and repatriation of cultural objects dating back to the colonial period. However, since the installation of repatriation committees in Indonesia and the Netherlands in 2021 and 2022 respectively, and the setting up of a repatriation mechanism between the two countries, it is now reaching unparalleled milestones. The most recent instance of repatriation took place last year; 485 objects acquired in colonial contexts were returned from the Netherlands to Indonesia. Among them are four statues from the thirteenth century Singosari temple in East Java taken by the Dutch in the early nineteenth century; a keris seized at Klungkung in Bali (1908), a collection of modern Balinese art was repatriated to Indonesia, as well as objects looted during the Lombok war in 1894, victoriously known in the Netherlands as the "Lombok Treasure".
Emerging issues
However, instead of solving the issue of de/colonisation, the repatriation gave rise to a whole new set of issues that highlighted the continuation of a colonial knowledge system. The state-to-state repatriation mechanism stipulates that objects are to be transferred from the Dutch national collection to the Indonesian national collection. In practice, repatriated objects enter the collection of Museum Nasional Indonesia (MNI) which was founded by the Bataviaasch Genootschap voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen, or the Batavian Society for Arts and Sciences, as a colonial museum in 1868. As such, repatriated objects are effectively returned to the colonial institution that was part of the colonial system that looted them from their original context. The state-to-state mechanism also does not address, let alone prevent the monetisation on objects of violence in the global art market.
Moreover, Indonesia has geographically been shaped by the contours of the colony in which Java functioned as its social, cultural, economic, and political centre. The repatriation of the war booty from Lombok and a Balinese keris from Klungkung to the capital Jakarta in Java instead of to their original region and communities can be regarded as a continuation of colonial power structures. The fact that objects are not returned to their site or communities of origin but to the colonial institution that removed them has considerable consequences for their signification. It also questions the role the repatriated objects play in Indonesian society today, which is socially, economically, and politically an entirely different environment than their original context.
Finally, while there is a growing expertise in provenance research methods and consequently an expanding body of knowledge about object’s biographies from the moment of their removal, there is shockingly little known about the lives of these objects before the removal from their original context. Even less thought is given to how lost memories and histories of cultural objects can be accessed and recovered.
Diamond brooch, inv. nr. RV-4905-129. Former collection of Wereldmuseum, now in the collection of the Republic of Indonesia.
Towards new beginnings
To break through this “colonial loop”, a radical paradigm shift is needed in our approach to historical objects and colonial history at large. Firstly, a historical deconstruction of the colonial framework is needed to understand cultural objects and their histories. In the case of the Lombok war booty, for instance, a narrative of colonial appropriation and historical framing developed upon its arrival in the Netherlands in between 1897 and 1898. A discourse of colonial superiority emerged, framing the spoils of war as "the Lombok Treasure", glorifying Dutch victory. The objects were exhibited at the Rijksmuseum, attracting 23,000 visitors, including Queen Wilhelmina, perpetuating the narrative of Dutch dominance. This colonial discourse about the “Lombok Treasure” persists until today, not only in the Netherlands but also in Indonesia, overshadowing the original meanings and values of the looted objects. While these objects are now returned to the National Museum of Indonesia, war loot is still present in Dutch museum collections and archives. This demonstrates that they are stuck in a colonial loop of discourse and knowledge production.
A deep understanding of how language surrounding the war booty from its removal to the present, and how this has been represented in both Indonesian and Dutch historiography will give insights on how colonial values and meanings were created and continue to exist. This could include an investigation into the role of museum policies and exhibition-making practices in perpetuating colonial narratives both in the Netherlands and in Indonesia. For example, how has the first batch of repatriated Lombok war booty, which were returned in the late 1970s, presented in the National Museum of Indonesia ever since?
The objects also need to be reconnected with their original communities and societal context to break out of the “colonial loop” and enable the creation of new meanings of returned objects in current societies in Indonesia and in the Netherlands. This involves investigating the knowledge, memories, and histories that were erased by the looting, and to explore ways for recovery. As tangible links to the past, the returned objects can serve as historical sources of lost knowledge and memories facilitating the recovery of erased meanings, and generating new and meaningful lives for repatriated objects in current and future society.
This article is a part of CHECK-IN 2024, our annual publication, which comes in at 313 pages this year. You can buy a limited-edition print copy at SGD38 here.
About the Writer
Sadiah Boonstra is a historian and curator based in Jakarta. She is CEO and Founder of CultureLab Consultancy, Postdoctoral Researcher (VU University Amsterdam) and Honorary Senior Fellow (Melbourne University). Sadiah combines academic research, curation, and public programming to decolonise the history, heritage, and arts of Indonesia.
