Returning Southeast Asia's Past: Objects, Museums, and Restitution ed. by Louise Tythacott and Panggah Ardiyansyah (review)

The media regularly report news concerning the restitution of cultural treasures by museums, with current topics including the transfer in the near future of the Benin bronzes that are held in the BritishMuseum to Nigeria and the return of art works of questionable provenance by the National Gallery of Australia to India. These relatively recent instances were preceded by high profile cases concerning thereturnbyvariouscountries, museums, and individuals of items looted by the Nazis; some of these restitutions occurred after the adoption of Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art at the Washington Conference of 1998. Theseprincipleswerenotable in recommending national processes for the implementation of restitutions, particularly in suggesting alternative dispute resolution mechanisms for resolving ownership issues. It is such complex issues surrounding restitution, object histories, and questions of ownership, mainly in the context of western institutions seeking to decolonize their collections, that are discussed and documented by the various authors in the 2021 publication Returning Southeast Asia’s Past: Objects, Museums, and Restitution, which is edited by Louise Tythacott and Panggah Ardiyansyah. This is the first book entirely devoted to object restitution to Southeast Asia. The contributors provide complementary perspectives as they are museum professionals and scholars from both Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, as well as Europe, North America, and Australia.