Alternative Strategies in Confronting Looting and Trafficking in Defense of Peruvian Portable Heritage.

Summary

In this presentation I aim to address two issues: first, the state of looting and trafficking of monumental and portable heritage in Peru today, and, second, to propose new strategies to contribute to solving the problem of looting and trafficking. The novel strategies I propose are only part of the solution: they should be compounded and should help strengthen the effectiveness of old, tried and partially successful enforcement strategies. The diversification of options is urgent amidst critical scenarios which Colin Renfrew, among others, has unequivocally delineated and decried in the last decades. I propose that cultural authorities and managers in Peru should focus its efforts to safeguard cultural heritage along three principles to establish its policies, strategies and future laws: (1) Shared responsibilities; (2) Patrimonial sovereignty; and, (3) Appropriation of heritage. I would also suggest two strategies that would be dynamic engines to the above principles: (1) Renewing ancestrality; and, (2) Innovation beyond the laws. These novel options to address the present two issues affecting cultural heritage aim to diversify parallel endeavors towards that goal and make more open, public and understandable the consequences of looting, and, ultimately, commit the public to a central role in participating in this task.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Investigating the trafficking of cultural objects: novel and interdisciplinary approaches   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

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