Giving Space for Grandma: Towards Digital Restitutionary Work of Indonesia’s Cultural Heritage from Colonial Context

Abstract

The Dutch–Indonesia policy on colonial objects reveals persistent structural limitations, particularly in marginalizing the interests of source communities (Tythacott & Ardiansyah, 2021; Smith, Ristiawan & Sudarmadi, 2022; Drieënhuizen, 2024). Building on argument that the historical injustice of colonial collections is not just in the way that collections were collected, but also in the way that collections were documented, classified, and recorded within a particular Eurocentric worldview, I consider the object’s record as an object itself – containing traces of colonial legacy. These records often carry persistent inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and biases inherited from earlier cataloguing practices during colonial times and further perpetuated through digitization (Turner, 2022).

To support the restitution policy, the Dutch government established Colonial Collections Datahub, a digital platform designed to be the “central access point” for researchers and stakeholders about information on colonial collections in The Netherlands (See Figure 1). The Datahub aggregates and publishes records about colonial objects held across Dutch institutions, offering a new digital interface for online users through which object’s records may be explored and potentially, contested. The exclusionary nature of current material restitutions models towards source communities and limited studies on digital spaces of colonial collections prompts this research to consider how Colonial Collections Datahub and social media as digital space offer possibilities to source communities to reclaim interpretive authority over their heritage. This research questioned the ways of source communities perceive and respond to the digital space of colonial collections.

Derived decoloniality, third space and indigenous data sovereignty as theoretical framework, this research adopts qualitative method by conducting focus group discussions with communities in Aceh, Bali, and Surabaya towards the Colonial Collections Datahub interface. Complementing this, an experimental digital ethnography was conducted through three TikTok video series on Indonesian colonial objects, with case studies on Prince Diponegoro’s sabel and an Acehnese Barus flag. The communities and objects were chosen acknowledging the Indonesian geographical balances and historical significances.

Findings show that digital platforms can act as knowledge entry points, transforming community members from passive recipients into active agents of intervention. For example, in the Colonial Collections Datahub, Acehnese community rehumanized a skull previously categorized as trophy and offer narratives as it belong to the a guerilla leader of Teuku Panglima Nya’ Makam (see figure 2). Balinese community reclaimed a Balinese colonial photograph of Puputan Badung knowing that it was his grandma that was innacurately attributed (see Figure 3). They also reconnected with a Balinese sacred statue of pratima previously recorded as a doll which open the way to a physical reunification through pasupati ritual at Wereldmuseum Amsterdam (see Figure 4 and 5). While the Colonial Collections Datahub works as a slow, careful way to correct and update historical records, TikTok operates as fast-paced, emotional vehicle for collective memory-making. People use it to share reactions, stories, and opinions about colonial objects in real-time. The comments are often spontaneous with multifaceted emotions which highlight different sides of history while also relating to contemporary society (See Figure 6).

Such actions often serve as forms of epistemic and historical rectification, disrupting inherited colonial narratives which sparks heritage activism. However, participation is mediated by structural asymmetries embedded in digital infrastructures through platform governance and curatorial control. Despite these constraints, the study documents how communities engage in restitution discourse through ephemeral, creative, and subversive means, opening spaces for alternative historiographies.

This paper proposes the concept of digital restitutionary work borrowing the emerging term of restitutionary work (Rassool and Gibbon, 2024) to describe practices that combine technological engagement with acts of decolonial intervention in colonial collections. This framework could bridge the interchangeable terms of repatriation and restitution within the Indonesia-Dutch repatriation policy. Digital restitutionary work encapsulates acts of community-led intervention, reinterpretation, and re-contextualization in online heritage platforms, where physical return may be delayed, contested, or impossible. Within the thematic relevance, this concept underscores the need for cross-border collaborations that dismantle both the material and digital perpetuation of colonial legacies.