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Introduction- Negotiating Ownership Claims: Changing Attitudes toward Cultural Property
- University of Massachusetts Press
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1 Introduction Negotiating Ownership Claims Changing Attitudes toward Cultural Property R Laetitia La Follette Rival claims in the realm of culture represent some of the most contentious issues in the world today, appearing in the news on a weekly if not daily basis. Some of the highest-profile cases have involved disputes over material objects—Native American remains, Greek and Roman antiquities, works of art looted by the Nazis—with important repercussions for museums as well as the disciplines of anthropology, archaeology, and art history. But debates over the ownership and control of nontangible cultural property are also shaping fields as diverse as economics , history, genetic studies, linguistics, and philosophy. The results are changing attitudes toward ownership,calling attention to the need for dialogue, negotiation, and collaboration over contested cultural property. The burgeoning interest in cultural ownership is also reflected in the proliferation of college courses and university master’s-degree programs devoted to aspects of this topic. While coverage by the media tends to stress the opposing sides of a given conflict, often further inflaming passions rather than suggesting a path to resolution, much of the academic literature on cultural heritage has become highly specialized,with significant bibliography in anthropology, cultural heritage management, legal studies, museum studies, and public art issues, but little dialogue across these areas.1 2 å Introduction The aim of this book is to offer both a broader and a deeper approach, allowing the reader—interested layperson, advanced undergraduate, engaged graduate student, or even the professional somewhat familiar with some of these issues—the chance to pursue the subject of owning culture in a variety of contexts. It brings together a series of case studies by preeminent scholars, each focusing on a particular example of cultural ownership—from contests over tangible artifacts to those over more abstract forms of culture, such as language and oral traditions, to current studies of DNA and genes that combine nature and culture, to new nonproprietary economic and political models. In time and space, the material discussed extends from prehistoric North America to fascist and Republican Spain, from the Greco-Roman Mediterranean to Vedic India, from discrete Indigenous communities to the contemporary technological revolutions of global cyberspace. Each essay sets the debate in question in its historical and disciplinary context to illustrate the arena(s) in which such disputes arise, show how they have been approached, and suggest ways in which these approaches are changing or should change. Intended as a tool with which to begin, or continue, exploration into the very timely issues of cultural heritage and intellectual property, Negotiating Culture stresses the importance of dialogue and careful listening as prerequisites to the negotiations and collaborations such disputes entail. One of the most innovative aspects of the volume is the way each author recognizes the social dimensions of group ownership and demonstrates the need for renegotiation and new models.Taken as a whole, the collection challenges the reader to reevaluate traditional ways of thinking about cultural ownership, such as those that focus solely on legal aspects, and stresses the importance of the broader social contexts within which negotiation over the ownership of culture is taking place. The unusual interdisciplinary nature of this volume owes its origins to a sustained series of conversations on the topic of cultural ownership hosted by the Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities and Fine Arts (ISHA) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2006–2007. The diversity of contributors to the initial seminar made its discussions an exercise in interdisciplinary practice, and the collaborative nature of the enterprise has had lasting effect on the composition and contents of the final volume. Two essays, one by Margaret Speas on Navajo language revitalization and the other by Joe Watkins on Native American remains, [34.238.143.70] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:35 GMT) z 3 Negotiating Ownership Claims were invited to supplement the chapters contributed by members of the original seminar, to showcase in particular the way thinking about Indigenous cultural property is changing. Many of the authors address the way academic boundaries are constructed and how we negotiate and interact across them. This includes the recognition that while different kinds of knowledge have their own authority, the exchanges that take place between such diverse forms of knowledge can be both rewarding and fruitful. Although each essay is grounded in disciplinary practice, the topics have far-reaching consequences beyond the academy. The chapters have been grouped into three parts. Part I, Contested Physical Culture, deals with...