A Semiotics of Cultural Property Argument

Abstract

This article applies the tools of legal semiotics to examine the terms, modalities, and conventions of legal argument in the cultural property context. In a first instance, the author re-enacts Duncan Kennedy's study of recurrent patterns within legal argument to illustrate the highly structured nature of most cultural property argument. This mapping exercise shows how legal concepts draw their meaning in part from their place within a broader linguistic system, and as a result cannot by themselves form an adequate basis for ethical positions. Following this, the pervasive Elgin Marbles controversy is shown to resemble a myth (in Roland Barthes's sense of the term) behind which a series of value judgments and support systems are embedded into cultural property argument. The conclusion presents a number of observations sketching a framework centered on restitution as a starting point for resolution of cultural property disputes.

Between orthodoxy and heterodoxy: the troubled relationships between heritage studies and heritage law

“…Heritage work that engages with definitions of heritage that have met no legal recognition (say, uses and definitions of heritage by Indigenous groups in countries where their customary law are not recognised by the country's settler legal system) is one instance of valid heritage work that does not directly engage with the law. Audi (2007) has suggested that -more so than in other fields -debates about the restitution of cultural heritage are held in legal terms and using the language of the law. It is a problematic statement, in that it generalises the field of HS and tries to make the law constitutive of all understandings of heritage (and the practices of the field).…”

“…It is a problematic statement, in that it generalises the field of HS and tries to make the law constitutive of all understandings of heritage (and the practices of the field). But it speaks to a concern about non-lawyers freely using legal considerations, with the unintended consequence of perpetuating orthodox legal discourses, as non-lawyers are not trained to perceive (and critique) the inherent contradictions and power structures of legal discourse in the area (Audi 2007). In a way, then, legal arguments about restitution still rely heavily on notions that put museums (colonisers) in opposition with traditional owners of artefacts (colonised), perpetuating a strand of discourse that heterodox HS has been trying to come to terms with.…”

The Coherence of the Concept of Cultural Property: A Critical Examination

“…culture/property) divide. 131 However, the discussion of leading approaches to culture and property earlier illustrates that these patterns are not merely structural, they are a product of the theoretical assumptions on which dominant approaches to cultural property law are based. This potential for instrumentality becomes particularly evident when one examines the arguments that Audi argues "cluster" together.…”

“…. 22 These patterns emerge in response to hard cases that fall outside the easily analyzed legal problem. discussion surrounding the protection or restitution of cultural property has come to rely on a dizzying array of self-referential and self-justifying series of legal theories and counter theories."…”

Sbek Thom nach seiner UNESCO Zertifizierung

“…Damit einher geht eine Naturalisierung solcher Diskurse -einschließlich der ihnen eigenen Terminologien -, die ob ihrer Eingebettetheit als unpolitisch und gegeben konstruiert werden (vgl. beispielsweise Barthes 1972:128, Hill 2008; für die Debatte um Cultural Property Audi 2007:142, Aragon und Leach 2008. Die Einbettung transnationaler politischer und ökonomischer Prozesse in moralische Diskurse kann über eine Naturalisierung hinaus zudem zur Wertaufladung bestimmter Praxen und somit zu einer (De-)Legitimierung führen (vgl.…”