FAQs & Contact

Below are answers to the most common questions about Open Restitution Africa (ORA).
If you have more questions, contact us at:

info@openrestitution.africa

I want to learn more about/ partner with ORA

Section 1

No. ORA seeks to collate data on restitution processes. Although we work with other Africans building object inventories, that is not the focus of our work.

Yes. Please use the resources tab to peruse our publications.

ORA’s work is under the Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Please note that the license requires you, as the user, to give credit to ORA. You can reuse, distribute, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only. If others modify or adapt the material, they must license the modified material under identical terms.

The platform will launch towards the end of 2025.

Please give ample time between your request and the deadline. Our team is happy to provide input where they can. But we are not always available for urgent media requests.

Our limited resources are focused on projects that seek to enable and empower African restitution processes and practitioners.  If you’d still like to collaborate with us, please get in touch, and we will assess if our goals are aligned.  Comment end 

I want to get involved in Restitution

Section 2

If you are interested in understanding the processes involved in restitution, read our reports which offer some guidelines. If you have a restitution case you’d like to add to our database, please contact us through this form.

You came to the right place! Peruse our growing database of Africans in restitution, watch our Restitution 101 videos, or read our reports.

We are building a database of African legal policies on restitution. Look out for the database on our socials and newsletter.

I want to understand African Restitution better

Section 3

Restitution is the process of restoring a belonging or human ancestor that was lost or stolen to the rightful owner or place. Ensuring it repairs the injury, loss, and unjust enrichment that resulted from the theft or loss. Learn more about the history of restitution in Africa through our Youtube series Restitution 101

Belongings: Tangible cultural heritage materials held, or being held, outside the community of origin.

  • Why this definition matters: Belonging(s)’ seeks to centre the violent separation of Africans from their cultural heritage. This vocabulary was recently adopted in Namibia and is part of a collective shift away from the use of ‘artefact(s)’ and ‘heritage object(s).’

Ancestors: What remains of Africans removed from their land of origin and from whom present-day Africans are descended? 

  • Why this definition matters: Museum terminology refers to “human remains.” This continues to reflect the history of reducing our ancestors to only what has survived the atrocities they endured.  Ancestors encapsulate not only what remains of the bodies of our descendants but also their spirits and what we inherited from them. 

Repatriation: The rightful owner (specifically a state and government) seeks the physical return of the belonging or human ancestor to the country of origin [father], where the state becomes the owner and curator.

Reparation: The community of origin, or the rightful owner (country), seeks to retrieve the monetary representation of the value of the belonging or human ancestor to compensate the affected community for the damage caused by the removal. The amount is determined by what it will cost to restore and repair what was lost.

Rematriation: The community of origin seeks to re-establish a broken connection and restore balance through engagement with their belonging(s) or human ancestor(s). The focus is centering on Indigenous relationships to land, and the restitution pursued is complete and unconditional. North American traditional modes inform this terminology of restitution. It is not yet commonplace on the African continent.

Digital Restitution: The return of a copy or copies of a belonging(s) or human ancestor(s), in digital format, to the community of origin. This can also include transferring ownership rights for the digital copy, which is sometimes a step towards physical return and the return of ownership rights.

  • Why this definition matters: A holistic understanding of these R terms goes beyond returning what was stolen. It includes repair, reparation, repatriation, accountability, education, and healing. Each act of return must be specific to what it seeks to repair.

If you have information you think is relevant to this website, please do get in touch.

info@openrestitution.africa

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