The blog category ‘Student Essays’ collects a selection of excellent student contributions which emerged from classes taught by our Potsdam Postcolonial Chairs. This essay was written in Prof. Ira Raja’s class Beyond Ethics: Critical Perspectives on Cosmopolitanism (summer semester 2022), which explored a layered understanding of a conceptual perspective on cosmopolitanism whose capacity for understanding, critiquing and negotiating the world in which we live today is beginning to be questioned.

Appiah looks at cultural patrimony from several perspectives (2007). For one thing, cultural patrimony refers to artifacts that belong to a culture. Artifacts in this sense refer to objects that are part of religious practices, music production, and things that people produced with significance and invested in creative thought. Then again, cultural patrimony belongs to a culture that is limited to a specific group of people. Appiah criticizes the concept of cultural patrimony in his paper titled “Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?” (2007). He raises the question of whether the origin of objects considered cultural patrimony can be traced back to modern states. Additionally, the circumstances under which these objects were created are often unknown, and therefore the intended purpose of the artist is unreconstructable.

Appiah’s goal seems to be an ‘aesthetic’ cosmopolitan experience for people all around the globe. He argues that every museum should invest in international art instead of cultural property because that’s what the people want to see. But is it enough to just buy art from everywhere and show it? As Jones (2015) vividly described, there is a very special connection between the objects and the place of origin. The objects hold power and are symbolic of the relationship between all owners. Most of the objects taken during the colonial period were not made to serve an aesthetic purpose alone; they were frequently part of rituals, royal heritage, or national pride. While Appiah did consider that many opinions need to be heard when deciding where an object belongs, he uses the words “legitimate human interests” (2007, p. 127) without further specifying what might count as a legitimate interest. Prior to this statement, he has made clear that he believes the people in the place of origin do not own more rights over the piece than anyone else. There he again does not acknowledge that due to cultural differences, people may go through a change and still maintain a special connection to objects. This is something that other cultures cannot fully understand and do not have to but they must acknowledge that these cultural differences are valid and need to be respected.

Appiah argues that everyone can truly value other cultures and art. The example of the Luf boat in the Humboldt Forum makes it clear that while the museum offers an aesthetic experience, it continues to hide the past of this object, does not educate the audience about the brutal colonial past, and does not own up to the true circumstances of the acquisition (Häntzschel, 2022). Historically, European colonizers have tended to create ‘cabinets of curiosities’ to display the ‘primitive’ art and culture from the colonies (Phillips, 2011). Sadly, modern ethnological exhibitions haven’t evolved much from this way of displaying. This shows that there might be a superficial appreciation of the objects but there is barely respectful handling of other cultures and art. That Appiah is not considering the colonial period properly or is blind to the things that have happened becomes clear as he makes statements like “objects […] were acquired legally from people around the world in the course of European colonial expansion” (2007, p. 132). Not only was the distribution of power so unequal during colonialization that no fair trade was imaginable, but provenance research also showed that most exchanges were forced by the oppressor (Beurden, 2022; Jones, 2014). Therefore, Appiah seems to be unaware of the effects colonialization had on the acquisition of these objects, that there are historical wrongs that need to be redeemed and how the colonial structures are still present and still affect the way other cultures are presented in Europe.

Appiah creates this vision of a cosmopolitan world with concrete advice and plenty of examples in his text. He lays great emphasizes on the concept of world culture to which everyone can count themselves a contributor. But what if our world culture is like a puzzle? Everyone contributes to it but only once all pieces are put together, the image is revealed. Single pieces might reveal some information but can only be understood in context. They might also be squeezed into different places but only really start to unfold their full potential when they are back in the position they were before the image was cut into hundreds of puzzle pieces. What if that’s what our world culture is like.

Friederike Wünsch

Works Cited

Appiah, Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. Amsterdam, Netherlands, Penguin Books, 2007.

Beurden, Jos Van. “TRUST, EUALITY AND JUSTICE.” Inconvenient Heritage: Colonial Collections and Restitution in the Netherlands and Belgium, Amsterdam UP, 2022, pp. 218–30. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2pnjvmx.22.

Häntzschel, Jörg. “Raubkunst-Debatte: Neues Buch Von Götz Aly.” Süddeutsche.de, 2 Aug. 2022, www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/luf-boot-humboldt-forum-goetz-aly-1.5289074.

Jones, Constantine. “Restitution.” Cultural Heritage Ethics: Between Theory and Practice, Open Book Publishers, 2014, pp. 149–68. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1287k16.16.

Phillips, Ruth B. “Reading and Writing Between the Lines: Soldiers, Curiosities, and Indigenous Art Histories.” Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 45, no. 2/3, 2011, pp. 107–24. https://doi.org/10.1086/661560.