103 P.F. Biehl and C. Prescott, Heritage in the Context of Globalization: Europe and
the Americas, SpringerBriefs in Archaeology 8, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-6077-0_13,
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Introduction
Both of the authors of this chapter have experienced the rise of projects describing
what they do as “Virtual Repatriation.” Both of the authors have also been involved
for some time in collaborative data sharing between collecting institutions and
source communities, so we both have a strong commitment to projects that seek to
improve data sharing and even direct engagement of source communities with their
patrimony. However, we have also been very concerned with the association of the
term Repatriation with these projects of data sharing.
In this chapter we seek to explain why we feel that the association of “virtual”
and, especially, “repatriation” with these programs of data sharing is both inappro-
priate and even perilous. We begin by presenting a few examples of data sharing
projects as exemplars, and also our own project which seeks a different model of
data sharing (the Zuni Collaborative Catalog). We then go on to define repatriation
as a process of restitution of autochthonous material objects and practices, and how
the use of the terms “virtual” and “repatriation” cannot be used in these contexts
without accepting the full impact of the commanding praxis of these terms and their
historical legacies.
R. Boast (*)
Capaciteitsgroep Mediastudies, Universiteit van Amsterdam,
Turfdraagsterpad 9, 1012 XT Amsterdam, The Netherlands
e-mail: robinboast@gmail.com
J. Enote (*)
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge,
A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center, P.O. Box 1009, Zuni, NM 87327, USA
e-mail: jimenote@mac.com
Chapter 13
Virtual Repatriation: It Is Neither
Virtual nor Repatriation
Robin Boast and Jim Enote