What Do I Need To Use DARCA?
DARCA is best used in conjunction with existing legal rules and ethical guidance that might already apply to a particular cultural institution, such as the guidance published by Arts Council England called Restitution and Repatriation: A practical guide for museums in England (2022). You can find a link to this guidance under the ‘resources’ tab.
The first stage in working through a claim will usually involve developing an understanding of the artefact, the parties involved and any relevant stakeholder interests (see Section 2, Stage 1 of the Arts Council England Guide). The second stage will usually involve procedural aspects of working through a formal claim (see Section 2, Stage 2 of the Arts Council England Guide). Prior to using DARCA, users should ensure that they:
- gather sufficient information to ensure that their decision is suitably informed;
- are transparent about their decision-making process;
- involve multiple stake-holders, where necessary.
Once the above is completed, this decision aid is intended to act as a supplement to the next stage in the process (see Section 2, Stage 3 of the Arts Council England Guide), which concerns the substantive issue of assessing claims. To answer the questions in DARCA, users will need to have developed an understanding of the following:
- The claimant’s relationship to the cultural artefact,
- The nature of the claimant’s interest in the artefact,
- The manner in which the museum came to be in possession of the artefact,
- The cultural significance of the artefact to the wider public, in its current institution,
- The claimant’s capacity and willingness to preserve the artefact for public display,
- Whether the continued public display of the artefact is compatible with what the claimant believes to be its respectful treatment,
- Whether the claimant would publicly display the artefact in a manner that would better contextualise it for public audiences, or enable fairer access to it,
- Obstacles that the claimant currently faces in accessing the artefact in its current institution.
The intention is that DARCA should be used iteratively, as a means of responding to claims as they arise. As such, it does not address the weighing up of one claim (or potential claim) against another. That said, the existence of a competing claim might potentially be relevant to the answer to some the questions raised by DARCA, such as the assessment of the importance of the object to the claimant, and the closeness of a claimant’s relationship to the victims of a morally illegitimate removal of an object.
If competing claims arise, it is suggested that DARCA is used to assess each claim in isolation, and that users then draw on the generated outcome documents to facilitate a discussion of how to weigh these competing claims.
How To Use DARCA
Users of DARCA will be presented with a sequence of questions, and a selection of possible answers to each question. Each question is accompanied by guidance notes within the decision aid, offering a brief explanation of considerations that might factor into the user’s decision about how to answer the question in a particular case. Users can also add their own notes explaining why they have answered each question in a particular way.
DARCA aims to provide support to users seeking to understand their moral obligations in approaching restitution claims. It is a decision aid rather than a decision-making tool – it does not seek to dictate or even steer a user towards any particular answer. It is based on questions concerning morally relevant features that have been identified as those that have been widely discussed in the academic literature, and that are most likely to arise across different restitution cases. However, there will sometimes be other factors (e.g. political, legal, reputational, and in some cases, other moral considerations) in particular cases that fall outside of DARCA’s scope. These case-specific factors will also need to be considered when users consider how to respond to a restitution claim. Although users of DARCA will have an opportunity to add details about their own particular case, the primary intended aim of DARCA is to facilitate discussion of morally relevant factors that are common to the majority of restitution cases.
Accordingly, DARCA is not intended to replace measured ethical reflection. Instead, its function is to serve as an aid to enable users to come to a well-reasoned and justifiable decision about returning cultural artefacts. It is intended to supplement, and to be used in conjunction with, existing ethical guidance for museums, such as guidance provided by Arts Council England. You can find links to this guidance and other relevant resources in the ‘further resources’ section of the site.
Users should try to answer each question based on evidence that can demonstrate a reasonable basis for one particular answer or another (for more on this, see the Extended Guidance Document in the Resources tab, and the Arts Council England Guidance, p 9). For this reason, it is important to gather sufficient information prior to using DARCA to ensure that it can be used in a way that will facilitate a suitably informed decision.
Upon completing DARCA, users will be presented with an outcome outlining the strength of the moral obligation to return a particular artefact, on the basis of the answers that they have given over the course of using the decision aid. The outcome document will also provide a summary of how each question was answered, and any additional justificatory notes provided by the user. The users’ final comments regarding further details about their particular case, and their own rationale for whether these factors strengthen or weaken the case for restitution, can enable a more nuanced discussion of the particular case, and they will appear on the outcome document after DARCA’s own assessment.
You can find extended guided notes for all questions in DARCA and a full academic rationale for DARCA by clicking on the ‘Resources’ tab. Users may wish to open these PDF documents prior to starting DARCA if they would like to consult either of them whilst using the decision aid.