African-led research group seeks to reframe discussions on restitution

African-led research group seeks to reframe discussions on restitution

For over a century, the Pokomo community in southeastern Kenya has been bereft of their sacred Ngadji drum, confiscated by British colonial officers in 1902. This cultural artifact, crafted by local artists for ceremonial purposes, has been instrumental in the community's religious and societal gatherings. As a consequence, the Pokomo people have witnessed a significant rise in conversions to Christianity and Islam, in part due to their inability to perform certain traditional ceremonies.

The Ngadji drum is now housed in the British Museum in London, and the community continues its efforts to retrieve this important cultural symbol. This ongoing struggle represents one of numerous cases compiled by Open Restitution Africa (ORA), an African-led research organization, in an attempt to reframe discussions about the repatriation of significant cultural objects from museums and private collections.

In November 2023, researcher William Mutta Tsaka, affiliated with the National Museums of Kenya, wrote the Ngadji case study. This was made possible by a $1,650 microgrant from ORA, part of a larger three-year, $600,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation. Over the past four months, ORA's funding has enabled researchers to support numerous restitution initiatives, collecting data on around 16 individual cases.

ORA's microgrants have provided uniquely vital resources to independent scholars and community activists who have traditionally relied on community fundraising or personal funding. Initially, the grant program was intended to cover the costs of collating and reporting research; however, the needs proved to be much greater than expected. This was due to the fact that most repatriation grants generally fund provenance research for professionals working with Western museums, leaving most independent researchers without adequate resources.

In an interview with our website, ORA founder Chao Maina stated that the typical research landscape, as identified in their 2022 report titled "Reclaiming Restitution: Centering and Contextualizing the African Narrative," was lacking in African voices and perspectives. Their report found that fewer than 4 percent of academic publications on restitution between 2016 and 2021 were authored by Africans, with the focus heavily centering on African ownership of material culture rather than the impact of object loss on the community.

ORA's research initiatives include case studies, as well as an open data platform launched at the end of the year. This platform contains researchers' documents, interview transcripts, and other related materials, aiming to demonstrate that restitution is more than a simple matter of sending artifacts back to their country of origin. ORA founder Molemo Moiloa explained, "The really complex work of repair and restoration is actually the work of Africans."

Researchers in ORA webinars and conferences have shared tales of the obstacles faced when tracking, locating, or retrieving seized artifacts. These challenges range from the removal of preservatives like arsenic to settling customs disputes with various jurisdictions, and determining who has the right to advocate on behalf of a community for an object's return.

Tsaka's research on the Ngadji drum involved travel to Tana River County, a coastal province in Kenya where the Pokomo people reside. Through his interviews with community members and representatives from the Recovery of the Ngadji, a nonprofit initiative, Tsaka discovered that the Ngadji's case might remain stalled due to internal disputes within the Pokomo community. Although Pokomo elders granted the initiative's founders, Makorani Mungase and Baiba Mjidho, permission to view the Ngadji drum in the British Museum's archive, these elders argue that the pair began the initiative without the community's consent. In 2020, Pokomo elders sent a letter to the British Museum requesting a halt to all negotiations with the initiative due to this issue.

Both the British Museum and the Recovery of the Ngadji initiative declined to comment on the negotiation process to our website.

By focusing on a wide variety of cases, ORA seeks to challenge and refine the methods of contextualizing objects and their respective restitution claims accurately. One significant distinction highlighted in this discussion is between material culture, such as the repatriation of the Benin Bronzes, and requests for human or prehistoric remains, which have been underreported in the media. This bias within the international media, according to ORA, can oversimplify restitution discussions and silence narratives that do not fit a specific mold.

Through their research, ORA aims to show that restitution is about much more than returning objects to their place of origin; it's about restoring the cultural and historical integrity of communities and nations. This approach prioritizes the voices and needs of Africans, as they work towards reclaiming their heritage and culture.

1. The Ngadji drum, a sacred cultural artifact of the Pokomo community in Kenya, is housed in the British Museum in London.
2. The Pokomo people have been making efforts to retrieve the Ngadji drum, an artifact instrumental in their religious and societal gatherings, since its confiscation by British colonial officers in 1902.
3. Researcher William Mutta Tsaka, affiliated with the National Museums of Kenya, wrote a case study on the Ngadji drum with financial aid from Open Restitution Africa (ORA) and the Mellon Foundation.
4. ORA's microgrant program has been providing unique resources to independent scholars and community activists, many of whom have traditionally relied on community fundraising or personal funding.
5. In their 2022 report titled "Reclaiming Restitution: Centering and Contextualizing the African Narrative," ORA identified a lack of African voices and perspectives in the typical research landscape.
6. ORA's research initiatives include case studies, an open data platform, webinars, and conferences, aiming to demonstrate that restitution is more than just returning objects to their country of origin.
7. Tsaka's research on the Ngadji drum involved travel to Tana River County, where he interviewed community members and representatives from the Recovery of the Ngadji initiative.
8. Internal disputes within the Pokomo community might be hindering the Ngadji drum's repatriation, as some elders argue that the Recovery of the Ngadji initiative began without the community's consent.
9. Through their research, ORA aims to show that restitution is about restoring the cultural and historical integrity of communities and nations, prioritizing the voices and needs of Africans as they work towards reclaiming their heritage and culture.

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