Cultural heritage as a reparation mechanism: Germany and Brazil

Abstract

In this paper we examine and discuss how internal demands for recognition of plural identities and reparation of colonial dispossessions through cultural heritages are being carried out in Germany and in Brazil, two countries with di ff erent trajectories within Modernity’s shared relational experience. For it, we spotlight recent developments concerning the mobilization of the colonial past by means of proposing cultural policies as symbolic gestures for addressing social injustice derived from colonialism in the first case, and the emergence of a series of exhibitions in the second. Whereas in Germany restitution claims of stolen cultural heritage seem to guide the agenda of historical cor-rections and symbolic compensations, in Brazil, it is the struggle for institutional visibility of marginalized groups and the recognition of a failed attempt of cultural homogenization that takes place.