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In Opinion pieces

After the Return: Readiness and Responsibility in Hosting Digitally Repatriated Heritage

* By Ahmad Mohammed, PhD Researcher, Department of Archaeology, Durham University

In the previous article “Beyond Access: Rethinking Ownership, Justice, and Decolonization in Digital Repatriation Initiatives“, I have examined the conceptual landscape of digital repatriation, highlighting both the empowering potential and colonial pitfalls of returning cultural heritage in digital form. This follow-up extends that inquiry by addressing a critical, often overlooked dimension: the readiness of source countries and communities to host, govern, and sustain digitally repatriated heritage.

While digital repatriation offers an alternative or complementary pathway to physical restitution, its success hinges not only on ethical intent or technological innovation but on the socio-technical infrastructure available to source communities. This article examines this issue through three key lenses: infrastructural readiness, governance and capacity, and cultural sustainability. In doing so, it critiques the assumption—sometimes implicit in institutional discourse—that access alone constitutes justice.

  1. Digital Return Without Digital Sovereignty?

Many digital repatriation initiatives remain predicated on the assumption that “returning” digitized copies is enough. Yet, without adequate resources, platforms, or autonomy in hosting those digital materials, such returns may replicate the asymmetries of physical colonial collecting.

For instance, The Inuvialuit Living History Project (Hennessy et al., 2013) was rightly celebrated for its collaborative structure. However, the project relied heavily on external academic platforms and funding mechanisms, raising long-term questions about sustainability and control. Who maintains these systems when grant funding ends? What happens when a server is taken offline or institutional priorities shift?

Similar concerns were voiced by Carlton (2010), who found that while Native American communities expressed strong interest in digital stewardship, they often lacked the infrastructure—both technological and human—to manage repatriated materials without ongoing support. This reflects a broader digital divide that continues to define the global heritage ecosystem (Smith & Ristya, 2023).

  1. Infrastructure: The Weak Link in Decolonial Aspirations

Digital repatriation often presumes the existence of stable internet access, secure data servers, digital preservation strategies, and metadata expertise. In practice, such conditions are far from universal.

Even in well-resourced cultural institutions within source countries, digital infrastructure may be centralized, bureaucratically constrained, or misaligned with local epistemologies. For Indigenous and rural communities, the gap is even more acute. Shepardson et al. (2019) note that while Rapa Nui youth were engaged in digital mapping and archival training, technical constraints repeatedly limited project continuity.

Further, as Barwick (2004) cautioned, there is no one-size-fits-all model for digital repositories. “Community archives” must reflect the specific needs and values of those communities. Off-the-shelf solutions or externally hosted databases rarely offer this flexibility, and may embed Western norms of access, hierarchy, and categorization.

Mukurtu, an open-source CMS built with Indigenous communities, is one of the few platforms to address this issue explicitly by allowing users to create “cultural protocols” for access. Yet even Mukurtu, despite its affordances, requires ongoing technical capacity—training, updates, and hosting—that many communities are not funded or trained to sustain (Krupa & Grimm, 2021).

  1. Governance and Institutional Commitment

Even when infrastructure exists, governance structures for digital repatriation are often absent or insufficient. Who decides what is digitized? Who approves public access? How are sacred, gendered, or restricted materials managed?

Leopold (2013) warned that even collaborative efforts risk collapsing under institutional inertia if power is not equitably distributed. The question, then, is not just whether communities can host digital heritage—but whether they are empowered to govern it under their own laws, customs, and knowledge systems.

There is also the issue of dependency. Projects like the Sípnuuk digital library, developed by the Karuk Tribe (Tribe et al., 2017), demonstrate that community-owned platforms are possible. But they are rare. Without structural changes in funding models, most digital repatriation efforts will remain tethered to the institutions that initially dispossessed the materials.

Thus, readiness is not merely technical—it is political and legal. It is about sovereignty over data, not just access to it.

  1. Readiness as a Moving Target

One of the key insights emerging from recent literature is that readiness must be understood relationally—not as a fixed state, but as a collaborative, evolving process. Communities may not begin with the infrastructure to host a digital archive, but can develop it through sustained, respectful partnerships.

Jennifer O’Neal (2013) emphasized the need for “temporal flexibility” in such collaborations. Timelines driven by institutional deliverables often clash with community-centered pacing. Likewise, community readiness cannot be imposed from the outside—it must be nurtured through trust-building, consultation, and co-creation.

The readiness of source countries also varies at the national level. Some governments have national digitization strategies and heritage ministries with strong technical capacity. Others—especially in post-conflict or low-income contexts—lack even basic archival systems. In such cases, digital repatriation risks deepening inequities unless accompanied by state-level investment in cultural infrastructure.

  1. The Illusion of Reversibility: Digital Fragility

One of the unspoken myths of digital repatriation is its supposed reversibility. Unlike physical repatriation, which is permanent, digital files can be duplicated, stored, or deleted with ease. But this is both a strength and a weakness.

The impermanence of digital formats, combined with the volatility of online platforms, makes digital heritage vulnerable to obsolescence, cyberattacks, or institutional neglect. Without redundant backups, maintenance plans, and clear governance, returned digital heritage can easily be lost—sometimes more quickly than it was ever accessible.

Digital fragility also exposes legal and ethical loopholes. Institutions may remove digital access without explanation. They may alter metadata, remap URLs, or archive collections under different taxonomies. Such risks are often invisible to the public but acutely felt by communities (Oruç, 2023).

  1. Toward a Readiness Index: What Does It Take?

Given the multi-dimensional nature of readiness, there is a growing need to develop a readiness index for digital repatriation—similar to frameworks used in international development or public health.

Such an index might include:

  • Technical infrastructure: internet bandwidth, server capacity, digital security
  • Institutional readiness: presence of cultural institutions, funding streams, IT departments
  • Community governance: mechanisms for access control, cultural protocol management
  • Policy environment: national laws on IP, cultural heritage, and Indigenous rights
  • Capacity-building mechanisms: training, mentorship, language accessibility

A readiness index would not be a gatekeeping tool, but a diagnostic one—allowing all parties to assess strengths, identify gaps, and co-create realistic timelines and support strategies.

Conclusion: Toward Relational and Contextual Readiness

Digital repatriation is not a matter of merely “giving back” digital files. It is a complex, relational, and infrastructural act that must be grounded in long-term partnerships, not one-off transfers. For source countries and communities to be truly “ready,” they must have not only the technical means but the authority, governance, and cultural frameworks to host and care for their digital heritage.

Institutions in the Global North must recognize their role not just as holders of collections, but as co-conspirators in decolonial repair. Readiness, in this sense, is not about ticking boxes—it is about co-building futures. As repatriation expands into the digital realm, the ethical questions grow more intricate, but so too does the potential for shared sovereignty, cultural revitalization, and relational accountability.

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