| By: Amy Shakespeare, International Repatriation Specialist Published in Association on American Indian Affairs, Indian Affairs Journal, Volume 195, Fall/Winter 2024 In 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron commissioned a report entitled The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics,(1) more commonly known as the Sarr-Savoy Report (after the authors). The report called for the unconditional return of African cultural heritage from French institutions. This followed Macron’s speech in Burkina Faso in 2017, where he promised to rebuild France and the African continent’s relationship, including the repatriation of African heritage which he referred to as being held “prisoner” by French museums.(2) |  |
The Sarr-Savoy Report caused a ripple effect across the European press and museum sector. The UK Museums Journal wrote that the report would “add to growing pressure on museums across Europe to re-examine their approach to the repatriation or restitution of colonial-era objects.(3) In the wake of the report, a few other countries published repatriation guidelines and policies. For instance, Germany released their national Framework Principles for Dealing with Collections from Colonial Contexts(4) and the Dutch government convened an advisory committee to produce their Guidance on the Way Forward for Colonial Collections.(5)
By this time, I had been working for nearly a decade in the UK museums and heritage sector. It was against this rapidly changing backdrop of reports, changing policies, and guidelines, that I began my PhD research at the University of Exeter, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. At the time, the UK had a conservative government who were vocal about their anti-repatriation stance. I was increasingly frustrated that the UK sector seemed stuck debating whether institutions should repatriate rather than focusing on how to repatriate. I aimed to analyse what could be learned from repatriations from UK museums over the past 30 years and utilise these findings to enable more British institutions to undertake repatriation through more anticolonial processes.
In 2023, I undertook a Smithsonian Fellowship at the National Museum of the American Indian’s Repatriation Department. Initially I went to research the NMAI Act and the museum’s approach to repatriation, to consider what UK institutions could learn from the NMAI. During my time there, I was also invited to sit in on the White House Council on Native American Affairs International Repatriation Subcommittee meetings. Through joining these meetings it became clear that the ever-changing landscape in Europe had made it difficult for those who were working on international repatriation to know where to focus their efforts. While some Native Nations were more experienced and already had established relationships, those who were just starting their international repatriation journeys were faced with a lack of available (and translated) information, difficult to navigate webpages, lack of contact details, and media headlines that did not always reflect the full picture.
I set out to research laws, policies, guidelines, and procedures, as well as interview museum professionals across Europe, to gather up-to-date information, which was often not written anywhere. Everyone that I spoke to was incredibly generous with their time and knowledge and demonstrated that there was a huge interest and commitment to do this work across Europe. As my own research in the UK had demonstrated, often individuals in institutions were very keen to do this work – even if the frameworks and contexts they were operating within were perhaps less amenable.
Through my research, I found that despite the Sarr-Savoy Report and the new German and Dutch policies and guidelines, France, Germany, and the Netherlands had been slow to act on repatriation. In conversations with museum professionals based in these countries, they often said that there was a lack of action because they had not yet been approached by Indigenous Nations about repatriation. And yet, these countries and institutions had often not reached out to Native Nations in the U.S. to share their collections information, or their new policies and procedures. While capacity and funding were often to blame for a lack of proactivity, it seemed that there needed to be something that could improve the sharing of these new policies and guidelines. This information needed to be put in the hands of those who could use it to bring their Ancestors and belongings home. Though there are often many reasons institutions cite for their lack of action on repatriation, the excuse that they had not heard from anyone about making a claim should not be used to delay repatriation any longer.
This ultimately led me to launch the website Routes to Return,(6) which features a free resource mapping 17 European countries’ laws, policies, and guidelines that govern their approaches to repatriation.(7) I update the resource regularly, every time that there is an update or change to a country’s approach. I hope it provides a useful starting point for Native Nations at the beginning of their international repatriation journeys and supports them to focus their efforts, by demonstrating which countries are open to, and able to act on, claims.
After launching Routes to Return, I began talking with the Association on American Indian Affairs. The Association has been working on international repatriation for the last decade, building upon their longstanding work on the protection of cultural heritage and sacred places. In this time, through consultation with their Tribal Partners Working Group, relationships within the federal government, and at their Annual Repatriation Conferences, they developed an International Repatriation Strategy. The long-term strategy aims to create a more time- and cost-effective international repatriation process that enables the return of multiple Ancestors and belongings from institutions to Native Nations, by building relationships and coalitions that will minimize the burden on Nations.
Through my conversations with the Association, we realized that there was a great synergy between the strategy the Association had been developing, and my own work on Routes to Return. The Association’s strategy aims to identify priority countries that are open to repatriation claims from Native Nations. By doing so, Nations can prioritize working with institutions in countries that already have the mechanisms to be able to act on repatriation, rather than countries which may need new laws passed to return to Native Nations, or that might not be welcoming to claims, yet.
At the end of 2023, the Association was awarded funding by the Mellon Foundation, part of which would enable them to implement their International Repatriation Strategy. I was delighted to be asked to start working with the Association on this. The strategy focuses on providing research and support to Native Nations looking to work on international repatriation. Though there are Native Nations that are already doing this work, the Association knows that there are many others who would like to but do not have the capacity or are not sure where to start. The strategy aims to give Native Nations as much information as possible about which institutions are open to this work, the collections they hold and potential affiliations, and how to make a successful claim. This should give Native Nations what they need to make international repatriation claims if they so choose to.
Starting in February 2024, I was able to utilize the networks that I have developed through Routes to Return to identify priority countries that are most likely to be open to claims from Native Nations. For example, some countries require new laws to be passed for repatriation to occur, or only accept claims from nation-states that they class as “ex-colonies,” which means that Native Nations may struggle to make progress on claims from these places. While there are nuances, opportunities, and challenges in every country, after careful research and several conversations, we chose to focus our efforts initially on Germany, Scotland, England, and Canada. We are continually keeping updated on new developments, and other countries will be added to this list as they too become open to repatriation claims from Native Nations. For this reason, I have been referring to the strategy as an “iterative prioritization process.”
We have then worked to determine priority institutions within these countries that have both relevant collections that are affiliated, or potentially affiliated, to Native Nations, and are also open to repatriation claims – as not all institutions are necessarily as ready as others. We have been working with these priority institutions to gather collections information as well as advice on what needs to be included in a successful repatriation claim. As we have already identified that these institutions are open to repatriation, they have been happy to promptly share information. It should be noted that technically this is all already public information, but institutions often do not have complete online databases – if any. Some institutions that have incomplete records have utilized our request for complete lists as a prompt to undertake additional research and allocate resources to compile inventory lists for Ancestors and belongings that are or may be affiliated to Native Nations.
Consistently through my research I have heard how institutions do not have the capacity, resources, or knowledge, to be proactive in contacting Native Nations that may be affiliated with the collections they hold. Therefore, the Association’s strategy then involves identifying and contacting relevant Native Nations that may be affiliated with the collections these institutions hold. As might be expected, this information often has a severe lack of any provenience or provenance information.(8) However, where we are able to, we are working to utilize any cultural or geographical information to contact relevant Nations and share all of the information we have gathered – both about the collections and the institution’s repatriation process. We have a team of interns who have been conducting outreach calls to Native Nations to ensure that we have the correct contact details so the information reaches who it needs to. If you work for a Native Nation, we will make sure you are contacted if and when we find any Ancestors and belongings that may relate to your Nation.
The strategy is then entirely guided by the Nations involved. We invite all Nations to a meeting to go over the information they have received about the institution and answer any questions they may have. If they then want to pursue a repatriation claim independently, they can contact the Association at any time for support. The Association is here to provide ongoing support to help enable more Ancestors and belongings to return home.
We have also been working to build coalitions of Nations that are interested in making claims to an institution together. Though Native Nations would still be making separate claims, there are a number of potential benefits to making them at the same time as part of a broader coalition. Unlike under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act where consultation and other activities precede a claim, for international institutions a claim is often the trigger for work beginning on an international repatriation. Submitting multiple claims creates a demand to the institution to provide resources and capacity to address these claims. Coalitions of Nations making claims together support the strategy’s aim of creating a more time- and cost-effective process for international repatriation.
The Association will not be making claims on anyone’s behalf, nor acting as an intermediary for these claims. However, we are there to support both Native Nations and the relevant institutions if needed and wanted at any stage. This could include drafting a template claim letter, reaching out to someone they have not heard back from to restart communications, or looking for funding to enable the physical return of Ancestors and belongings. The Association has the capacity to spend time ensuring that claims maintain momentum and are acted upon as swiftly as possible. This is an iterative strategy that must be guided by Native Nations and will change slightly depending on the policy of each institution. However, by working in this strategic way on a large scale, the Association hopes to support greater numbers of Ancestors and belongings to return home as promptly as possible.
Although I am excited to be working on the strategy for the Association, my work here in the UK continues, to ensure repatriation is acted upon as a matter of urgency. My own research, as well as the work I have been doing with the Association, has informed a new policy briefing I have authored urging the UK government to prioritize repatriation as a human rights issue.(9) We have an opportunity in the UK to harness the new Labour Government’s seeming interest in repatriation(10) to push for change. My briefing calls for the UK to honour its commitment to UNDRIP(11) by providing: a national policy on repatriation; specific ongoing funds for provenance research, training and skills programs, and physical returns; and the ability for national museums and galleries to act independently to repatriate cultural items on moral grounds. The briefing was published in October 2024 and has been featured in the national sector press.(12) Time will tell the impact that the briefing may have, but I remain hopeful that with a new government in place and more conversations happening, there may be change ahead soon.
In the meantime, the Association’s International Repatriation Strategy can only further the cause for this work to be prioritized here in the UK and Europe more broadly, by raising awareness, building relationships, connecting more Native Nations with their Ancestors and belongings currently held overseas, and making large-scale claims to bring them home.
Sources
1. Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy, (November 2018), The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics, About-africa.de/ images/sonstiges/2018/sarr_savoy_en.pdf, reviewed November 7, 2024.
2. Tristram Hunt, ‘Should Museums Return Their Colonial Artefacts?’, The Guardian, theguardian.com/culture/2019/jun/29/should-museums-returntheir-colonial-artefacts, reviewed November 21 2024.
3. Geraldine Kendall Adams, ‘A Sea Change in Restitution’, Museums Journal, (October 2019).
4. Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Federal Foreign Office Minister of State for International Cultural Policy, the Cultural Affairs Ministers of the Länder and the Municipal Umbrella Organisations, Framework Principles for Dealing with Collections from Colonial Contexts, (March 2019), Auswaertiges-amt.de/resource/blob/2210152/ b2731f8b59210c77c68177cdcd3d03de/190412-stm-m-sammlungsgutkolonial-kontext-en-data.pdf, reviewed November 8, 2024.
5. Deutscher Museums Bund, Guidelines for the Care of Collections from Colonial Contexts, (January 2021), museumsbund.de/publikationen/ guidelines-on-dealing-with-collections-from-colonial-contexts-2/, reviewed November 8, 2024.
6. Routes to Return, “Home,” Routestoreturn.com, reviewed November 10, 2024.
7. Routes to Return, “Understanding the European Museum Landscape,” Routestoreturn.com/understanding-the-european-museum-landscape, reviewed November 10, 2024.
8. Provenience means the actual place where an item originated; provenance refers to its chain of title or what happened after the item left its place of origination.
9. Routes to Return, “UK Policy Briefing,” Routestoreturn.com/policy-briefing-forthe-uk-government, reviewed November 10, 2024.
10. See Pippa Crerar, “Lisa Nandy: Tories” “Violent Indifference” to the Arts Damaged Access to Culture”, The Guardian, Theguardian.com/ culture/2024/sep/24/lisa-nandy-tories-violent-indifference-to-the-arts-gavepoor-access-to-culture?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other, reviewed September 24, 2024); Museums + Heritage Advisor, “Culture Secretary Seeks ‘Consistent’ Approach For Object Repatriation,” Museumsandheritage.com/advisor/ posts/culture-secretary-seeks-consistent-approach-for-object-repatriation/, reviewed 24 September 24, 2024; Gareth Harris, “Repatriation of Objects is on the Government’s Agenda, Says UK Culture Secretary,” The Art Newspaper, Theartnewspaper.com/2024/09/24/repatriation-of-objects-is-on-thegovernments-agenda-says-uk-culture-secretary, reviewed September 24, 2024.
11. United Nations, “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” (2007), UN.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wpcontent/uploads/sites/19/2018/ 11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf, reviewed November 10, 2024.
12. See Geraldine Kendall Adams, “UK Has Opportunity to Become a World Leader in International Repatriation,” Museums Journal, Museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2024/10/uk-hasopportunity-to-become-a-world-leader-in-international-repatriation/, reviewed October 29, 2024; Chris Sharratt, “Briefing Calls for Museums to be Given Repatriation Powers,” Arts Professional, Artsprofessional.co.uk/news/ briefing-calls-for-museums-to-be-given-repatration-powers?fbclid= IwY2x jawGZpTtleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHVee3ZuwB-KTRtjpOVDkdLzfh75wYQudak3 bsyB6FSfRWfktIo KgFa3VHA_aem_SpWNDTeccQiGG0HyxrN_Og, reviewed October 31, 2024.
By this time, I had been working for nearly a decade in the UK museums and heritage sector. It was against this rapidly changing backdrop of reports, changing policies, and guidelines, that I began my PhD research at the University of Exeter, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. At the time, the UK had a conservative government who were vocal about their anti-repatriation stance. I was increasingly frustrated that the UK sector seemed stuck debating whether institutions should repatriate rather than focusing on how to repatriate. I aimed to analyse what could be learned from repatriations from UK museums over the past 30 years and utilise these findings to enable more British institutions to undertake repatriation through more anticolonial processes.
In 2023, I undertook a Smithsonian Fellowship at the National Museum of the American Indian’s Repatriation Department. Initially I went to research the NMAI Act and the museum’s approach to repatriation, to consider what UK institutions could learn from the NMAI. During my time there, I was also invited to sit in on the White House Council on Native American Affairs International Repatriation Subcommittee meetings. Through joining these meetings it became clear that the ever-changing landscape in Europe had made it difficult for those who were working on international repatriation to know where to focus their efforts. While some Native Nations were more experienced and already had established relationships, those who were just starting their international repatriation journeys were faced with a lack of available (and translated) information, difficult to navigate webpages, lack of contact details, and media headlines that did not always reflect the full picture.
I set out to research laws, policies, guidelines, and procedures, as well as interview museum professionals across Europe, to gather up-to-date information, which was often not written anywhere. Everyone that I spoke to was incredibly generous with their time and knowledge and demonstrated that there was a huge interest and commitment to do this work across Europe. As my own research in the UK had demonstrated, often individuals in institutions were very keen to do this work – even if the frameworks and contexts they were operating within were perhaps less amenable.
Through my research, I found that despite the Sarr-Savoy Report and the new German and Dutch policies and guidelines, France, Germany, and the Netherlands had been slow to act on repatriation. In conversations with museum professionals based in these countries, they often said that there was a lack of action because they had not yet been approached by Indigenous Nations about repatriation. And yet, these countries and institutions had often not reached out to Native Nations in the U.S. to share their collections information, or their new policies and procedures. While capacity and funding were often to blame for a lack of proactivity, it seemed that there needed to be something that could improve the sharing of these new policies and guidelines. This information needed to be put in the hands of those who could use it to bring their Ancestors and belongings home. Though there are often many reasons institutions cite for their lack of action on repatriation, the excuse that they had not heard from anyone about making a claim should not be used to delay repatriation any longer.
This ultimately led me to launch the website Routes to Return,(6) which features a free resource mapping 17 European countries’ laws, policies, and guidelines that govern their approaches to repatriation.(7) I update the resource regularly, every time that there is an update or change to a country’s approach. I hope it provides a useful starting point for Native Nations at the beginning of their international repatriation journeys and supports them to focus their efforts, by demonstrating which countries are open to, and able to act on, claims.
After launching Routes to Return, I began talking with the Association on American Indian Affairs. The Association has been working on international repatriation for the last decade, building upon their longstanding work on the protection of cultural heritage and sacred places. In this time, through consultation with their Tribal Partners Working Group, relationships within the federal government, and at their Annual Repatriation Conferences, they developed an International Repatriation Strategy. The long-term strategy aims to create a more time- and cost-effective international repatriation process that enables the return of multiple Ancestors and belongings from institutions to Native Nations, by building relationships and coalitions that will minimize the burden on Nations.
Through my conversations with the Association, we realized that there was a great synergy between the strategy the Association had been developing, and my own work on Routes to Return. The Association’s strategy aims to identify priority countries that are open to repatriation claims from Native Nations. By doing so, Nations can prioritize working with institutions in countries that already have the mechanisms to be able to act on repatriation, rather than countries which may need new laws passed to return to Native Nations, or that might not be welcoming to claims, yet.
At the end of 2023, the Association was awarded funding by the Mellon Foundation, part of which would enable them to implement their International Repatriation Strategy. I was delighted to be asked to start working with the Association on this. The strategy focuses on providing research and support to Native Nations looking to work on international repatriation. Though there are Native Nations that are already doing this work, the Association knows that there are many others who would like to but do not have the capacity or are not sure where to start. The strategy aims to give Native Nations as much information as possible about which institutions are open to this work, the collections they hold and potential affiliations, and how to make a successful claim. This should give Native Nations what they need to make international repatriation claims if they so choose to.
Starting in February 2024, I was able to utilize the networks that I have developed through Routes to Return to identify priority countries that are most likely to be open to claims from Native Nations. For example, some countries require new laws to be passed for repatriation to occur, or only accept claims from nation-states that they class as “ex-colonies,” which means that Native Nations may struggle to make progress on claims from these places. While there are nuances, opportunities, and challenges in every country, after careful research and several conversations, we chose to focus our efforts initially on Germany, Scotland, England, and Canada. We are continually keeping updated on new developments, and other countries will be added to this list as they too become open to repatriation claims from Native Nations. For this reason, I have been referring to the strategy as an “iterative prioritization process.”
We have then worked to determine priority institutions within these countries that have both relevant collections that are affiliated, or potentially affiliated, to Native Nations, and are also open to repatriation claims – as not all institutions are necessarily as ready as others. We have been working with these priority institutions to gather collections information as well as advice on what needs to be included in a successful repatriation claim. As we have already identified that these institutions are open to repatriation, they have been happy to promptly share information. It should be noted that technically this is all already public information, but institutions often do not have complete online databases – if any. Some institutions that have incomplete records have utilized our request for complete lists as a prompt to undertake additional research and allocate resources to compile inventory lists for Ancestors and belongings that are or may be affiliated to Native Nations.
Consistently through my research I have heard how institutions do not have the capacity, resources, or knowledge, to be proactive in contacting Native Nations that may be affiliated with the collections they hold. Therefore, the Association’s strategy then involves identifying and contacting relevant Native Nations that may be affiliated with the collections these institutions hold. As might be expected, this information often has a severe lack of any provenience or provenance information.(8) However, where we are able to, we are working to utilize any cultural or geographical information to contact relevant Nations and share all of the information we have gathered – both about the collections and the institution’s repatriation process. We have a team of interns who have been conducting outreach calls to Native Nations to ensure that we have the correct contact details so the information reaches who it needs to. If you work for a Native Nation, we will make sure you are contacted if and when we find any Ancestors and belongings that may relate to your Nation.
The strategy is then entirely guided by the Nations involved. We invite all Nations to a meeting to go over the information they have received about the institution and answer any questions they may have. If they then want to pursue a repatriation claim independently, they can contact the Association at any time for support. The Association is here to provide ongoing support to help enable more Ancestors and belongings to return home.
We have also been working to build coalitions of Nations that are interested in making claims to an institution together. Though Native Nations would still be making separate claims, there are a number of potential benefits to making them at the same time as part of a broader coalition. Unlike under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act where consultation and other activities precede a claim, for international institutions a claim is often the trigger for work beginning on an international repatriation. Submitting multiple claims creates a demand to the institution to provide resources and capacity to address these claims. Coalitions of Nations making claims together support the strategy’s aim of creating a more time- and cost-effective process for international repatriation.
The Association will not be making claims on anyone’s behalf, nor acting as an intermediary for these claims. However, we are there to support both Native Nations and the relevant institutions if needed and wanted at any stage. This could include drafting a template claim letter, reaching out to someone they have not heard back from to restart communications, or looking for funding to enable the physical return of Ancestors and belongings. The Association has the capacity to spend time ensuring that claims maintain momentum and are acted upon as swiftly as possible. This is an iterative strategy that must be guided by Native Nations and will change slightly depending on the policy of each institution. However, by working in this strategic way on a large scale, the Association hopes to support greater numbers of Ancestors and belongings to return home as promptly as possible.
Although I am excited to be working on the strategy for the Association, my work here in the UK continues, to ensure repatriation is acted upon as a matter of urgency. My own research, as well as the work I have been doing with the Association, has informed a new policy briefing I have authored urging the UK government to prioritize repatriation as a human rights issue.(9) We have an opportunity in the UK to harness the new Labour Government’s seeming interest in repatriation(10) to push for change. My briefing calls for the UK to honour its commitment to UNDRIP(11) by providing: a national policy on repatriation; specific ongoing funds for provenance research, training and skills programs, and physical returns; and the ability for national museums and galleries to act independently to repatriate cultural items on moral grounds. The briefing was published in October 2024 and has been featured in the national sector press.(12) Time will tell the impact that the briefing may have, but I remain hopeful that with a new government in place and more conversations happening, there may be change ahead soon.
In the meantime, the Association’s International Repatriation Strategy can only further the cause for this work to be prioritized here in the UK and Europe more broadly, by raising awareness, building relationships, connecting more Native Nations with their Ancestors and belongings currently held overseas, and making large-scale claims to bring them home.
Sources
1. Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy, (November 2018), The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics, About-africa.de/ images/sonstiges/2018/sarr_savoy_en.pdf, reviewed November 7, 2024.
2. Tristram Hunt, ‘Should Museums Return Their Colonial Artefacts?’, The Guardian, theguardian.com/culture/2019/jun/29/should-museums-returntheir-colonial-artefacts, reviewed November 21 2024.
3. Geraldine Kendall Adams, ‘A Sea Change in Restitution’, Museums Journal, (October 2019).
4. Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Federal Foreign Office Minister of State for International Cultural Policy, the Cultural Affairs Ministers of the Länder and the Municipal Umbrella Organisations, Framework Principles for Dealing with Collections from Colonial Contexts, (March 2019), Auswaertiges-amt.de/resource/blob/2210152/ b2731f8b59210c77c68177cdcd3d03de/190412-stm-m-sammlungsgutkolonial-kontext-en-data.pdf, reviewed November 8, 2024.
5. Deutscher Museums Bund, Guidelines for the Care of Collections from Colonial Contexts, (January 2021), museumsbund.de/publikationen/ guidelines-on-dealing-with-collections-from-colonial-contexts-2/, reviewed November 8, 2024.
6. Routes to Return, “Home,” Routestoreturn.com, reviewed November 10, 2024.
7. Routes to Return, “Understanding the European Museum Landscape,” Routestoreturn.com/understanding-the-european-museum-landscape, reviewed November 10, 2024.
8. Provenience means the actual place where an item originated; provenance refers to its chain of title or what happened after the item left its place of origination.
9. Routes to Return, “UK Policy Briefing,” Routestoreturn.com/policy-briefing-forthe-uk-government, reviewed November 10, 2024.
10. See Pippa Crerar, “Lisa Nandy: Tories” “Violent Indifference” to the Arts Damaged Access to Culture”, The Guardian, Theguardian.com/ culture/2024/sep/24/lisa-nandy-tories-violent-indifference-to-the-arts-gavepoor-access-to-culture?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other, reviewed September 24, 2024); Museums + Heritage Advisor, “Culture Secretary Seeks ‘Consistent’ Approach For Object Repatriation,” Museumsandheritage.com/advisor/ posts/culture-secretary-seeks-consistent-approach-for-object-repatriation/, reviewed 24 September 24, 2024; Gareth Harris, “Repatriation of Objects is on the Government’s Agenda, Says UK Culture Secretary,” The Art Newspaper, Theartnewspaper.com/2024/09/24/repatriation-of-objects-is-on-thegovernments-agenda-says-uk-culture-secretary, reviewed September 24, 2024.
11. United Nations, “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” (2007), UN.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wpcontent/uploads/sites/19/2018/ 11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf, reviewed November 10, 2024.
12. See Geraldine Kendall Adams, “UK Has Opportunity to Become a World Leader in International Repatriation,” Museums Journal, Museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2024/10/uk-hasopportunity-to-become-a-world-leader-in-international-repatriation/, reviewed October 29, 2024; Chris Sharratt, “Briefing Calls for Museums to be Given Repatriation Powers,” Arts Professional, Artsprofessional.co.uk/news/ briefing-calls-for-museums-to-be-given-repatration-powers?fbclid= IwY2x jawGZpTtleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHVee3ZuwB-KTRtjpOVDkdLzfh75wYQudak3 bsyB6FSfRWfktIo KgFa3VHA_aem_SpWNDTeccQiGG0HyxrN_Og, reviewed October 31, 2024.
