A vehicle for collaboration in digital repatriation and preservation of African culture
Why does the issue of repatriation exist?
It’s a pertinent question. Why do individuals, who have had minimal interactions with objects, fervently desire their return from places far from their origins? Part of the answer lies in the objects being “held in a place other than where they are from,” as the question suggests. The second part of the answer lies in symbolism, pivotal to Africa, its myriad countries, and their varied practices. Symbols, be they statues, currency, buildings, or shrines, hold intrinsic value globally, attributed by people either due to utility or in commemoration of such utility.
Returning to the African context, addressing the repatriation challenge requires two key actions. First, a universal comprehension of repatriation’s fundamentals is necessary: understanding the process, its significance, and why governments, organizations, and individuals should invest resources, time, effort, and money into this endeavour. Essentially, common definitions and historical insights into repatriation are needed.
Repatriation narrates a tale of slavery from the perspective of a now-liberated people (though finding the correct, time-sensitive term is challenging). It occurs when items displaced from their rightful home are demanded back by the people to whom they belong. “Displaced” is somewhat misleading, as these artifacts were taken—some legitimately, others pillaged, with the rest lost to history. And in their place a symbol was created. This historical appropriation has forged a symbol encapsulating longing, hurt, pain, vindictiveness, and curiosity. The persistence of artifacts in foreign lands symbolizes an ongoing legacy of slavery, a harsh reality that, though symbolic, can also be seen as an undeniable truth.
The retention of African culture, emotion, and technology by external powers leaves modern Africans with a retrospective shame of their history. This does not imply the failure of repatriation; rather, it highlights the complexity and duration of the process, hampered by logistical challenges and infrastructural inadequacies.
The second part of the solution involves a comprehensive recounting of the artifacts’ journey, the repatriation process, and an encompassing narrative. Ideally, this narrative doesn’t erase the existing symbol but casts a new light on it, contextualizing the significance of lost technology across generations and, more crudely, bridging the gap between 21st-century Africans and their ancestors. The aim is to enable a full recounting of repatriation’s history and rationale while allowing modern Africans to add their contextual contributions, thereby bridging to a history that was showcased in museums not designed for the people from whom these items were taken. This approach, though perhaps extreme, confronts a necessary truth. To forge a genuine solution, the entire story must be told, facilitated by bridging the informational gap between generations.
Who better to narrate a story of pain than the artifacts used by those who suffered, and who better to relay that than their descendants?
The solution envisaged here necessitates a technology capable of encapsulating history, incorporating it into itself, and generating an unbroken trail leading to a singular source of truth. This means proficiently narrating the provenance of artifacts from the past yet allowing for the addition of new information without compromising the integrity or altering the historical narrative. Essentially, this involves embedding history within technology—a method that marries the preservation of cultural heritage with modern digital capabilities.
Addressing this human-centric issue demands a meticulous layout of all external variables, akin to constructing a comprehensive information architecture. The task at hand is to distil and utilize the concrete information available to us—digital renditions of physical artifacts along with their storied pasts. These elements serve as the foundational blocks for a simple version of the proposed solution, which entails creating a database that effectively pairs each story with its corresponding artifact. However, the challenge of ensuring the integrity of these contributions arises, necessitating a robust management system that safeguards the authenticity, timely relevance, and rightful ownership of the stored information, among other concerns related to data integrity.
SummitShare is better suited to being called or referred to as a project than a platform. The distinction is made from the fact that, from precedence and expectations, the project goes beyond the definitions of a platform because its aim is to become a vehicle for the creation of a new symbol.
SummitShare is better suited to being understood in two parts: SummitShare the project and SummitShare the platform.
This distinction is derived from the precedence of the development of the platform as well as expectations for it (looking at the past and looking at the future. A retrospective and a modern perspective). SummitShare, the platform’s goal, at its simplest, has always been to find a way of utilizing an array of digital components to solve a very big problem. In a digital age such as this one and inferring different solutions that have been created or simply just designed and not implemented to solve the repatriation of the artifacts that left Africa mostly during the colonialist period.
Repatriation, in the context of cultural heritage, refers to the process of returning cultural artifacts, human remains, sacred objects, or other historically significant items to their country of origin or to their indigenous communities from which they were removed. This can occur through legal or diplomatic processes, negotiations between institutions, countries, or communities, and is often part of broader efforts to address historical injustices, colonial legacies, and to ensure the preservation and respectful treatment of cultural heritage.
Repatriation initiatives are usually driven by ethical considerations, legal obligations, and the desire to rectify historical wrongs, fostering reconciliation and understanding between nations and peoples.
For the longest amount of time, the only way Africa saw repatriation happen is physically. But this on its own has brought its own challenges and concerns; red tape of the legislation process, lack of infrastructure to safely store the artifacts on the African side, debacle of preservation and quality control, identification of owners to name a few. But this is not to say that it hasn’t been successful in any case, in some cases physical repatriation has taken place and in most of those cases the objects had to be ‘loaned’ rather than entirely given off.
Given the time this process takes, and the resources required to maintain this effort the message gets lost in translation as these processes take decades to further. SummitShare the platform acknowledges this problem and aims at one of the major problems/core purposes of the repatriation movement. The need for information. In essence, the history of a people is displaced and it’s only natural for them to want that piece of history back. The platform, leveraging mostly digital components, was able to zero in on what that key problem is or was. Information. The platform in its infancy placed the problem of provenance at its center.
The way this problem was approached is following the logic of an exhibition. In any museum, gallery, or art show the simple formula is for every object or piece there must be a biography or some form of history context, biography attached and these must be displayed in order to give a viewer a concept in two parts the context of the idea in practice (the object) and the purpose in the context of; the creator, meaning, history, or use.
The current state of the problem leaves much to be desired, which encouraged the development of this platform, and which will further push its growth into a standard or an authority in the field of repatriation. The problem with repatriation as of now is the lack of frameworks that work for the entire continent, this is because there is no one size fits all solution just similar-looking puzzle pieces. One of the first major challenges to be solved is defining and figuring out the unique curves and edges held by each puzzle piece. Until data on the contextual relationship between countries like Zambia and Kenya or Benin and Nigeria and their cultures and essentially how that relates to their displaced artifacts only then can a true solution be made to solve the problem.
The repatriation of cultural artifacts, especially those from Africa, has gained significant momentum in recent years, yet remains a complex and slow-moving process. The situation concerning famous collections such as the Benin Bronzes and the Rosetta Stone illustrates both progress and ongoing challenges in the restitution landscape. A good example of the current State of Repatriation Efforts would be;
The repatriation of cultural artifacts, including the Benin Bronzes and the Rosetta Stone, from European museums back to their countries of origin, such as Nigeria and Egypt, has become a focal point of international discussions on cultural restitution.
Germany’s commitment to return the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria and France’s proactive steps in returning artifacts to Benin and Senegal represent significant advancements in addressing colonial legacies, despite the absence of specific details on the numbers repatriated.
In contrast, the British Museum’s engagement in discussions around loans rather than repatriation highlights the challenges and legal complexities surrounding the return of major artifacts. Meanwhile, Sweden’s less publicized negotiations on the Benin artifacts underscore the broader, European-wide dialogue on artifact restitution. These efforts, varying in progress and approach, reflect the intricate balance between maintaining global access to cultural heritage and rectifying historical injustices, underscoring the ongoing and time-consuming nature of restitution efforts that often span several years without conclusive action.
The path towards repatriating cultural artifacts is marked by incremental progress amidst extensive negotiations. While some European countries have made notable strides, the process is invariably slow, often taking years to conclude agreements for the return of even a single collection. The discussions around famous collections like the Benin Bronzes and the Rosetta Stone emphasize the multifaceted challenges involved, from legal hurdles to the logistical aspects of transferring artifacts. As talks continue, the balance between maintaining public access to global cultural heritage and rectifying historical injustices remains a central debate in the repatriation discourse.
The platform aims to bridge gaps that have been created by the main problem and the time in between the discussion and execution of a solution.
At its simplest form, the platform is a database of artifacts and their descriptions, following the logic of traditional databases but with the addition of decentralized digital components to serve the same purpose more effectively. The platform has created a digital registry of artifacts by leveraging the immutable characteristics of blockchain technology.
By tokenizing the artifacts using the ERC-721 standard, which is a widely recognized standard for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain, each token represents a unique asset, in this case, an artifact. The ERC-721 standard ensures that each token has a distinct value and metadata, making it perfect for representing unique items like cultural artifacts. This standard includes functionalities for transferring tokens, checking ownership, and managing approvals, which are crucial for creating a secure and transparent digital registry. The uniqueness and indivisibility of ERC-721 tokens make them ideal for ensuring the provenance and authenticity of each artifact in the registry.
By employing ERC-721A for the actual process of tokenization and cataloging these objects and their respective metadata (provenance stories), an immutable registry on-chain is created. This ensures that the information becomes entirely accessible and has a single point of truth, allowing further information to be added with a verifiable trail of all changes.
The artifacts are displayed in a digital repository hosted on an open metaverse repository (OM), which enables their provenance data to be attached to their addresses and displayed. The Revenue Sharing Mesh (RVS-m) is a set of smart contracts responsible for organizing the distribution of proceeds from exhibitions and events. These contracts use a loose adaptation of Merkle tree logic, where the parent nodes represent museums and galleries, and the child nodes represent exhibitions and art collections.
One of the main goals of the application is to facilitate value addition to otherwise underdeveloped regions of the heritage countries or communities from which these artifacts originate. By using stablecoins as a method of payment for exhibition tickets, the mesh enables the smart distribution of event proceeds into escrow accounts for these communities. This setup allows for governance involving community stakeholders, who can vote on which sustainable development goals can be implemented and funded. Through this mechanism, a new value cycle is created, enabling sustainable development in these communities via a new form of repatriation, derived from digitally bringing the otherwise distant objects closer. This approach ensures the preservation of history via a decentralized ledger and adds value through programmable money.
If you wish to learn more about our smart contracts and code please [see here]
The platform aims to create a relationship between 21st-century individuals and artifacts from the 16th century and beyond, adding value to individuals, societies, and organizations focused on cultural preservation, its studies and encouraging research into the subject matter. SummitShare the project, on the other hand, works with the primary goal of becoming a pan-African open-source vehicle. Why does this matter? Public goods projects are motivated by problem-solving, but before a problem can be solved it needs to be identified by those that have a contextual understanding of what that problem is.
The problem of repatriation being one that has encompassed almost the entirety of the continent can only have those affected by it or within the system address it. The project aims to be the vehicle that not only facilitates digital repatriation on-chain but a pan-African open-source community that allows African developers to contribute and build towards a problem that spans the continent and has use for their unique perspective.
The success of the platform lies in its ability to serve the purpose of becoming a repository of historic cultural information for the public to access and interact with as well as create a form of economic repatriation through the use of the digital platform/tool which is SummitShare to be able to have some of the revenue trickle down to the regions of origin some of these artifacts are from. And be able to contribute towards the stories presented through the platform. Once this is achieved the platform is successful by bridging a seemingly lost treasury of information to the present in a way that the parties the solution is intended for are able to experience and contribute towards this repository. This creates value addition into the cultural space and begins a blend of technology and culture done at a scale like never before.
The project can be considered a success when it reaches pan-African status. A Nonprofit cultural preservation vehicle with a voting body ideally made up of representatives knowledgeable in matters regarding history, culture, and technology from eastern, western, northern, and southern Africa. This body will represent the interest of each of their regions and define and decide the direction of the project when it comes to feature development, building of relationships across the respective regions, publication of research and educational papers on the subject matter and support of other cultural initiatives in the space.
The other half of the project’s definition of success lies in creating an open-source code base that is made up of primarily Africans building for Africa, packaging of tools and scripts that leverage the unique parts of the platform such as its voting and consensus mechanism, revenue distributions, and organization logic of the smart contracts as well as VR and AR capabilities for community use. The goal is to create a community that comprises knowledgeable groups of individuals over many fields that will be able to influence public policy and legislation when it comes to cultural preservation and repatriation and the only way to do this is via growth of the Pan-African standard. This is entirely possible bringing back my earlier point, this problem although in genesis started in Zambia is not just a Zambian solution but an African one. If precedence is any indicator of growth for the project, then its future surely is bright.
As this project continues to grow and evolve from pieces of a system to eventually an entire ecosystem based on being centered around the African and how they wish their solution can be tailored to them, despite it being an ‘Africa problem’ it is not one size fits all for all countries as historical context, culture, and information passed down differs and it is because of this the project must go before the notion of a platform or a use case because it is only when stakeholders (engineers, developers, anthropologists, curators, and scholars) come together to identify and solve a problem is the first form of the solution created.
In totality, it’s the body or the people behind the ideology who will cause the solution to come into fruition. The project comes before the platform. The platform would ideally create a digital space to make these artifacts and their context available to the public as well as create a platform where people can discuss and contribute to the context of these artifacts, the key point here is to make it possible to have the context of these artifacts stored and publicly accessible while allowing a platform for contribution and further contextualization.
SummitShare emerges as a solution to the core issue of repatriation: the dissemination of information. By digitizing artifacts and their histories, SummitShare aims to preserve and share African cultural heritage more broadly. The platform, through its innovative use of blockchain technology, ensures the authenticity and accessibility of each artifact’s story, making history a living, evolving narrative accessible to all.
One of SummitShare’s goals is to connect contemporary Africans with their rich past, creating a bridge across centuries. This connection is not just about knowledge but about fostering a deep, emotional link to one’s heritage. Through contributions and engagement, SummitShare encourages a collective reclamation and celebration of African history, challenging the narrative of loss with one of empowerment and pride.
SummitShare’s journey is ambitious, aiming to establish a pan-African, open-source community that champions digital repatriation. Success is envisioned as reaching a status where the project serves not only as a repository of cultural information but as a catalyst for pan-African collaboration and innovation in cultural preservation. Not just for African culture but to set a global precedent for a digital repatriation solution/standard that can be replicated across regions with the same problem.
1. Engagement with Governments and Institutions: Building partnerships and dialogues to support the project’s infrastructure and legitimacy.
2. Publication and Education: Disseminating research and whitepapers to establish SummitShare as an authority on cultural preservation and repatriation.
3. Community Building: Cultivating an open-source community to contribute to and expand upon SummitShare’s platform, ensuring it remains a living, evolving project.
4. Technological Advancements: Continuously updating the platform to enhance its functionality and accessibility, making the rich tapestry of African history available to a global audience.