Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

life of people of the collectivity”
political
2003).
(Thompson
an item of cultural property is very
When
linked to the identity of an existing
closely
it may be referred to as “cultural
collectivity,
According to James Cuno, this
patrimony”.
not something owned by a people, but
“is
of them, a part of their defining
something
identity” (Cuno 2001). The more
collective
the item, the more likely it is to pass
important
who counts as a member of a cultural
However,
It might be pointless to argue about a
group?
owning property if the members of that
culture
cannot be identified. But this should
culture
be used as an easy excuse to dismiss claims
not
patrimony. Kwame Anthony Appiah points
to
as an issue, is much more tangible
Ownership,
the issue of appropriation, which can have
than
for the authenticity of a work, and
implications
rewards accruing to it. In its technically
the
form, appropriation is recognized as a
legitimate
of artistically recontextualizing something
means
to create a new work. There are at least
borrowed
categories of dubious appropriation: the
two
obvious is the appropriation of economic
most
material value, as many such artworks can
or
invaluable. The Koh-i-Noor, for example, one
be
the largest diamonds in the world, was taken
of
Punjab in 1849 and subsequently worn
from
Queen Victoria in a brooch. It is currently
by
of the British Crown Jewels. Less obvious
part
the appropriation of cultural, artistic and/or
is
we have the appropriation of narratives,
First,
told without the participation of
as
groups to whom an artwork’s
contemporary
and/or significance can be traced.
provenance
the last century, Indigenous Peoples’
Over
has been interpreted, studied, exhibited
art
Nigerians claim a Nok sculpture
“When
part of their patrimony, they are
as
for a nation whose boundaries
claiming
less than a century old, the works of a
are
more than two millennia ago,
civilization
by a people that no longer exists,
created
whose descendants we know nothing
and
(Appiah 2006)
about.”
corollary of this problem is how we can
The
for instance, that an artwork or artefact
know,
taken (or given) unjustly in the first place:
was
is allowed to give something on behalf of
who
cultural group? Is it their kings, leaders or
a
Is consensus required?
elders?
systems of property rights may be
Legal
by these concepts, but progress
challenged
required, especially given the many cases
is
cultural continuity to a contemporary
where
appropriated innumerable times without
and
participation. Painfully, cultural work
their
Indigenous People was often “treated as
by
history, to be filed away with rocks and
natural
carcasses, rather than treated as a vital
bird
in its own right” (Farago 2015). This is
culture
an ethical as well as knowledge
simultaneously
to what extent can we understand the
issue:
and more broadly the material
artworks,
immaterial culture, without the active
and
of the subject group? In light of
participation
we have encountered in this chapter so far,
what
you say that this art can speak for itself,
would
be spoken for by outsiders?
or
II. Perspectives
II. Perspectives
beyond the category of property.
out the following.
group—the “moral descendents”—is traceable.
II.4.2 Appropriation
In Paris, for example, pre-Columbian sculptures have
migrated over and over: from the Louvre and the
Musée Guimet in the early-to-mid-19th Century, where
historical narratives.
they were exhibited as antiquities; to the ethnographic
Trocadéro in the late 19th Century, where aesthetics
were irrelevant; and now to the Musée du Quai Branly,
which proudly calls itself an art museum.
(Farago 2015)
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