The Museum of the Bamoun Kings, a place of remembrance and sectoral conservation of cultural heritage: what are the prospects for the restitution of looted cultural property?

The collection of the Musée des Rois Bamoun (MRB, Museum of the Bamoun Kings), located in Foumban in Cameroon's West Region, testifies to the richness and diversity of the Bamoun Kingdom's art, culture, and history. This article discusses the museum's collection as a framework for studying issues related to the concepts of museum, cultural heritage, conservation, and the restitution of cultural property looted during the colonial period. I use an empirico-historical approach based on heritage sciences, which foregrounds a community perspective, to analyze these notions and their practice in society as endogenous mechanisms for collection conservation, perspectives for reconnecting cultural property with communities of origin, and the potential benefits of restitution for inclusive development. As such, my analysis looks at the specifics of place and, by framing the museum as a place of memory, interrogates how social contexts may modify conservation when considering the restitution of looted cultural property.