In the historical context of the repatriation of stolen African objects preserved in European museums, little attention has been paid to the endogenous spaces and structures of conservation from which African objects have been extracted since the 15th century. However, the museum institution that Europe seeks to impose on African societies as a solution to their current conservation is a recent initiative and not adapted to African realities. Furthermore, the aim of the debate on the spoliation of African cultural property is not to insist essentially on the problem of provenance or documentation of the stolen objects, even less on the “actors of the theft” or “collectors,” but to question the meaning and significance of African cultural productions in time and space. It is a question of proposing a historical-cultural reading of African societies, contradicting the discourses that disfavor the return of looted objects. The authors and promoters of these discourses, denying the African societies that produced and used these stolen cultural objects, the ability to receive and preserve them properly.

Argument

In the historical context of the repatriation of stolen African objects held in european museums, little attention has been paid to the endogenous structures for the conservation of cultural property from which African objects have been extracted or stolen since the 15th century. The question of restitution and repatriation, which divides European opinion, with some in favor and others against, once again raises the issue of endogenous structures for the conservation of African cultural property. The question of whether Africans have structures in place to receive returned and repatriated objects expresses the arrogance and condescension of non-African people. This question, apparently harmless but expressing ignorance of African realities, reflects ignorance of the work done by Africans to set up huts or conservation areas for precious objects, emptied of their contents since the slave trade, to be housed in museums and art galleries.

If you turn this question around and ask yourself where the objects currently housed in Western museums and galleries were kept, you'll realize that those who looted them have no arguments to justify their refusal or reluctance to restitute and repatriate them. All in all, what Africans are demanding is, no more and no less, the repatriation of all their objects, even if they have to organize themselves as they see fit and in their own way to solve the problem of their conservation once repatriated.  The spaces invented and created by Africans to conserve their cultural assets are thus regaining their importance, and are consequently becoming a major cultural issue for all African societies. The project to publish a book linking the issue of restitution/repatriation of cultural property looted during colonization and the age-old spaces in which it is preserved seems to us to be timely and of major interest. The reflections it will provoke should lead to a good understanding of the endogenous structures for conserving African cultural heritage, in particular with regard to their phenomenology, their architecture, their functioning, their place in the cosmological universe, and the systems of values, norms, representations, symbols and beliefs of African societies.   The craft and artistic production of African societies goes back thousands of years, and is extraordinarily rich. The extreme diversity of the natural environment has provided craftsmen and artists with a wide range of supports or mediums, which the ingenuity of the peoples has exploited to create utilitarian objects and works of art. These include, but are not limited to, stone, clay, woody and non-woody forest products - wood, bark, fruit, leaves, creepers - and animal products - horns, bones, skins, hooves, ivory, teeth, hair, wool, shells.  

Objects created over the course of history and which have stood the test of time, come to us, for the most part, altered or in a good state of preservation. They are part of humanity's cultural heritage. Those bequeathed by early societies are found in archaeological sites, when they have not been destroyed by the exploitation of natural resources or land development, or in caves or rock shelters. Sub-actual and present-day societies, heirs to the original societies with which they share conservation behaviors, have structured their thinking in terms of safeguarding cultural property.  

For these societies, the creation of “works” or the manufacture of handicrafts was accompanied by initiatives to preserve goods for cultural, ritual, liturgical or religious, medical and economic uses, among others. Endogenous structures for the conservation of cultural goods are an offshoot of these initiatives.

Throughout the African continent, these structures have been set up to house works of art, ritual objects, weapons, ornaments for feminine and masculine aesthetics, the skulls or relics of ancestors or chiefs, and so on. These conservation structures, which have resisted the invasion of the museum, an element of Western culture, in certain African societies, represent sanctuaries of the culture of these societies, true spaces of reconnection with the ancestors and resourcing. Their spiritual, social, cultural, symbolic and religious value is well established. Consequently, they have always been surrounded by all the care necessary for their perpetuation, before contact with the Arabs in the context of the Muslim conquests and the expansion of Islam, on the one hand, and with the West, in the context of the slave trade and colonial imperialism, on the other.  

The cultural and social disruptions and destructuring resulting from these encounters have had serious repercussions on Africa's endogenous cultural heritage conservation structures. When these spaces have not been systematically destroyed by invaders, they have simply been emptied of their contents, a traumatic situation that has led to their decline or disappearance in certain African chiefdoms, where the museum has become the flagship institution introduced by Westerners to replace endogenous conservation structures, even though African communities, to this day, do not know what a museum is as conceived by its inventors. A synoptic look at African societies as a whole shows that the museum, an element of Western culture, once again triumphs over the structures patiently invented and put in place by Africans. The institution of the museum, promoted by the political, economic and even intellectual elite, is invading African cities and not sparing the countryside: in Cameroon, for example, we hear of “chieftaincy museums” and “community museums”, without the populations or communities themselves even knowing what a museum really is. A concept to which the West itself can no longer give a precise, unambiguous content.  

A brief historical review places potential contributors in the context of the spoliation of objects and the claims resulting from these acts of cultural destructuring. The movement for the restitution/repatriation of African objects looted during the colonial era is a long-standing undertaking. This initiative, which has not prospered, began during the colonial period and continued in the 1970s, after the independence of African countries. Intellectuals and politicians such as Haile Selasie of Ethiopia, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now the DRC) and Ahmadou Ahidjo of Cameroon, among others, were the first to call for colonization.  

Although the United Nations (UN) adopted Resolution 3187 on the “Restitution of works of art to countries victims of expropriation” as a corollary. (UN, 1973), it should be pointed out that at the time, Europe was not very favorable to the restitution of objects to their former African colonies. Colonial-era collections were considered to be just objects of lesser value, purchased or donated by the Africans themselves (Strugalla, 2020: 106-107).  Between 1976 and 1981, the former Congolese president's initiative had positive repercussions. The Belgian government returned to the Congo 1,042 objects acquired during colonization (Strugalla, 2020: 112). In Cameroon, an art collector named Warrem Robbins recognized the AfoAkom. With the support of members of the Kom community living in America, funds were raised to purchase the statue from the New York City Museum and bring it back to Cameroon. This glory will not last long.  By the end of the 1980s, all this had faded away, despite the relentless increase in requests. It should be noted that in the second half of the twentieth century, questions of “provenance research funds” or “conservation structures” to house returned cultural property or the “capacity of Africans to conserve and manage them” were not yet being raised.  Africa's commitment to the restitution/repatriation battle was then real. 

What's more, the likelihood of objects being traced and returned to the place where they were taken was much greater than it is today for the depositary generations or societies. You had to strike while the iron was hot!  This commitment, fuelled by nationalist and pan-Africanist sentiment, was killed off by the refusal of Westerners to comply, to recognize the purely cultural and identity-related values of these looted and loudly-claimed objects. 

At the beginning of the 21st century, we are witnessing a resurgence of the movement, this time emanating from the West via French President Macron's 2017 speech in Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou). This raises questions about this sudden turnaround in the situation, and in particular about the real motivations behind this European restitution/repatriation action. According to studies, ninety percent (90%) of African cultural heritage is preserved in European museums. There are almost ninety thousand (90,0000) African objects in France and around forty thousand nine hundred and fifty (40950) in Germany (Sarr-Savoy 2018, Beatrice Cohen 2019 Gouafo-Savoy 2023).  How can it be that, more than 40 years after African claims were ignored or disregarded, the issue of the restitution/repatriation of looted African artifacts is back on the agenda, with a Western focus on provenance, political and legal instruments and the economic implications surrounding the subject? An issue in which social debates cast doubt on Africa's economic, legal, political and technical capacity to deal with the issue of restitution/repatriation and conservation of their cultural property.  

Yet just a few years ago, this ambiguity was absent from the debate, and only “nationalist” arguments were in force. From this perspective, Africa should clearly and unequivocally state that its problem is not one of provenance, but of reconstitution of its cultural base. After all, the spoliation of cultural property during colonization weakened and destructured African societies.  An urgent reflection, proposing a cultural-historical reading of African societies, questioning the meaning and significance of African cultural productions in time/space, is needed to reconstitute its identity.  We must also react to the proliferation of discourse or ideologies on the restitution/repatriation of looted African objects. The authors and promoters of these discourses deny the African societies that produce and use stolen cultural goods the capacity to receive and properly conserve them, while the museum institution that they seek to impose on these societies, which are not familiar with it, is posterior to endogenous conservation structures.  

This is the background to the initiative to publish a collective book on endogenous structures for the conservation of African cultural property. In view of the preconceived notions about the future of the objects to be returned, and the immeasurable triumph or creation of museums in Africa to meet the need to preserve cultural property, we have to wonder whether Africa has suddenly forgotten its cultural foundation as a result of Islam, Christianity, colonization or globalization.  The place of African cultural heritage in its diversity, and the structures patiently invented and developed for its conservation, remain a major concern, particularly at this crucial moment when a certain Western ideology is trying to show that the continent does not have the means nor the capacity to collect and properly conserve repatriated looted objects.

Objectives

• To understand the phenomenology and the dynamics of endogenous conservation structures in Africa in all their diversity, as a basis for ensuring their sustainability and resilience in relation to the museum institution. 
• Sustainable preservation of a cultural element of immeasurable interest to African assets and communities. 
• Reconquest of the spaces occupied by the museum institution, which is invasive and triumphant, though little known to the African village and urban masses, and which, incidentally, does not seem to function well where it is established, despite the failures of chiefdom museums observed in Cameroon and elsewhere.  
• African position on the restitution/repatriation of African objects looted during colonization, and on the devaluing discourse that sustains the ideology of Africans' inability to conserve repatriated goods.  
• Strategy for reclaiming objects looted by Westerners in Africa during the colonial period based on local legal instruments and consequent research actions. 
• Rehabilitation and promotion of endogenous structures in decline with the repatriation of looted African artifacts, an opportunity to strengthen African identities, clearly weakened by the decline of the places where their cultural goods are conserved.   

Areas for debate

1.Cartography, architecture, nomenclature and characteristics of endogenous structures for the conservation of cultural property in Africa

The aim of this section is to map and analyze the phenomenology of endogenous structures for the conservation of cultural property in Africa. 

2. Cultural property management practices in endogenous conservation structures

The conservation, repair or restoration of cultural property is not a matter of chance. They are based on methods and techniques patiently invented and tested by African societies to collect materials and transform them. An analysis of these methods and techniques would provide a good understanding of the activities and operations carried out by endogenous conservation structures in Africa.  

3. Dynamics of endogenous conservation structures in Africa 

Archaeological and historical approach. Spaces set aside for the conservation of cultural property are not static, but are transformed by innovations and socio-cultural, environmental and economic changes. A reading of these dynamics is a major concern of the project.  

4. The place of endogenous structures for conserving cultural heritage in the symbolic, beliefs, social representations systems and cosmogony in the functioning of social groups in Africa (an anthropological, sociological and psych sociological reading)

The value of works preserved in local structures is indisputable. They are, of course, material objects, but it's enough to enter into the logic and spirit of the creators of these objects to understand their syncretic character, whose materiality imposes itself on the superficial eye. In the entities preserved in sanctuaries, huts and sacred places, the material is consubstantial with the immaterial or spiritual. The craftsman or artist who brings the object into existence, in the ontological sense of the term, exploits various media or supports to create visual forms reflecting elements of the structured whole of values, norms, symbols, social representations, cosmogonies and beliefs.  Authors must therefore help readers understand what endogenous conservation structures do to African societies, and what these societies do to conservation structures. It is also imperative to respond to the ideology of the inability of African societies to properly conserve repatriated goods, which is fuelled by many discourses whose authors, with their eyes riveted on the museum institution, have no knowledge of endogenous structures for the conservation of cultural goods.

5. African legal and economic instruments and actions in favor of scientific research for the conservation of looted cultural property.   

The question of the restitution of cultural property is linked to a multitude of issues. While international and European legal instruments proliferate, the same cannot be said for the notion of provenance, which is a prerequisite for the restitution of stolen objects. From an economic point of view, initiatives to support provenance research continue to be driven by the West. Most recently, the French Ministry of Culture and the German Federal Government's Delegate for Culture and Media commissioned the Marc Bloch Centre to launch specific bi-national calls for proposals for collaborative research projects between German and French museums and scientific research institutions on the provenance of cultural objects from sub-Saharan Africa. But what about African nations? What alternatives do they offer for conducting “reverse” provenance research, independently of European subsidies? This section focuses on the efficiency and effectiveness of African legal instruments, economic dependence on the restitution/repatriation of cultural property looted in Africa by Westerners, and investment in scientific research.

6.Issues and challenges of safeguarding endogenous structures for the conservation of cultural property in the current context of repatriation of African objects looted during the colonial period

Temples, sanctuaries, sacred forests, rock shelters, and huts, treatment sites for the sick, skull conservation huts and necropolises, among others, patiently thought out and materialized over the course of history, have always been important places for preserving the cultural assets of African societies. In contact with otherness, notably the West, in the context of the slave trade and colonial imperialism, these structures were plundered, emptied of their contents, and worse still, destroyed, as a consequence of the violence that marked the age-old relationship between Africans and Europeans. The introduction of the museum institution, an element of Western culture, unknown to the populations of African villages or chiefdoms, but promoted by the elites, seems to have triumphed, to the detriment of endogenous structures for the conservation of African cultural property. The present project is an opportunity for teachers and researchers to reflect on what needs to be done to strengthen existing structures, rehabilitate those in decline, restore these structures to their rightful place at the heart of the spiritual life and functioning of African societies, and ultimately disillusion those who advocate the all-out penetration of the “museum” into African bushes unaware of this Western cultural element. This is the only strategy that will enable these endogenous structures to welcome objects that have been stripped from them for centuries.   

Submission guidelines

Paper abstracts (250 words maximum) must be sent

before January 31^st, 2025

to: martelo12@yahoo.fr; salamatou2019@gmail.com   

Completed Texts entered in Word, body 12, title 14, are expected in PDF and Word on June 25, 2025. 

Photos must be in good resolution (conservation structure, sites, matérial remains or objects). 

References must follow the APA model. 

Author(s) contact details: First names, surnames, home institution, email address, telephone (Optional).

Texts can be written in English or French.

Scientific and editorial committee

• Professor Martin ELOUGA (CETIS/ UYDE I / Cameroon) 
• Professor Augustin HOLL (Xiamen University) 
• Professor Cyrille BELLA (UYDE I/ Cameroon)
• Professor Louis Marie ONGUENE ESSONO (UYDE I/ Cameroon)
• Professor Raymond FOFIE (UYDE I/ Cameroon)  
• Professor Doctor SIMO DAVID (UYDE I/ Cameroon)
• Professor Verckijika FANSO (UYDE I/ Cameroon)
• Professor Lucien AYISSI (UYDE I/ Cameroon)
• Professor Bruno MAYI Marc (UYDE I/ Cameroon) 
• Professor Ernest VEYU LUKONG (UYDE I/ Cameroon)
• Professor WASSOUNI François (UMaroua/ Cameroon)
• Professor GORMO Jean (UMaroua/ Cameroon)
• Professor FAI TANGUEM (UYDE I/ Cameroon) 
• Professor ELOUNDOU Longin (UYDE I/ Cameroon) 
• Professor Cyrille TOLLO (UYDE I/ Cameroon)
• Professor Rémy DZOU TSANGA (UMaroua/ Cameroon) 
• Professor SAME KOLE (UDLA/ Cameroon) 
• Professor MBONJI EDJENGUELE (UYDE I/ Cameroon)  
• Professor Paul NCHOJI NKUI (UYDE I/ Cameroon) 
• Professeur Antoine SOCPA (UYDE I/ Cameroon)  
• Professeur Lucas MEBENGA TAMBA (UYDE I/ Cameroon)  
• Professor Paul ABOUNA (UYDE I/ Cameroon)  
• Professor Chandel EBALE MONEZE (UYDE I/ Cameroon)  
• Professor Adrien Edouard MVESSOMBA (UYDE I/ Cameroon)  
• Professor Philippe Blaise ESSOMBA (UYDE I/ Cameroon)  
• Professor TAGUEU KAKEU (UYDE I/ Cameroon)  
• Professor MOUSSA II (UYDE I/UEbwa/ Cameroon) 
• Professor FUELEFACK KANA (UDschang/Cameroon) 
• Professor AMAYENA NGUITIR (Ubda/Cameroon)  
• Professor TCHAGO BOUIMON (UDJNA/Chad)  
• Professor Bernardin MINKO MVE (UOBongo/Gabon)  
• Professor TIMPOKO KIENON (Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny / Cocody-
• Abidjan- Ivory Coast)  
• Professor BAGODO OBARE (UCotonou)  
• Professor Doctor HISHAM MORTADA (King Abdulaziz University/Saudi Arabia)  
• Professor TAKU IDA (MINPAKU, Japan)  
• Professor IBRAHIMA THIAW (IFAN-Cheikh Anta Diop University, Senegal) 
• Professor MUSTAPHA SALL (Cheikh Anta Diop University, Senegal)
• Professor Paul J. LANE (University of Cambridge -UK) 
• Professor WAZI APOH (University of Ghana, Legon) 
• Professor SCHMIDT, Peter R, (University of Florida - USA) 
• Dr Etienne ZANGATO (University of Paris X-Nanterre-France)
• Dr Sam MAKUVAZA (National University of Science and Technology 
• Bulawayo, Zimbabwe) 
• Dr SALAMATOU, PhD (MINRESI/UYDE I/Cameroon) 
• Dr Protais Pamphile MEDJO, (UEbwa/Cameroon)  
• Dr Belemel MBANGA (Higher Normal School of Bongor/University of Ndjamena - Chad) 
• Dr NKE NDIH Jean (UCL)
• Dr Silvia FORNI (Director FOWLER Museum UCLA/LA - USA) 
• Dr Sonia DOMINGUEZ (Ministry of Scientific Research-Angola)
• Dr GNININ Aïcha Desline Touré (Félix Houphouët-Boigny University / Cocody Abidjan- Ivory Coast)  
• Dr BEBEWOU AKA ADJO (University of Lomé-Togo)
• Kathleen BICKFORD BERZOCK (ACASA - CCRPB)
• Dr AMANDA GILVIN (ACASA - CCRPB)
• Dr AMANDA MAPLES (ACASA - CCRPB)  
• Dr James SULE (ACASA - CCRPB) 
• Dr Keller CANDACE (ACASA - CCRPB)

Scientific coordinators

• Professor Martin ELOUGA (CETIS/University of Yaoundé I – Tel/Whatsapp: 237 677 63 91 00 Email : martelo12@yahoo.fr; martinelouga2017@gmail.com P.O. Box 8356 Yaoundé - Cameroon.

• SALAMATOU, PhD (MINRESI/CETIS/Université de Yaoundé I) – Tel/Whatsapp : 237 674 27 52 99 Email : salamatou2019@gmail.com or salamatoulame@yahoo.fr