SOAS Research Online

Abstract

In recent repatriation cases, issues regarding geopolitical relations and ownership rights prevail against the symbolic values and meanings attributed to artefacts by source communities. Investigating the recent repatriation case of twenty-two objects to Okinawa, I argue that looted and non-looted artefacts mediate Okinawans’ traumatic history and present experience. Counteracting locals’ feeling of disconnection caused by the annexation of Okinawa and the deportation of their cultural heritage, the repatriation of artefacts to the Ryūkyū emphasises how Okinawans’ lives are entangled with the happenings of their physical surrounding. Besides showing their physical trauma, the re-socialisation of artworks offers tracings for the socio-cultural history of the Ryūkyū Kingdom and locals’ pre-war relationship to their land, thereby re-activating Okinawans’ concealed memory. Resultantly, it opens doors to intergenerational knowledge transmission: direct contact with those objects could enhance scholarly research undertaken in Okinawan art and cultural history. Okinawans could learn about the culture of the Ryūkyūans in museums. Therefore, I lay the ground for further ethnographic research to explore how Okinawan artefacts’ repatriation/return could lead to the recognition of Okinawan indigeneity and sovereignty and empower the people with self-governance and self-determination.