Table of Contents
The debate regarding ownership of antiquities is one that continually pits archaeologists against museums as well as the countries of origin of the items. Kwame Anthony Appiah’s, in the article titled “Whose Culture Is It?” explores this issue and points out that the cultural property narrative should be approached from a cosmopolitan point of view (2019). The author challenges the notion that cultural property ownership should exclude others, and instead holds that human beings have more to benefit from adopting shared cultures. Appiah also raises some serious questions regarding cultural continuity by exploring how the location of the artifacts could best be used as a source of value addition for the antiquities. Simply put, the approach taken by the author of “Whose Culture Is It?” is meant to offer support to an internationalist view of cultural property that would bring about more benefits in regard to the exchange of cultural products for all countries across the world.
Outline
This text provides a concise yet wide-ranging overview of the ethical or moral issues surrounding the cultural property. In doing so, Appiah utilizes several cultural as well as artistic illustrations to convince the reader that adopting a cosmopolitan attitude would be the best thing to do if cultural artifacts are to be perceived as valuable. The author’s claims come at a time when source countries are increasingly calling for more stringent laws that would restrict the export of cultural property to foreign states because, for them, such action is equal to looting. In a series of arguments, however, Appiah (2019) notes that the exhibition of such items in other places apart from the source country would encourage a culture of shared heritage. While the article’s title serves to engage the reader to critically rethink the idea of restricting the export of cultural memorabilia, the author’s support for their universal ownership remains questionable given the fact that museums holding most of the world’s antiquities are the ones who seem to benefit more from the display of the art.
Analysis
In the article “Whose Culture Is It,” Kwame Anthony Appiah quotes Walter Benjamin who claimed that the documents of civilization are indicators of the primitive nature by which they were obtained. The author additionally makes a note of the many disputes which involve various governments in regard to ownership of cultural objects. Until this point, it becomes agreeable that a considerable amount of cultural treasure is in the hands of the people who colonized the source countries. Appiah supports this assertion with the claim that curators and collectors who were once perceived as great historians are now vilified for looting or trafficking cultural artifacts. In the same breath, the writer says that museums which were regarded as pinnacles of cultural appreciation are now viewed as plunderers. It becomes surprisingly questionable, therefore, that the author can turn around and claim that cultural property should be universally owned.
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To prove that the concept of shared heritage, as well as ownership of cultural resources, is reasonable, Appiah raises the issue of belonging. According to the author, most of the cultural goods were produced a long time before the modern states came into being, and as a result cannot be taken to be the property of the current claimants (Appiah, 2019). His argument here would, however, seem to be flawed because any original item found within a country’s borders is always considered to be the property of the state unless an entity lays claim to it and proves beyond reasonable doubt that it is indeed theirs. It is even more perplexing that the author could choose to question the aspect of belonging when it is clear that the countries who hold the property of others themselves label them as originating from the source nations.
The other aspect that emerges from the contentious issue in Appiah’s article is the legal interpretation of the laws that govern how the cultural objects are acquired and exhibited. In the context of Appiah, objects that are perceived to be the property of a given people often bring about legal challenges because of the absence of a continuity title. The writer here tries to assert that since the identity of the people who last owned the artifacts cannot be ascertained, it should follow that the objects are made available to people who benefit from experiencing them. This argument, nevertheless, is not entirely convincing and can even be deemed to be a conservative response to the whole problem since there would never have been a problem of law if the issue of ownership had not been brought up. To put it differently, countries which claim ownership of the objects would not consider resorting to legal processes if they were sure that the artifacts did not have owners.
There are other difficulties with Appiah’s humanistic idea of cultural property ownership, and one of them is that the approach tends to demean the culture of those from whom the objects are obtained. In other words, it is much easier to put the debate regarding ownership to an end but doing so would amount to accepting that some countries or people are more special than others. The argument here is that if the artifacts are truly unifying, then the people who regard them as cosmopolitan items should have no problem visiting the countries where they originated from and appreciate them from there rather than having them transported halfway around the world to museums which charge visitors a fortune to view them. To be fair, some the proceeds of seeing such items should go to the source countries if the host nations are serious about the humane side of archaeology because anything other than that will always be perceived as neo-colonialism by the cultural groups from which the objects originated.
If the above considerations are insufficient in refuting Appiah’s claims, then one should look at the harm that is often done to cultural items while on transit. One of the reasons why these objects hold so much value is because they are unique works of art that cannot be reproduced with the same level of detail as the original ones. However, the fact that these items have to be taken on long voyages may mean that they are susceptible to damage which would then make them useless to “humanity.” In this way, the cultural information associated with the object may also be lost forever because it would be difficult to relate history to a thing that does not exist anymore. It is ironical, therefore, that Appiah would claim that the reason why we have lost a lot of information about antiquities is because of the regulations that have been put in place to preserve them.
As it stands, the central focus of “Whose Culture Is It?” is to determine that the best way of ensuring that cultural antiquities are well preserved for the good of all is by according them cosmopolitan ownership. To make this point clear, Appiah goes ahead and quotes a Hague convention adopted by UNESCO regarding the treatment of cultural items titled The Convention on the Means of Prohibiting the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (Appiah, 2019). According to the statute, cultural property represents one of the essential components of civilization as well as national culture, and its real value can only be perceived in terms of the manner in which information regarding its origin, history, and traditional setting. While this analysis intends to support Appiah’s cosmopolitan advocacy, it appears that it actually negates it since the literal translation of the statute points at countries taking more ownership of the things associated with them. This presumption becomes more evident in the second part of the convention which claims that every state should be more concerned about the moral obligations associated with their cultural heritage.
Conclusion
In summary, Kwame Anthony Appiah makes a passionate appeal through his article “Whose Culture Is It?” that cultural property should be universally owned if it is to benefit all of humanity (2019). However, it can be argued that while his intentions may be genuine, his approach is wrong because it tends to suggest that the countries where such properties originated from should never lay claim of ownership whatsoever. The author does this by stating that the aspect of belonging is relative and in so doing disregards the fact that the boundaries between countries exist for a reason. Appiah also raises legal concerns but at the same time forgets that no ownership problems would exist if the items were left in their original locations. As to the issue of universality, Appiah ignores the fact that even the nations who formerly hosted the cultural creators are capable of creating museums which can be visited by all who are genuinely appreciative of culture. Based on this evaluation, it would suffice to conclude that Appiah’s universal concept of cultural property ownership is not only flawed but is a mockery of the cultural significance of historical items.
