Virtual Repatriation: It's Neither Virtual

nor Repatriation
Robin Boast
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
Jim Enote
A:shiwi A:wan Museum & Heritage Center, Zuni, New Mexico

Abstract:
Virtual Repatriation has caught the attention of the anthropological, archaeological, museological and
indigenous communities in recent years. The conjoined terms have been applied to everything from an
alternative for material repatriation, to Reciprocal Research Networks, to almost any form of digital data
sharing with source communities. There is no doubt that there is, and has been, a great number of good
works that designate themselves as Virtual Repatriation. However, the problem, as we see it, is not the
works themselves, in most instances, but the conjunction of the "Virtual" with "Repatriation." In this paper,
the authors will challenge the use of the terms “virtual,” but mostly the term “repatriation” in conjunction
with anything but patrimony. The challenge is not merely pedantic, but points to the larger social and
political implications, and communal and historic consequences, of collapsing patrimony with their
representations.
[4076 words]

Introduction
Both of the authors of this paper have experienced the rise of projects describing what they do
as “Virtual Repatriation.” Both of the authors have also been involved for some time in
collaborative data sharing between collecting institutions and source communities, so we both
have a strong commitment to projects that seek to improve data sharing and even direct
engagement of source communities with their patrimony. However, we have also been very
concerned with the association of the term Repatriation with these projects of data sharing.
In this paper we seek to explain why we feel that the association of “virtual” and, especially,
“repatriation” with these programs of data sharing is both inappropriate and even perilous. We
begin by presenting a few examples of data sharing projects as exemplars, and also our own
project which seeks a different model of data sharing (the Zuni Collaborative Catalog). We then
go on to define repatriation as a process of restitution of autochthonous material objects and
practices, and how the use of the terms “virtual” and “repatriation” cannot be used in these
contexts without accepting the full impact of the commanding praxis of these terms and their
historical legacies.

Programs of Virtual Repatriation

Reciprocal Research Network
The Reciprocal Research Network (RRN, About. http://www.rrnpilot.org/pages/about -
about_rrn) is a co-development of an online collaborative portal between the Museum of

Boast & Enote: Final Draft – Not to be quoted without the permission of the Authors 1
Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia, the Stó:lō Nation–Tribal Council, the
U'mista Cultural Society, the Musqueam Indian Band, and is supported by several other
international institutions and museums (Rowley et al 2010, http://www.rrnpilot.org/pages/about -
about_rrn). The Portal is being developed at the MOA as part of their Renewal Project, A
Partnership of Peoples and comprises what they describe as a "research network". On its web-
site, the project is described as:
… technology-supported research network comprised of communities, researchers, and cultural
institutions. It will enable geographically dispersed users and institutions – including originating
communities, academics and museum staff - to carry out individual or collaborative cultural
heritage research projects. (RRN, Overview. http://www.moa.ubc.ca/RRN/about_overview.html
[accessed 15 April 2011]).
The goal of the RRN is to extend collections based research, usually the domain of museums
and universities, into originating communities. The RRN is still very much 'in development' and,
as a collaborative project, much work remains to be done. However, it is already seen by many
to be a landmark in collaborative collections research between museums and originating
communities.
First experiences of the RRN web-site (http://www.rrnpilot.org/) shows it to be a fairly traditional
online museum catalog with an updates feature that allows for comments ("user-submitted
information") from registered users. The catalog includes some images, a title, a brief
description and secondary information including Holding Institution, Cultures, Creators, Creation
Locations and Materials. The language of description is very much the language of the museum
catalog, and there is little evidence, yet, that other voices are entering in the descriptions
(Houghton 2010). The voices of the collaborators are allowed to enter through the commenting-
discussions feature, but these discussions will only enter the museum catalog through the
curatorial editor. The system has the usual features of personal collections and saved searches,
but the most distinctive feature remains the commenting–discussions associated with the
objects, and the discussion forums which gives users the means to talk with others about
specific objects, or about other relevant topics.
Though the RRN does not explicitly referred to itself as Virtual Repatriation, it is often cited as
an exemplar of such programs (Basu 2011). It is often associated with Virtual Repatriation as it
is not only one of the first projects to develop such digital information sharing, but also manifests
some of the key feature of Virtual Repatriation, such as data sharing, commenting/discussions,
and originating community collaboration.

The Plateau Peoples' Web Portal

The Plateau Peoples' Web Portal (The Plateau Peoples' Web Portal n.d.) is an ambitious
collaboration between the Plateau Center for American Indian Studies at Washington State
University and tribal consultants from the Umatilla, Coeur d'Alene and Yakama tribal nations.
The portal shares relevant cultural materials, in digital form, held by a variety of collecting
institutions (including the Washington State University's collected libraries, archives and
museums, and the National Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian Institution) on a web
portal controlled by the collaborating tribal nations. The Plateau Peoples' Web Portal goes
beyond most portals in that it seeks to create a "... different paradigm for the curation,
distribution, and reproduction of Native peoples' cultural materials." (The Plateau Peoples' Web
Portal, http://plateauportal.wsulibs.wsu.edu/html/ppp/help.php, [accessed, 14 March, 2012]).
The portal not only shares the information with the relevant originating communities, but it seeks
to give the collaborating Tribes the power of curation over the digital resources held on the
portal.

Boast & Enote: Final Draft – Not to be quoted without the permission of the Authors 2
 Once the materials are uploaded to the site, tribal administrators have the ability to add tribal
knowledge, edit the existing information, add new content that enriches the materials, add tags,
and flag the material as culturally sensitive. Tribes can also upload their own materials to the portal,
using the administrative side of the portal, allowing the[m] to decide the level of access to their own
private collections. Tribal consultants worked together to decide on the appropriate categories
through which to classify their materials. There are nine main categories (users can use the browse
section of the portal to view these) within the portal. Each tribe can then add their own
subcategories refining the typology further to allow for greater precision and flexibility in searching.
(The Plateau Peoples' Web Portal, http://plateauportal.wsulibs.wsu.edu/html/ppp/help.php?topic=2,
[accessed, 14 March, 2012])
The Plateau Peoples' Web Portal further allows for registered visitors from outside the project to
access much of the material and extending its access through custom tagging and geo-tagging.
Integrating web 2.0 technologies to enrich users experiences and "drive a collaborative
framework for knowledge sharing." (The Plateau Peoples' Web Portal,
http://plateauportal.wsulibs.wsu.edu/html/ppp/help.php?topic=3, [accessed, 14 March, 2012]).
Like the other projects that Kim Christen has been involved with (Christen 2009, 2010, 2011),
the Plateau Peoples' Web Portal is an experiment in how to empower indigenous stakeholders
by allowing them both access to and management control over information about their
patrimony. The Plateau Peoples' Web Portal goes further than just about any other project --
with the exception of the Zuni Collaborative Catalog project (see below), to recognise the
asymmetry created by many digital information sharing projects. However, as will be discussed
below, it is not the sharing that is in question, but the status of what is being shared.

Artefacts of Encounter, KIWA

Artefacts of Encounter, based at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the
University of Cambridge, is an ambitious project that seeks to bring together the artefacts,
archives and texts of more than 40 voyages that entered Polynesia between 1765 and 1840.
The primary goal of the research is not simply to construct a portal, but to "use those artefacts
as primary evidence of the nature and legacy of encounters between European explorers and
Pacific islanders." (Artefacts of Encounter, http://maa.cam.ac.uk/aofe/index.html, [accessed, 26
March, 2012]). The digital resource sharing, done through a system called KIWA – an arrogated
name of a well known Polynesian navigator, is designed not simply to make the data accessible
to the project partners, as in a usual portal, but to promote a comparative approach between the
different voyages, their contexts as well as between the dispersed researchers. The goals of the
KIWA enabled comparative approach is to "enable new research conclusions to be drawn not
only about the voyages themselves and their immediate aftermath, but about the different
trajectories of first imperial, then (post)-colonial relationships." (Artefacts of Encounter,
http://maa.cam.ac.uk/aofe/kiwa.html, [accessed, 29 March, 2012]).
Though the project collaborates with a number of other international projects, and many key
initiatives and institutions in the Pacific (Artefacts of Encounter,
http://maa.cam.ac.uk/aofe/team.html), key partners include Toi Hauiti, a working group of the
Aitanga-a-Hauiti Charitable Trust in Uawa (Tolaga Bay) on the East Coast of New Zealand. Toi
Hauiti is working with the project to build a digital repository of international collections of Hauiti
Taonga and providing the collaboration support with other Pacific communities. The second key
partner is the RRN (discussed above), which is working closely with KIWA, whose system
influence is clearly represented in KIWA.
Like RRN, Artefacts of Encounter does not explicitly use the term Virtual Repatriation. Maia
Jessop and Carl Hogsden have shied away from the term, preferring "virtual reciprocation" as a
more apt term for the project's goals (Jessop and Hogsden 2010).

Boast & Enote: Final Draft – Not to be quoted without the permission of the Authors 3
Reanimating Cultural Heritage in Sierra Leone
Reanimating Cultural Heritage: Digital Repatriation, Knowledge Networks and Civil Society
Strengthening in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone is a project lead by Paul Basu of University College
London with IT development provided by Martin White of the University of Sussex. The project
draws on collections from UK museums (British Museum, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery,
Glasgow Museums, the World Museum Liverpool, and the British Library Sound Archive) and
from the Sierra Leone National Museum. The goal of the project is to build:
… on research in anthropology, museum studies, informatics and beyond, the project considers
how objects that have become isolated from the oral and performative contexts that originally
animated them can be reanimated in digital space alongside associated images, video clips,
sounds, texts and other media, and thereby be given new life. (Reanimating Cultural Heritage,
http://www.sierraleoneheritage.org/about/, [accessed, 9 March, 2012])
Like other projects that associate themselves with Virtual Repatriation, Reanimating Cultural
Heritage is intently devoted to "(re)connect object in museum collections with disparate
communities ..." (Reanimating Cultural Heritage, http://www.sierraleoneheritage.org/about/,
[accessed, 9 March, 2012]). This reconnection, through social computing, is seen as a key
technique to foster what these projects see as a missing reciprocal knowledge exchange. The
goal is not simply to re-engage source communities with their now dispersed patrimony, nor
simply to re-animate these objects with their "source" contexts, but to create a shared space
between the holding institutions, the communities of origin, interested academics and the public
at large (Basu 2011). The goal is not only to 'return' these objects to their source communities,
but to deploy these digital objects as extended research resources and public education
devices.

The Zuni Collaborative Catalog

The problem with the usual mode of data sharing, including those presented above, is that it is
highly circumscribed, reductive and commensurating (posts from http://www.digital-
diversity.org/). It is circumscribed in the sense that it will necessarily limit the parties who can
participate in its construction. Collections are of interest to a vast number, and diversity, of
interest and expert groups. Each constructed, shared catalog can only accommodate a small
sample of these interests. It is reductive in the sense that even though it is circumscribed to a
single or small number of interest groups, it has to create a single model to accommodate both
the collecting institution and the interest group(s). It also has to reduce the diverse needs that
always exist within and between different interest groups to a single model, thus being at least
doubly reductive. Finally, it is commensurating in the sense that it assumes that the meaningful
identity of the object, the information that is used to describe the object, can be commensurate
across different interests, intentions and uses. The Zuni Collaborative Catalog is a project that
explicitly seeks to overcome these limitations of a constructed, shared catalog for the benefit of
all the groups interested in using collections for research, study or simply access. Therefore,
what this project is doing is explicitly not creating a constructed, shared catalog of any sort.
The Zuni Collaborative Catalog has been created as a system first in-service to the Zuni
community. Developed with attention to authentic Zuni concepts of knowledge and sharing of
knowledge the system builds on and extends experiences of other collection data sharing
systems. Based at the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center (AAMHC) the Zuni system
puts all control and power of adding and sharing knowledge about Zuni objects in the hands of
Zuni.
Part of an ongoing research collaboration between the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage
Center, the Graduate School of Information Studies and Education at UCLA, the Museum of

Boast & Enote: Final Draft – Not to be quoted without the permission of the Authors 4
Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, as well as a growing number of
other participating museums, the CCC project (Srinivasan et al 2010, http://www.digital-
diversity.org/) has devised a radically different model of working with collections information.
Drawing on developments in social computing (Boast, Bravo and Srinivasan 2007), PuSH
technologies (PuSH Technology, http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/) and emergent
systems theory (Turnbull 2007), Collaborative catalogs seeks to overcome the problems of
centralised databases by distributing both the information and its systemisation to the interest
groups. In this mode, rather than sitting down and working out a common, and much reduced,
information model, the collections data is given to those individuals or groups who need to use
it, and it is they who do the systemisation locally.
It has been understood for some time that younger Zuni are learning about themselves via the
internet and viewing on-line Zuni collections. Occasionally these Zuni come to the AAMHC and
share information they learned about Zuni that is known to be incorrect. When these Zuni say
that they find information about Zuni on-line, it was clear that there was needed a local system
that would empower Zuni to set the record straight. No doubt modern Zuni are assuming a part
of Zuni identity on-line, therefore collaboration and partnership with holding institutions is very
important. However, the Zuni Collaborative Catalog development is additive, building on lessons
learned and changes in Zuni sensibilities pertaining to data transfer technologies.
It was also realized that until the Zuni would have local control of the information, that
collaboration with all institutions holding Zuni objects would always be incomplete. As various
systems evolved to enable data sharing, ethics about source community involvement must
continue to evolve as well.

What is Repatriation?
For centuries, Repatriation has had a very specific and singular meaning of "The return or
restoration of a person to his or her native country ..." (OED, repatriation, 1.a). This meaning of
repatriation, as associated with a person or persons, could be applied equally to those who
were simply returning to their native lands, as well as to those who were returning from exile or
enslavement. The meaning of the return of a person to their rightful and just home has always
been a core connotation of repatriation, as the actual corporeal being of that who is returning
has been a core denotation.
With the welcome rise of indigenous sovereignty, or at least self-determination, the term has,
over the last 20-30 years, taken on a much broader meaning. The original meaning, now rarely
used, has been largely replaced with meanings that refer either to the transfer of "control over a
constitution or constitutional legislation from a mother country to a former dependency. ..."
(OED, repatriation, 2) or to "The return or restoration of money, historical artefacts, etc., to their
country of origin: …" (OED, repatriation, 1.b). It is the latter definition that refers to Cultural
Patrimony.
If we explore key definitions of the term through one of the most successful, though not
unproblematic (Nash and Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2010), pieces of repatriation legislation, the
US Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA 1991), we find an
inalienable association between patrimony and the autochthonal object. The NAGPRA Glossary
defines Cultural Patrimony as "An object having ongoing historical, traditional, or cultural
importance central to the Native American group or culture itself, …" (emphasis added;
NAGPRA Glossary, n.d.). To Repatriate an object, according to NAGPRA, "... means to transfer
physical custody of and legal interest in Native American cultural items to lineal descendants,
culturally affiliated Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations." (emphasis added;
NAGPRA Glossary, n.d.). Patrimony can refer to both the tangible, the material, and to

Boast & Enote: Final Draft – Not to be quoted without the permission of the Authors 5
intangible (OED, patrimony, 2.b). However, repatriation always refers to the corporeal, material
person, thing or practice.
This may seem like so much lexicological positioning and categorical overkill. However, our
position is that the association of "repatriation" with digital representations of museum
collections, digital museum catalog information and digitised scholarly productions, not only
misunderstands the meaning of "repatriation", but misrepresents the process and intent.
Therefore, we most strongly insist that the objects denoted by repatriation in law, in convention
and in practice, are those autochthonal objects created by the source community or culture of
origin.
It could be successfully argued that digital objects are autochthonal, material entities that could
be repatriated. This is certainly true if the digital objects were created in the source community,
and collected and removed to an institutional collection. There is nothing immaterial about digital
objects or digital data. The problem being is that the digital object and digital data that is being
“returned” in the name of Virtual Repatriation, did not originate in the source community. These
digital objects and data originate both from the collecting institutions and from the academy.
Therefore, though there data sharing is taking place, there is no restitution or repatriation.

Why there can't be a "virtual" repatriation

The first problem with designating shared digital objects as Virtual Repatriation is the concept of
the “Virtual.” The use of the term “virtual” in designating “a notional image or environment
generated by computer software, with which a user can interact realistically …” (Oxford English
Dictionary, “Virtual,” Draft Additions 1997), is very recent; its first use appearing in the Whole
Earth Review (Garb 1987) in relation to the possibility, then, of interactive Virtual Realities.
However, this new use of the term retains some of its original meaning as “Possessed of certain
physical virtues or capacities; effective in respect of inherent natural qualities or powers;
capable of exerting influence by means of such qualities.” (Oxford English Dictionary, “Virtual,”
1.a).
The problem with the idea of the virtual, in its application to digital objects, is that it not only
designates to the digital object qualities of the ephemeral, but that these ephemeral qualities are
endowed with capacities to effect as though the digital object was the original. In other words,
the virtual object, in everyday use, not only represents the material object in the sense of being
an image, likeness or reconstruction, but also represents the material object in the sense of
effectively standing in for it.
Of course, digital objects do not have these qualities nor these capacities. As a legion of studies
have shown, over the past decades, representation – digital or otherwise – is not a capacity or
quality of the media, but arises from many different complex social processes of “representing’
(Lynch and Woolgar 1990; Harraway 1991; Pickering,1992; Lynch 1994; Banks and Morphy
1999). Digital objects do not represent anything, in either sense, but gains roles and capacities
in their use in different social settings. In this way, representation is an emergent effect of use,
and digital objects are material objects that can be used in representing, and often are used in
this way in the post-enlightenment western tradition.
Of course, this sense of having the virtues of the object represented, is not universal, nor is the
use of the image as an effective representative. An example from the Zuni Collaborative
Catalog shows how even openly shared data and images of collected objects can cause both
confusion and disillusionment.
We sometimes loan sacred items to other Zuni. The person that allows the borrowing understands
the item(s) will be used for sacred purposes and the item(s) will be refreshed and further

Boast & Enote: Final Draft – Not to be quoted without the permission of the Authors 6
 empowered from ceremonial use. When sacred items are returned blessings are given to the
owner in the Zuni language. Zuni have no authentic concept to describe a sacred item that was
taken by a non-Zuni and then sympathetically returned. When the force of NAGPRA took affect
Zuni was confronted with informing Zuni religious leaders what repatriation means. The word
repatriation was very problematic because it was not a Zuni idea and it forced Zuni to participate in
a system of ownership that was not of Zuni making. After a great deal of discussion and coaching
by Zuni translators the word repatriation finally became understood as the bodily, material, and
actual return of a Zuni item or items back to Zuni land and people. It is not an ideal spiritual return
but this idea of repatriation has been accepted under modern and less then perfect circumstances.
The first time I described digital repatriation to Zuni religious leaders they asked if it meant
selecting from the digital images so the items could be physically returned. When I told them no
they became confused and antagonized saying that museums were intent on confusing the idea of
repatriation. One Zuni leader said, “I don’t get it. Does repatriation mean the things will come back
to Zuni or not?”
Other tribes have their own particular concepts of ownership and ways to process what digital
repatriation means to them. But clearly for Zuni where English is still a second language for many,
the English words digital and repatriation should not be used together. (Jim Enote pers. comm.)
This example clearly shows how the question is not only one of virtuality. It is not merely a
matter of representational practices, which have been ubiquitous in both the collected
communities as well as the collecting institutions, but much more a question of the return of
patrimony. There is no necessary association between the image and information about an
object held in a collecting institution – information gathered by that institution, written by that
institution and structured by that institution, and the object itself.

Epilogue
Just as the very first use of the term “Virtual” was to refer to Virtual Realities (Garb 1987), 3-D
computer generated spaces that operated ‘as if they were the real thing,’ the first use of the
term “Virtual Repatriation,” by Tony Gill, Program Officer of the UK Research Libraries Group,
was used to designate the possibility of 3-D computer generated reconstructions of objects that
were so accurate as to stand in for the original (Gill 2001). Though Gill was referring to the
sharing of rare, and fragile, manuscripts between libraries, the idea of virtual repatriation grew
out of the goal of accommodating the needs of stakeholder communities without actually having
to give the thing back.
In 2003, six months after becoming the Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor
proposed, in a move to deflect attention from the Elgin Marbles held at the BM, that the
Parthenon should be reconstructed virtually (BBC News 2003). This was clearly an extension of
Gill’s idea ‘return’ objects virtually, as the technologies were becoming so advanced as to
ensure the fidelity with the original (Boast 2002).
What these two examples share is what was pointed out above, that the notion of the virtual
retains aspects of the term’s original meaning of having the power to act. When associated with
repatriation, these two examples explicitly allege the power of the virtual object to act, or
represent, the original in all important respects. Of course, we do not suggest that any of the
projects discussed above believe that the digital objects and data they are sharing “stand in” for
the originals in this, or any other, sense. Nor do we wish to imply that these projects, which are
excellent examples of data sharing, fail because they associate, or are associated, with a
process designated as Virtual Repatriation. This would not only misrepresent these projects, but
also would do a major disservice to the excellent work they are doing.
The point we wish to make here is that the term Virtual Repatriation cannot be appropriated
without cost – it cannot be used or even reoriented away from the commanding praxis of these

Boast & Enote: Final Draft – Not to be quoted without the permission of the Authors 7
terms nor their historical legacies (Houghton 2010). In addition to deviating the term
Repatriation away from the corporeal, material person, thing or practice – a very dangerous
political move that runs counter to the intentions of these projects, the appropriation of Virtual
Repatriation for projects of data sharing confuses the context of sharing with programs of
restitution, thus potentially playing into the hands of those voices which seek to maintain the
centralised, universal enlightenment collection (Geismar 2008: 110).
That source communities seek to collaborate with collecting institutions over the information
held about their cultural patrimony should be seen as an opportunity to better address the
problems of post-enlightenment, neocolonial collecting and representation. The problem with
designating these collaborative endeavours as repatriation – virtual, digital or otherwise – is to
firmly, and uncritically, orient the collaboration within the historical and constitutional space of
the universal collection. This is a space that we feel should not be accommodated, even
inadvertently.

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