Owning Creativity

Abstract

This article examines the reasoning behind calls for the protection, and restitution, of cultural property, particularly by UNESCO, between 1970 and 1990. I reflect on discourses that value objects, identity, heritage, and customs in a package, which make cultural groups look like individuals to whom certain rights are attached. I do so in the light of material drawn from fieldwork on the Rai Coast of Papua New Guinea. There too, people place a high value on what they term kastom; a word in Neo-Melanesian which derives from the English term `customs' but has a rather different meaning. I suggest that Nekgini speakers' valuation and validation of ` kastom' contrasts sharply with notions of value built into heritage and cultural property. There is a particular conception of integrity and continuity, a relevance based on the needs of the state or individual identity which is embedded in the notion of cultural property. I contend that this conception obscures the creativity which Nekgini speakers value in the practices of ` kastom`. My wider point is to question the direction in which recommendations covering the protection of cultural property has led.