In the Midst of a Response: Crafting Cultural Collaboration Investigating France’s Sarr-Savoy Report and its Repercussions on Art Repatriation Debates

Abstract

In November 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron promised, in a speech in Burkina Faso, that France would work to repatriate African cultural heritage within five years. One year later, “The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics,” known as the Sarr-Savoy Report, was published, providing criteria and guidelines to enable such restitutions. Analyzing France’s Sarr-Savoy Report and Macron’s speech, this essay investigates the shifting trend towards increased action in resolving art restitution debates and assuring the repatriation of illegally and unethically removed works of art. The paper examines the violence involved in acquisitions such as the British Punitive Expedition of 1897, and studies three recent repatriation disputes involving African art: The University of Cambridge’s removal from display of a metal cockerel sculpture taken during the British Punitive Expedition of 1897, The Boston Museum’s decision to keep certain works of African art and repatriate others, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s restitution of the Coffin of Nedjemankh. These instances are set in contrast to the British Museum’s refusal to permanently return Greece’s Parthenon Marbles to Athens. Evaluating these critical past decisions as well as the Sarr-Savoy Report’s potential future implications for widespread government regulation and law revision, the paper delves into the following topics: who owns cultural heritage and whether it is inherently local or global, whether repatriations should be permanent or temporary, how law and morality factor into such decisions, and how works’ changing contexts impact public perception. It also interrogates museums’ roles and stakes in resolving cultural heritage disputes.