The protection of movable cultural heritage in Argentina. Recent advances and great challenges

ENDERE, MARIA LUZ; BONNIN, MIRTA

The (Un)virtuous Cycle: Looting, Traffic, Commerce and Repatriation of Material Heritage

Serie "HERITAGE AND IDENTITY: ISSUES IN CULTURAL HERITAGE PROTECTION?, Brill Editors

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2014;

The protection, destruction and illegal trade of cultural heritage against looting is not an easy task to be carried out anywhere across the world. In Argentina, this is mainly difficult due to a number of legal as well as practical and financial reasons. Probably, one of the biggest problems lies on its territory hugeness in which plenty of archaeological and paleontological sites, with highly valuable remains in some cases, are to be found. An unlikely efficient territory patrolling and frontier controlling make looting prevention and goods circulation along bordering countries a complex job to do. Additionally, there are coordination problems between the national government and provincial administrations not always working together towards the implementation of judicial and practical measures. However, this illegal trade issue should not be limited to these matters. There exist many other more complex questions whose analysis goes beyond the legal, administrative and police fields of application and which call for an anthropological approach of some kind to analyze the social and cultural context in which these trading situations arise. A particularly interesting question to tackle is that of looting and illegal trade of archaeological heritage since it is different from works of art robbery and illegal transference. This article therefore aims at analyzing this topic from a double perspective; on the one hand, that of the legal frame, the policies lately implemented and some of the most important actions carried out to fight illegal trade in the country; on the other hand, that intended to consider the archaeological heritage problem from a historical and regional point of view, emphasizing the treatment of the different actors involved and the diversity of cultural heritage assessment. As from this study, we intend to widen the analysis perspectives and promote a deeper topic debate leading to the design of more efficient cultural heritage protection policies.