VIRTUAL Barcelona

Abstract

The debate about who ought to possess items which have been removed from their original location is sharply polarised between two camps. One (“conservationist”) maintains that they are best served in world-class museums, where they can be safely preserved and studied for the benefit of all. The other (“cultural nationalist”) maintains that such items have been appropriated as loot by colonialist or imperialist forces, and should be repatriated to their original location and cultural context. This paper questions both positions, with regard to three well-known groups of items: the Elgin Marbles, the Benin Bronzes, and the Stones of Callanish. The questioner, a Scot, examines how elusive the concept of “ownership” is, when it comes to the only group that remains in its original location, in Scotland, and to which a Scot might be understood as having some continuous, retained cultural title. This paper does not resolve the polarised debate, nor does it suggest some sort of compromise. It does however suggest that there is a disjunction between either position and our contemporary selves, that anything we think we “own” we only lease, as human life is finite, and moreover that this lease is experienced only in moment-to-moment phenomena. This paper draws on the work of phenomenologist Gaston Bachelard to express these momentary experiences, and suggests that both conservationists and cultural nationalists might well question their own understanding of “ownership.”