National Library of Portugal, Auditorium | 6 December, 2023

In this seminar, Lucas Lixinski (University of New South Wales – Sydney, Australia) will focus on current debates about cultural objects whose provenance is associated with colonial periods.

Using a variety of theoretical frameworks, he will present the premises and flaws of legal arguments and discourses on these topics.

The main thesis of the lecture, which informs a book that Lixinski is finalizing, is that any discussion about the repatriation of these objects requires more than simple acts of return. It requires measures to produce historical knowledge, as well as vigorous debates in which cultural heritage is taken not as a static relic of the past, but as a vector of social and political relations about the society we envision for the future.

About Lucas Lixinski

Professor at the Faculty of Law and Justice at the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia), Lucas Lixinski is a world expert on cultural heritage law, with more than 130 scientific publications in the field.

His work has been made available worldwide by the main publishers and journals in the English-speaking world. His latest book was published by Cambridge University Press in 2021 under the title Legalized Identities: Cultural Heritage Law and the Shaping of Transitional Justice.

He was vice-president of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies and rapporteur for the Association de Droit International’s committee on participation in the global management of cultural heritage.