Restitution of looted artefacts: a politico-economic issue

Current debates around restitution of looted art from Africa mostly ignore politico-economic aspects of neocolonialism, reflecting the trend in academia as well as the wider public to separate cultural from economic issues. This article first aims to show the importance of the plunder and looting of material belongings in the establishment of European colonial rule over the African continent. Building on this, the author then highlights the role that restitutions play in current international neocolonial relations and in the political economy of ethnological museums. The paper calls for a broader analysis of the political economy of postcolonial restitution to realise its anticolonial potential.