Stewardship and colonialism are tightly interrelated. It can be defined as a tendency
that stemmed out of the need to appropriate, protect, and guard; it nonetheless
resulted in the abduction, deformation, and isolation of heritage from the living
populations, as suggested by Latin American and Near Eastern cases. In this paper, we
study how colonialism has historically shaped museum stewardship against distinct
heritage backgrounds. Selected episodes of stewardship are here used illustrating the
twofold background of stewardship; both political and pseudo-scientific enterprise,
where stewards, are not mere mediators between past and present, rather pivots of
their governmental sponsors’ political interests.
