A 'safe space' to debate colonial legacy? The University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the campaign to return a looted Benin altarpiece to Nigeria

In February 2016, students at the University of Cambridge voted unanimously to support the repatriation to Nigeria of a bronze cockerel looted during the violent British expedition into Benin City in 1897. Rather than initiating a restitution process, however, the college response saw the cockerel, known as Okukor, temporarily relocated to the University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. This article outlines the discussions that took place during this process, exploring how the Museum was positioned as a safe space in which uncomfortable colonial legacies, including institutionalized racism and rights over cultural patrimony, could be debated. We explore how a stated commitment to post-colonial dialogue ultimately worked to circumvent a call for post-colonial action. Drawing on Stoler’s and Edwards’ discussions of colonial aphasia, this article argues that museums of anthropology risk enabling such circumvention despite, and perhaps as a result of, a commitment to confronting their own institutional colonial legacies