Ghana’s demand for restitution of material artifacts: a decolonial reflection

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper incisively engages with the ways in which African leaders are not assertively demanding restitution of their material artifacts dispossessed in the eras of enslavement and colonization. It questions indigenous people’s struggles for restitution of materialities colonially dispossessed beyond a simplistic view of decentering their hierarchy and ownership. Besides, the paper critically interrogates why Euro-America scholarship generously offers resilience discourse as perhaps the most important conceptual addition to international policy making in the last few decades to Africa, but it ironically does not care to restitute dispossessed material artifacts back to indigenous African peoples. The paper argues that colonial dispossession is about recentering indigenous people as masters and owners of material artifacts via restitution. Using coloniality of dispossession/theft this paper proposes a framework of restitution that aims to address resilient colonial dispossession enacted by the West. It is pointed out that decolonization will be achievable through restitution of indigenous material artifacts. I engage in the topic of restitution of material artifacts, particularly in the context of Asante people of Ghana. The paper contends that restitution of dispossessed material artifacts would empower indigenous peoples in Africa and strategically position them in global geopolitics.