The Right to Culture and the Restitution Debate on Works of Art Heritage, Coloniality, and Cultural Heritage in Brazil

Abstract

This article critically examines the relationship between cultural heritage, coloniality, and the restitution of works of art, taking as its central axis the contemporary debate concerning the right to culture and the legitimacy of possessing cultural objects looted during colonial processes. It is grounded in the understanding that the constitution of major Western collections was historically linked to European imperial expansion, accumulation through dispossession, and the universalization of legal and epistemological categories produced by Western modernity. Research Problem: to understand how the modern concept of cultural heritage operated as an instrument for legitimizing colonial violence and to identify the limits of the universalist heritage paradigm in light of restitution claims advanced by historically colonized peoples. Objective: to investigate the relationships between heritage, property, cultural inheritance, and coloniality, examining how heritage discourses contributed to the naturalization of practices of looting, displacement, and appropriation of cultural goods. Methodology: the research adopts a qualitative approach, based on bibliographical review and theoretical-conceptual analysis, drawing on authors from the fields of critical museum heritage theory and anti-colonial studies, such as Poulot, Choy, Mbembe, Vergès, Fanon, and Preciado. Results: Western museum heritage cannot be dissociated from historical structures of colonialism, and debates on restitution challenge traditional notions of property, universality, and cultural preservation. Conclusion: the article argues that valuing cultures dispossessed under colonial contexts requires a critical revision of the legal and economic structures related to restitution debates, encompassing the cultural heritage of peoples, their social memory, and their right to culture.