Museología de un retorno imperfecto: la colección Machu Picchu en el Museo Casa Concha

Abstract

The repatriation of the Machu Picchu collection from Yale to Cusco, Peru, was hailed as “successful”, for being the first known example of the return of cultural artifacts effectuated by a country other than a past colonial power. This assessment needs to be reevaluated both in terms of the success of the return, and the relativization of the idea of colonial power.
Transculturalist and postcolonialist epistemological models are used to frame the conceptualization of the museum as contact zone, while the curatorial discourse fails to address the critical issue of the polyphony of conflicting historical narratives, and instead reproduces a hegemonic expression of western knowledge in an intercultural space.