Decolonization through the Repatriation of Cultural Heritage: What the Struggle for Ngonnso Can Teach about Restitution

This thesis explores the Ngonnso statue, a sacred object of the Nso people of Cameroon, currently held in Germany, and the movement toward its repatriation. This research emerges from a research internship carried out at the museum Musée La Blackitude in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Through ethnographic fieldwork, institutional case studies, and interviews with stakeholders, this research critically investigates the preservation of material culture and the promotion of cultural heritage as central to decolonization, sustainable development, self-determination, and cultural resilience. This research examines the contemporary movement to decolonize museums and restore agency to source communities. The project interrogates the processes and ethics of repatriation diplomacy within an international framework, serving as a focal point for exploring broader questions of cultural sovereignty, historical justice, and the sociopolitical power of material heritage. The research draws on anthropological and archaeological theories of agency (e.g., Actor-Network Theory and agential realism), decolonization theory, and the more-than-human approach in anthropological inquiry. Ultimately, this thesis affirms the necessity of repatriation not merely as an act of return but as a decolonial strategy that re-centers the voices, rights, and ontologies of source communities. Analysis of the Ngonnso case presents the opportunity to understand the importance of material cultural heritage as objects that influence and motivate, generate and foster political authority, and are socioculturally autopoietic.