Contested Heritage of Latin America: “Collectors, Markets and Coloniality”

The SSLAS workshop on “Contested Heritage of Latin America” brings together comparative research on illegal trade heritage, museum collections, and coloniality. It examines the role of the antiquities market and the formation of museum collections, with a particular focus on antiquities and cultural objects.
The workshop also engages with current debates on the decolonization of museum and academic practices, addressing how colonial legacies continue to shape the circulation, display, and interpretation of Latin American culture and heritage. It sheds light on the voices of communities of origin, whose cultural and spiritual heritage is often implicated in processes of extraction and commodification. The role of Switzerland, as both a transit and destination country in the (il)legal antiquities trade, will be explored within a broader reflection on the role of institutions and states in the Global North. The workshop will likewise analyse the historical and legal context in which Swiss collectors acquired Latin American antiquities.
Presentations will explore these practices, as well as national and international efforts to better understand the dynamics of (il)legal activity in the antiquities market, and how such understanding can contribute to more ethical and inclusiveapproaches to heritage practices.
The official talks of the workshop are in Spanish, Portuguese and English.

SSLAS PhD Workshop organized by the
Centro Latinoamericano-Suizo de la Universidad de St. Gallen (CLS-HSG)

Thursday, February 26, 2026
Universität St. Gallen, The SQUARE, Room Rosenberg Rotmonten

• 11:45 – 11:55 Welcome Sandwich and Coffee
• 11:55 – 12:00 Opening Remarks

Prof. Dr. Matias Dewey (University of St. Gallen)

CONTESTED NARRATIVES AND LEGAL FRAMEWORKS
 

Chair: Alexander Brust (Museum der Kulturen Basel)

• 12:00 – 13:00 The Palmanova Precedent? The role of Expertise in Current and Future Latin American Heritage Return Cases

Prof. Dr. Donna Yates (Maastricht University)

• 13:00 – 13:45 Justifying Illegality: Collecting Latin American Antiquities and Cultural Objects in Swiss Contexts during the Twentieth Century

Maylawi Herbas (PhD at University of St. Gallen)

• 13:45 – 14:45 When (Not) to Repatriate: Law, Memory and the Case of the Tupinambá Cape(s)

Dr. Miroslaw M. Sadowski (University of Strathclyde Glasgow)

• 14:45 – 15:45 Framing legal trajectories, between Sisyphean task and Protean pirouette

Prof. Dr. Dr. Antoinette Maget Dominicé

• 15:45 – 16:00 Coffee Break

COLONIALITY AND COLONIAL LEGACIES

Chair: Prof. Dr. Christian Büschges (University of Bern)

• 16:00 – 16:45 Decolonizando a coleção: uma abordagem às obras Etnografia branca e Produtos de genocídio, de Paulo Nazareth

Dr. André Masseno (Post. Doc at University of Zürich)

• 16:45 – 17:30 Internalizando o colonialismo: mercado de crédito e concentração fundiária no Brasil, 1850-1914

Jean Ramos (PhD at University of Bern)

• 17:30 – 18:15 Beyond the Ledger: Tracing Enslaved Women’s Lives Through the Records of a Swiss-Owned Plantation in Nineteenth-Century Bahia

Izabel Barros (PhD at University of Lausanne)

• 18:15 – 18:30 Coffee Break

Keynote

• 18:30 – 19:30 “Collectors on Markets”? Revisiting how things from the colonial Asian-Pacific world ended up in Switzerland

Prof. Dr. Bernhard C. Schär (University of Lausanne and UniDistance Swiss)

• 20:00 Dinner: Café Restaurant Gentile in St. Gallen (Vadianstrasse 14, 9000 St. Gallen)

Friday, February 27, 2026
Universität St. Gallen, The SQUARE, Hilti-Room

MUSEUMS AND THEIR LEGACIES

Chair: Prof. Dr. Adriana Labourdette-Lopez (University of Zurich)

• 08:45 – 09:00 Welcome Coffee
• 09:00 – 10:00 When Objects Create Territories: Indigenous Perspectives on Amazonian Collections and Colonial Legacies

Prof. Dr. Carla Jaimes Betancourt (University of Bonn)

• 10:00 – 11:00 Resignification and Rematriation: Indigenous Communities and Cultural Belongings between Latin America and Switzerland

Alexander Brust (Museum der Kulturen Basel)

• 11:00 – 12:00 Conexiones, desconexiones y reconexiones. Una (auto)reflexión sobre prácticas museísticas y descolonización a partir de la experiencia del (MEN).

Sara Sanchez del Olmo (Musée d´ethnographie de Neuchâtel)

• 12:00 – 13:00 Apéro Riche – Networking

MARKETS, NETWORKS, AND SCIENCE

Chair: Prof. Dr. Matias Dewey (University of St. Gallen)

• 13:00 – 14:00 Developing tools to work towards inter-institutional provenance from the BECACO project

Dr. Martin Berger (University of Leiden)

• 14:00 – 15:00 Terms of Exchange, Past and Present: Swiss-Latin American Entanglements in Science and Collections

Dr. Tomas Bartoletti (ETH Zürich)

• 15:00 – 15:45 The Persistence of the Cocaine Industry: Embedded Markets in an Amazonian Drug Enclave

Alvaro Pastor (PhD at University of St. Gallen)

• 15:45 – 15:50 Leading House for Latin America: opportunities for the PhD students and professors
• 15:50 – 16:00 Final Dr. Rocio Robinson (University of St. Gallen)

Remarks: The Swiss Society of Latin American Studies (SSLAS)
Prof. Dr. Matias Dewey (Universität St. Gallen)
Prof. Dr. Christian Büschges (University of Bern)

Use the link to sign up for the workshop.

https://forms.office.com/e/eWJUfjcAv8?origin=lprLink

For more information or to sign up please contact:
Maylawi Herbas (maylawi.herbas@unisg.ch)
Location:
University of St. Gallen
The SQUARE,
Guisanstrasse 20
CH-9010 St. Gallen