“Sovereign Objects: International Dimensions of Indigenous Repatriation in Canada” explores the complexities of cultural repatriation in Canadian museums, advocating for its recognition as an international issue. By framing repatriation this way, the study acknowledges Indigenous sovereignty and aligns with international legal standards such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The international approach enhances political, social, and cultural outcomes for First Nations peoples, providing a robust legal framework and fostering greater recognition of Indigenous nations as sovereign entities. The manuscript highlights the importance of acknowledging the distinct cultural and political status of Indigenous communities, supported by historical treaties and contemporary legal recognition. It provides case studies, such as the repatriation of human remains from the Royal Ontario Museum to the Rainy River First Nations, to illustrate the practical application of these principles. The study also critically examines the challenges of adopting the discourse of “nations,” including the technical, political, social, and cultural expectations involved. By redefining repatriation as an international issue, this research promotes a deeper understanding of Indigenous sovereignty and facilitates more effective and culturally sensitive repatriation efforts. The manuscript argues that such an approach is essential for ensuring that repatriation processes are respectful, equitable, and aligned with the unique governance structures of Indigenous communities.

Old collections, real or fake, are a basic part of the collection history of an antiquity or artwork. This article is a starting point for a study of the concept: how old collections are employed, what functions they have, and how fictitious old collections are chosen and constructed. To explore these concepts, the article considers the example of Cumberland Clark, an early 20th-century collector who serves as the putative origin of cuneiform tablets in a handful of present-day collections, most notably the Schøyen Collection. This article looks at the life and collections of Cumberland Clark, then argues that the Clark provenance for current collections is a fabrication, and concludes by looking at Clark in the context of other old collections in order to draw some lessons about fabricated provenance.

Charcoal economies in central-east Africa are deep and powerful: they connect military and state financing with everyday family cooking. This article, based on new fieldwork in the understudied charcoal economy in South Sudan, explores the hierarchies and systems of self-employed producers, cash-for-piecework workers, middlemen and transporters, large-scale investors, and the public and defence sector financiers, landlords, brokers and security providers who all work in this political economy of forestry and charcoal-making. Drawing on local colonial archives and extensive fieldwork over 2020–2022, we break down the forms of work, investment and exploitation across this historical post/colonial landscape of labour, tree cultures, land rights and regional trade. In doing this we expand and escape the dominant and neatening metaphor of the value chain; we present a wider view of the expansion of the armed, privatised state economy; and we highlight current debates over the value, commodification and sale of forests and rural life.

Americans living in nineteenth-century Hong Kong and China's treaty ports encountered a contradiction. The British dominated elite foreign society, their political, social, and cultural agendas often setting the pace for life within the community. But as citizens of a country that had recently wrested its independence from its one-time imperial overlord, Americans arriving in China were ostensibly averse to imperialism and the culture of empire. They maintained a belief that theirs was a benevolent republic that championed international amity and self-determination. Still, as Elisa Tamarkin notes, if Americans were wary of the British Empire, many found the spectacle of it appealing—a tendency evident in Hong Kong and the foreign enclaves along China's coast. Americans eager to enter elite foreign society proclaimed newfound sympathies for British belligerence in China, in turn developing increasingly prejudiced opinions about their Chinese neighbours and staff. Their derisive expressions of racial difference reinforced efforts to reconcile Anglo-American cultural incongruities. Such sentiments reflect the entangled processes through which extraimperial groups such as Americans fashioned themselves as members of the colonial elite. I argue that through such processes, the British and Americans subordinated national rivalry in the interest of entrenching racial divisions between white and non-white communities.

This article adopts a social constructivist approach to reinvestigate the Song-Liao relations that were manifested in the handscroll Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute 胡茄十八拍. Instead of offering a visual analysis of each of the 18 scenes in succession, it will point out the shared cultural practices and connotations of identity in the contrasting depictions of Song urban life and the nomad encampment. It argues that the handscroll probably represents the conservative faction's benevolent attitude towards nomadic tribes in the late Northern Song period, which is also likely to have been associated with the rise of Neo-Confucianism.

Observaremos la manera en que el extractivismo económico y otras de sus formas aparecen en la obra Los pasos perdidos de Alejo Carpentier: El protagonista anónimo expresa formas de pensar y de actuar que pueden entenderse como construcciones culturales de cuño extractivo. Analizaremos el uso narrativo del presente, pues se relaciona de manera explícita con las reflexiones del protagonista sobre el mundo contemporáneo y sus descubrimientos. Se examinará la manera en que las descripciones de los paisajes se relacionan con el presente, y permiten analizar el lenguaje usado para hacerlas. Por último, presentaremos algunas conclusiones acerca de las relaciones entre el modelo económico extractivo y el lenguaje en la obra: el protagonista intenta reconstruir —inútilmente— un vínculo sacro entre la realidad y la palabra.