News

Dr Donna Yates will give a keynote at the German Anthropological Association Meeting in Munich for the workshop “Contested Knowledge, Contested Objects: Positioning of Mesoamerican Studies Regarding the History of the Discipline and Collections”.  Dr Yates will be talking about recent work with Shawn Graham (here and here) concerning how a computational technique has helped to start...

Dr Emiline Smith appeared on PODS by PEI podcast. In the episode, “PEI’s Khushi and Emiline delve into the obscure world of cultural heritage trafficking and its impact on communities, with a particular focus on Nepal. The two tap into Emiline’s expertise as a criminologist to understand the processes involved in the trafficking of cultural objects and its history and persistence...

Article “How a Stolen Nepali Statue Found Its Way Home” written by Dr Emiline Smith has been published on Hyperallergic.  “A long-lost Vajradhara sculpture that resurfaced in a Hong Kong collection highlights scholars’ responsibility to mediate between communities and the art market,” writes Smith. Read the full article...

The NWO-funded PRICELESS project is seeking two researchers to complete fully-funded PhDs at Maastricht University in the Netherlands The first PhD is in the field of criminology and will focus on value manipulation in markets for ultra high-value watches. It will be supervised by Trafficking Culture’s Donna Yates and Professor Rachel Pownall. The call for applicants is available...

Diāna Bērziņa will present her current research on affective atmosphere in art fairs at ‘White-collar and organisational crime: New ideas, directions, and perspectives’ workshop, taking place in Manchester on 6-7 July. The workshop is organised by The Manchester Organisational Non-compliance Initiative (MONI) and will focus on discussing new ideas, perspectives and directions in...

Dr Donna Yates will be one of the panellists at the webinar on money laundering and terrorist financing in the art and antiquities market organised by the FATF. The webinar will take place on 5 July and will be conducted in English, in Zoom format.  To register and view more information about the event,...

Dr Donna Yates will give a keynote address titled “T. Rex is Fierce, T. Rex is Charismatic, T. Rex is Litigious: Desire and Disruptive Objects in Affective Lawscapes” at Law and Popular Culture V Roundtable at Faculty of Law, Maastricht University. The event will take place in-person on 23 June at the Faculty of Law building. The Roundtable wants to bring out the manner in which popular...

Professor Shawn Graham and his team worked alongside Dr Donna Yates to design a machine-learning model that helps researchers to uncover previously unknown possible connections by using known, established facts about the illegal antiquities trade. Read all about their work here: https://carleton.ca/fass/story/connecting-the-digital-dots/

Dr Donna Yates will participate in Round Table ‘Science Diplomacy: As a tool for tackling cultural property illicit trafficking’, May 25 and 26, 2023. The event aims to foster greater understanding about the links and possibilities of interaction between Science Diplomacy and scientific research, in relation to the illicit trafficking of cultural goods, by providing a variety of...

Dr Donna Yates is speaking at a regional conference on use of AML/CFT in Investigation of Art & Antiquities Criminality in Mexico. Conference is taking place from 9–11 May, 2023 in Mexico City, Mexico. The Conference aims to strengthen the capacity of the public and private sectors to share information, exchange best practices, identify problems and create solutions to this type of crime.

Donna Yates was featured in the New York Times article “For U.S. Museums With Looted Art, the Indiana Jones Era Is Over”. Full article can be read here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/arts/museums-looted-art-repatriation.html...

New book titled Art Crime in Context edited by Naomi Oosterman and Donna Yates is out now! “This book brings together empirical and theoretical case-study research on art and heritage crime. Drawn from a diverse group of researchers and professionals, the work presented explores contemporary conceptualisations of art crime within broader contexts. In this volume, we see ‘art’ in its...

Dr Donna Yates was participate in public lecture series “RES(T)ITUIEREN: Provenienz, Sammlung, Verantwortung” (RES(T)ITUTE: provenance, collection, responsibility)  by kgi. Dr Yates will give a lecture titled “Provenance Beyond Objects: New directions and other criminal flows in the global illicit antiquities trade” on 2nd of November. Lecture series will take place: from...

Diāna Bērziņa will speak at 28th EAA Annual Meeting in Budapest, Hungary, 31 August – 3 September 2022. Bērziņa will participate in session #237 Protecting the Past Is the Key to the Future: Rights of Archaeological Heritage Stakeholders and Social Justice taking place on 2 September, 2022. Full programme and more details are available here:...

Dr Donna Yates will teach at Summer School: Contested Heritage and the Role of Provenance Research, taking place from 29 Aug to 1 Sep 2022 at the Leiden University Campus, the Netherlands. The summer school will focus on contested cultural objects and the role of provenance research.The programme is curated by Dr. Evelien Campfens (Leiden University) and Dr. Naomi Oosterman (Erasmus University...

Dr Donna Yates will speak at Foro Rumbo a Mondiacult 2022 conference taking place from 8 to 10 August 2022. Dr Yates will participate in session titled “Tráfico Ilícito: búsqueda de una nueva ética mundial”. For more details on the talks and speakers, have a look at the attached programme.

Dr Donna Yates will give an in-person talk “Illicit Antiquities: A Global Criminal Market” at Shaikh Ebrahim bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Center for Culture & Research, Kingdom of Bahrain  on 30th of May, 2022. For more details, please visit: https://shaikhebrahimcenter.org/en/event/illicit-antiquities-a-global-criminal-market/#

Dr Emiline Smith was interviewed on NewsFirst Sri Lanka. Dr Smith talked about looting, illegal export, and protection of Sri Lanka’s cultural heritage. The full interview is available on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9AMrBXxpd4 

Article “The Ongoing Looting of Sri Lanka’s Cultural Heritage” written by Dr Emiline Smith has been published on Hyperallergic. “Artifacts stolen from the Kotawehera Rajamaha temple in Sri Lanka are the latest victims of longstanding looting and trafficking,” writes Smith.  Read the full article...

Dr Donna Yates wrote a piece titled “Violence as a Value Enhancer in the Art Market” for the Social Science Research Council’s “Where Heritage Meets Violence” series. In this piece, Dr Yates look at the market for Pacific cultural heritage: The sale of heritage from the Pacific is entangled with colonial narratives that sensationalize cultures of the...