Routes to Return

This site aims to open up global networks, share information, and enable international repatriation
Approaches to international repatriation are rapidly changing. This website is a work in progress, ever-growing resource.

For nations and communities looking to make a claim

This resource is aimed at giving an overview of the European museum repatriation landscape – the laws, policies, and potential approaches that can be useful to know before beginning your repatriation efforts in Europe.

Click here

For those wishing to enable return

This area of the site aims to provide an ever-growing resource for those looking to enable returns to Indigenous Nations and Communities around the world.

Click here

Looking to connect with others working on international repatriation?

The International Repatriation Network seeks to bring together community members, practitioners, and academics working on repatriation, to focus on building momentum and a community of practice.

Join the International Repatriation Network

Looking to make a claim from a European museum?

It can be helpful to understand the European laws, policies, and approaches that govern museums’ approaches to repatriation

View the full resource here

Advocacy Work

Routes to Return is currently campaigning for the UK Museum Accreditation Scheme to require museums to have a Repatriation Policy

Find out why this is important and how you can help the campaign here

In 2024, Routes to Return published a policy briefing urging the UK government to recognise and prioritise the repatriation of Ancestors and belongings as a human rights issue

Read the policy briefing here

About the Founder of Routes to Return

Amy Shakespeare is a PhD Candidate at the University of Exeter, England. Her research aims to enable more European museums to undertake repatriation.

Find out more about Amy

‘States shall seek to enable the access and/or repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with the indigenous peoples concerned.’

Article 12, United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2008