Vicky Buser of Associate Supplier MeThree introduces a new online tool to support restitution decision making.
DARCA is a free online ethics tool designed to help people think carefully about whether there is a strong moral case for returning a cultural artefact in a particular situation.
The brief we had from our client, the Uehiro Oxford Institute, was to translate a quite complex decision-making flowchart into a user-friendly interface. The ethics of cultural restitution are incredibly complex, and there are a number of quite different moral considerations pulling in very different directions.
DARCA doesn’t replace existing guidance on how to handle restitution claims, but instead focuses on a related question: how to think through the moral issues themselves once the relevant evidence has been gathered from historical sources and from relevant stakeholders.
DARCA is intended to be used once a museum has gathered relevant information about a claim and engaged openly with those involved. At that point, the decision aid can support reflection on the strength of the moral grounds to return the artefact.
The apparent simplicity of the site design makes the tool very usable, which was a central part of the initial brief, but there is a huge amount of underpinning work designed and implemented by the MeThree team that enables it to look so straight-forward on the surface. The project involved a certain amount of incremental change, as the tool developed in response to external review and input, which meant that the final output was absolutely the best it could be.
Users are guided to consider a number of issues such as:
- the relationship between the claimant and the artefact;
- the cultural value of the object to the claimant;
- how the artefact came into the museum’s possession;
- the cultural importance of the artefact in its current setting;
- whether the claimant could care for and publicly display the artefact;
- whether return would improve access or understanding;
- obstacles the claimant faces in accessing the artefact.
DARCA is an ethics decision aid, not a decision-maker; DARCA generates a short outcome document summarising the implications that the user’s answers have for the strength of the moral claim for restitution in this case which an organisation can use to then make their own decision.
The tool has been developed by the Uehiro Oxford Institute, working with the Institute of Art and Law, and was built by MeThree.
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