News

Dr Donna Yates will be speaking at a 2-day international online conference (24 and 25 Nov) organised by National Heritage Board of Latvia. Dr Yates will be giving talk titled ‘Regulating the “Grey” Antiquities Market: what works, what doesn’t and a way forward’. The event will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Prohibition and Prevention of the...

Dr Donna Yates will be speaking at a three-day online conference (16 to 18 Nov) hosted by the Federal Foreign Office in cooperation with UNESCO, the European Union and the Council of Europe. Dr Yates will be part of an expert online panel speaking on Mechanisms in fighting the trafficking in cultural property on day 2 of the conference. The full programme of the event is available...

Simon Mackenzie’s book Transnational Criminology: Trafficking and Global Criminal Markets has been published by Bristol University Press! The book is available here (including 20% discount) https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/transnational-criminology This pioneering study looks across key trafficking crimes to develop a social theory of transnational criminal markets. These include human...

Contribute to our Online Conference and Edited Volume...

Dr Donna Yates and Dr Naomi Oosterman of Erasmus University Rotterdam are seeking contributions for an edited volume to be submitted for Springer’s “Studies in Art, Heritage, Law, and the Market” series.

Dr Donna Yates will be joining the V&A’s Vernon Rapley and Christie’s Dennis Ahern on a live expert online panel hosted by the Antiquities Coalition. The topic of discussion will be how the COVID-19 pandemic will effect security and crime at museums and cultural sites. The event will take place at 11am EDT on 17 June and all are invited to virtually attend. For more information...

Dr Neil Brodie will be presenting an online lecture for the Oxford Archaeological Society. The lecture, entitled “Illicit culture contact? The case of the Hobby Lobby cuneiform tablets” will be held at 16:00 BST on 2 June. Those wishing to attend the lecture online are asked to RSVP...

As part of the public conference “Violated National Heritage: Theft, Traffic & Restitution”, Dr Christos Tsirogiannis will be speaking about recent restitutions of cultural property to Greece. “This conference is aimed not only at students but also art world and museum professionals, indeed at anyone interested to hear the latest information, much of which is unpublished,...

Dr. Emiline Smith has been featured in an article in the Kathmandu Post about her work on antiquities trafficking in Nepal and Myanmar. The article is available here: https://kathmandupost.com/20/2020/03/04/everyone-i-ve-talked-to-here-has-a-story-about-art-theft (click here for archive link)

Drs Neil Brodie and Donna Yates will be speaking at a conference hosted by the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia. They will discuss the results of their recent European Commission-funded report focused on the illicit trafficking of antiquities in Europe. More details about the event are available...

Join several members of Trafficking Culture on their new project, Trafficking Transformations, based at Maastricht University. This is a 3 year, full time position to assist in project research. More info here: http://www.anonymousswisscollector.com/2020/02/junior-researcher-wanted-trafficking-transformations-objects-as-agents-in-transnational-criminal-networks-project.html Application deadline:...

Dr Yates has been appointed as an Associate Professor in Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Maastricht. Maastricht will serve as a base for her new European Research Council-funded research project, Trafficking Transformations. She can be reached at her new email address: d.yates@maastrichtuniversity.nl.

As part of her visit to the University of West Florida, Dr Donna Yates will be participating in the  UWF Downtown Lecture Series. Her talk is free and open to the public and will be held at the Museum of Commerce on Thursday, 21 November starting at 7pm (reception starts at 5:30). More details are available...

Dr Smith will be presenting a paper entitled “In search of excitement and sensation: participating in the global illicit cultural property trade”. More information available here: https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/asc/asc19/index.php?program_focus=view_paper&selected_paper_id=1546503&cmd=online_program_direct_link&sub_action=online_program In search of excitement...

Dr Brodie will be presenting the results of the recently-completed EU Study on trafficking of cultural goods in Europe. More details are available here: https://www.coe.int/en/web/culture-and-heritage/act-for-heritage- The event is being organised by the Commissioner for Volunteerism and Non-Governmental Organisations of the Republic of Cyprus, in co-operation with the Ministry of Foreign...

On Thursday 17 October Dr Yates will be in Brussels presenting recommendations for regulating the market for antiquities beyond import and export controls. More information about the Commission expert group on the return of cultural objects under Directive 2014/60/EU can be found here: https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/index.cfm?do=groupDetail.groupDetail&groupID=3204...

The Trafficking Culture book has been published by Routledge! The product of years of our research, we are looking forward to feedback and discussion about it. More details are available here: https://traffickingculture.org/publications/trafficking-culture-book/ …including a limited time discount code for 20% off the list price. Trafficking Culture outlines current research and thinking...

As part of an Erasmus+ Mobility Grant, Dr Emiline Smith will be teaching at Hong Kong University from 27 September until 11 October. She will also be giving two public lectures: “Chasing the Unicorn”: The Seduction of Trading lllicit Antiquities (4PM, 2 October, Hong Kong University) and Illicit Trade in the Global City: The Roots and Routes of the Illicit Antiquities Trade in Hong Kong...

Congratulations to Dr Emiline Smith who has been awarded a grant for the project “Global synchronization and the illicit antiquities trade: understanding community crime prevention in post-earthquake Nepal and Myanmar” from the Scottish Funding Council’s Global Challenges Research Fund scheme. Together with Phacharaphorn Phanomvan na Ayudhya (Oxford University), Myanmar...

We are happy to announce that the new book, The Market for Mesoamerica: Reflections on the Sale of Pre-Columbian Antiquities, co-edited by our Donna Yates and Dr Cara Tremain is now available through the University Press of Florida. You can order the book here: http://upf.com/book.asp?id=9780813056449 Use discount code AU719 before 31 July for 50% off the list price. The Market for...