Centering the question of restitution, the ongoing debates around decolonizing the museum have not only taken on dominant regimes of representation but have increasingly interrogated the material basis of the museum. We posit that - along with property relations - the fervor with which defenses of the ‘universal' or ‘encyclopedic museum' are currently being mounted and the obstacles that restitution claims encounter derive their authority from understandings of preservation that are in need of further scrutiny. Etymologically speaking, preservation is to ‘keep safe or free from harm', or ‘keep in existence or alive', and yet as the contributions to this special issue show preservation as a central process in heritage-making works through dispossession, extraction, destruction, and through the displacement of people and ‘things', while professing to keep these very ‘things’ intact. We introduce the concept of the 'preservation paradigm' that holds both the long-standing critiques of preservation as a distinct practice of modern power, and its recuperative capacities; that is, its ability to integrate critiques without transforming its basic tenets and the institutions that are in its service. We argue that the preservation paradigm serves first and foremost to keep the institutional landscape of heritage intact, rather than addressing the dispossession and loss of cultural heritage. It does so by maintaining, even protecting, property relations that are central to the globalized heritage regime.
Mo. 05 Okt. 2026
Beyond Preservation: Decolonizing the Conceptual Framework of Cultural Heritage
