[The following notes of oral exchanges at the session were taken to help identify speakers and otherwise facilitate review of audio recordings. They have not been compared to those recordings and should be understood to provide only a sense of what was said. In other words, they are not formal transcripts, and they may contain inaccuracies.] Speakers are identified by their initials in the transcript. For a full list, click here. Session 3: Stewardship and Control over Heritage AB – Some substitutions. Opening concept in relation
to American Archaeologists who have been first in stewardship. SAA adopted
new ethics
principles in ‘96. There is a notion of archaeologists as stewards
and stewardship as a core value. This became the backbone for all the
other principles. Reading the stewardship principle as adopted. [AB
reads from the text] Stewardship is an interesting topic because
it moves away from possession towards a caretaker role. The intangible
heritage convention uses “safeguarding” in
similar vein as stewardship: not ownership or protection but nurturing,
making sure something thrives. JN – “Fox and chicken” suggests
an adversarial relation. I will present one sidebar to stewardship: claims,
counter-claims, repatriation
that formed the foundation for heritage law. [This comes from a] context
of theft, armed combat, and imperialism. It is not surprising, therefore,
that the vocabulary for restitution, return is adversarial. Attempts
to address the normative framework rely on remedies of demand and response.
Litigation is often the method; substantively, elaborating rules of ownership.
Quotes FS [from read text]: litigation is bedeviled by evidentiary
and enforcement issues. [Return to Synopsis] The
problem with the litigation mode is an over-reliance on dichotomies – art-poor/art-rich,
art-exporting/art-importing, retention/free trade. Cultural internationalism
vs. nationalism: this dichotomy has had its day. If we use ‘internationalism’ does
it have to refer to free international market? Why can it not refer to
international cooperation? I hope we’ve gotten that debate behind
us, and we can see the truth that lies between the poles and get into
more discussions of specifics. CL – Museums have defined the
practice of stewardship in terms of their overall mission – define,
collect, and preserve. Premised on the fact that museums are owners in
role of trustees. Icahn’s code
of ethics is one of first times stewardship was defined – for possession – storage,
management, care, interpretation, promotion – establishing and
professionalizing the internal procedures of the museum itself. [The
code] acknowledges future generations but serves the interests of the
administration of the museum. Ownership and permanence are salient. Stewardship
codifies technical procedures. Objects are entrapped within conventionalizing
ways of approaching – of
conservators, scholars/interpreters. JN – I want to add a footnote: the best commentary on the ILA approach to develop principles to define a collaborative framework is written by Bob Paterson. DS – What were the ideas that the younger scholars had at the Hague? JN – To avoid over-reliance on indigenous people’s
interpretation. Instead, [they are promoting] a sui generis regime of
traditional knowledge
[which] would not rely on ideas of indigenous people. It is not just
an idea but a predisposition, a set of assumptions. LR – What does sui generis mean in this context? JN – To try to develop a separate regime to avoid problems from IP (expirations on copyright as inconsistent with human knowledge) and, on the other hand, problems that are troublesome when working from the perspective of folklore. To be consistent with universal principles. The specifics are a greater reliance on self-determination over groups who assert control and procedures to defuse dispute. FS – [question asked] JN – Yes. RP – There is an extensive legal literature on sui generis in context. But it is mostly written in response to intangible heritage. Something new needed to speak to. JN – The details of the process just aren’t there. The sui generis regime is still conceptual. The scholar in question is trying to work out the details. RP – The piece by Davis discusses. SK – More please on sui generis. There doesn’t seem to be equality of coverage between indigenous and self-determination. Indigenous is not linked in any way to IP. Why avoid the term indigenous? JN – National minorities. SK – That I accept. But what do you lose? JN – Traditional knowledge avoids definitional problems. [Return to Synopsis] MB – Indigenous works in the new world but not in, say, Asia. So there is a principled argument against the use of the term in some concepts [contexts?]. How do you determine whether an individual or group is indigenous? Plus there is the broader philosophical problem of differential rights. Who gets left out? RH – Stewardship. You can’t talk about it without understanding the values that are underpinning a particular instance of stewardship. [Four examples:] Protect knowledge for good of all humanity. Claire suggested giving a voice back to the disempowered. Commitment to science vs. commitment to democracy. [Return to Synopsis] CL – To process, yes. RH – Stewardship doesn’t get you out from under the problems involved with property unless – quotes Alison Wiley – the ultimate value is that we’re going to let everyone debate things. As a dean at UVA, I think of myself as a steward of the university. One thinks of the university as a domain worth defending, probably in enlightenment terms, as place to exchange ideas, where we do it not just to do it, but because ideas have merit. In this instance, I don’t feel like I’m giving voice to the voiceless. My present highest value is defending an institution that makes it possible to have kinds of discussions that are hard to have in other kinds of domains. Imagine: stewardship of – science, cultural democracy, why I do what I do for the university. NS – When have archaeologists ever really been stewards? Structurally, archaeologists have no power over historical remains. The control comes from institutions within sovereign governments. Archaeologists have no power to make policy. In terms of performance, archaeologists have failed as stewards: cf. record of publication, fighting against interests to stop digestion of material remains, what’s left after an excavation (holes in the ground). The function of stewardship is not granted to anyone but by self-proclamation. [Return to Synopsis] SK – The most common meaning in the U.S. is the Christian one. Both Carnegie and Rockefeller said philanthropists were the stewards of wealth. All that matters are principles of stewardship – it just means caring for. Carnegie and Rockefeller were not interested in giving voice to the powerless. All that counts are the ethical principles. But without power, it’s just uninteresting rhetoric. What kind of ethical principles can be applied productively, is what we need to talk about. [Return to Synopsis] DL – The National Park Service calls itself a steward. This comes from the fact that it doesn’t have any power. Another important aspect that differentiates itself [in stewardship] is a concern with the future; [it is] indefinite with regards to time. It transcends the interests of the present generation. This makes stewardship tremendously important especially for museums, which are always being asked to do something right now. But if museums do act for the present, they are being irresponsible because they are the only institutions to act in that function [i.e., to look towards interests of future people]. [Return to Synopsis] LR – We’re uncomfortable with the analogy to property. But it might have some utility. Ownership, control of something is not absolute. What if – if you make a claim to stewardship in face of a countervailing claim – the bundle of rights breaks down like this: you must ensure health of the object but people with counterclaim can have, for example, veto power over how you ensure its health. For example, a permanent loan, but the group with a counterclaim controls the method of display. [Return to Synopsis] JN – Not only a bundle of rights but the common-law idea of a trustee with certain benefits. That’s been a foundation of our definition of the role of museums – that they have a fiduciary responsibility. LR – I like ownership – hard rights – rather than some ambiguous stewardship or trusteeship. I hear trustee claims from persons in a self-congratulatory way. RP – Museums can’t avoid descriptions you give. Trustees are legal owners. LR – But I’m suggesting a legislative approach. RP – Then there has to be a transfer of ownership. [RP/LR back and forth] AB – Suppose you conceive of stewardship as an alternative bundle of rights … RP – Then you would have to change the property codes. AB – Sure, perhaps it’s not practical. SU- There are multiple relations between a museum and an object. Sometimes [a museum] owns the rights to an object. RP – That’s the fiduciary [responsibility]. SU – A museum also may have objects on loan and approval. RP – That’s what I was saying. [Return to Synopsis] SU – […] RP – […] SU – [There is] no enforcement – no suits against museum boards for failures despite repeated losses, etc. [Return to Synopsis] AB – There’s a long history of law. If we created a museum de novo, [we could] create a different kind of ownership, different amount of autonomy. SU – A good example is U.S. museums’ response to valid claims made by holocaust victims. U.S. museums adopted a principle urging members to enter into good faith negotiations. But the first two [cases] were litigated. Now, the museum community did provenance research, and it settled claims in very creative ways. AB – So that … DL – What are good faith negotiations as opposed to any kind? SU – As opposed to bad faith. DL – I’m serious. SU – [It means to] refrain from affirmative claims. [Gives example having to do with Liz Taylor] NS – There
are two levels in talking about stewardship. AB – Anyone to field? MC – That is valid question for the last session about the journal. Back to LR on bundle of rights for ownership out of which we can determine what stewardship is. The journal should treat this. The nature of the owner determines the nature of the stewardship. For example, Morocco: state, private, ownership of Islamic group – all goods belonging to religious group. Each owns important chunks of cultural property. We can’t understand stewardship unless we see who is the owner. The government owns but doesn’t know how to manage. The government has no conception of the function [of the cultural goods] outside of their religious function. Objects get destroyed because the owner has no sense of non-religious uses. That is the relation between stewardship and ownership with a lot of important consequences. [Return to Synopsis] HP – In defense of archaeologists. People have relied on archaeologists – to authenticate, date object, to describe it. To SU, what’s a good faith negotiation? Cf. South Korea. [There was a] promise to families giving up objects to keep their collections intact. KS – Stress that this is no predetermined stewardship – we must deal with hard and fast rules. The trustee is the steward. But this doesn’t limit us to discussion of whether legal terms or code of ethics. Good stewardship is to keep away and refrain. Good stewardship is so … NS – I don’t want HP to be angry. HP – No, you said “arrogance.” NS – I don’t question archaeologists’ skills. JN – Good faith is nothing less than entering into negotiations with the intention to produce a resolution to the dispute. That leads to another point. Cf. RH’s idea of the university as a steward. A future issue of the journal might focus on the image, status, reality of scientist or archaeologist. To what extent can an archaeologist claim to be a steward? Take the Kenniwick case: [Native Americans were] not able to dialogue well with scientists. Scientists were seen as direct threat to them. The scientists are, in this case, archaeologists. How are archaeologists viewed – what the role of the scientist is. This is a possible theme of a journal issue that can get into the issues. RH – Art historians, connoisseurs, etc. – authoritative knowledge, not people who control routines. [AB says something, and then RH] LR – What is the role that the journal can play? Only debates? The journal can act as a good faith broker in a debate to see that consensus develops. But that means bringing in a lot of different voices in legitimating the forum. A broker might find that some shared assumptions do come out. I suppose, to DL, that good faith is that those who have a dispositive claim and are willing to set it aside – it is a self-limitation. Put power aside at least for purpose of seeing whether discussions get anywhere. DS – Five minutes over. We’re going on a tour at
4:30. There will be a lot of time to continue discussions between ourselves.
Aspects
of continuing discussion; journal. |