Academic writing

Most of my academic writing is available to download on the Trafficking Culture website or my academia.edu profile. If you are interested in reading an article that isn’t linked, please contact me.

I am always interested in publication possibilities and I peer review on topics within my focus and interest areas.

Recent(ish) publications

Reality and Practicality: Challenges to Effective Cultural Property Policy on the Ground in Latin America. International Journal of Cultural Property 22 (2–3): 337–356. (2015)

Value and doubt: the persuasive power of ‘authenticity’ in the antiquities market. PARSE: Platform for Artistic Work Sweden 2: 71–84.

Collectors on illicit collecting: higher loyalties and other techniques of neutralization in the unlawful collecting of rare and precious orchids and antiquities. Theoretical Criminology. (with Simon Mackenzie; 2015)

Museums, collectors, and value manipulation: tax fraud through donation of antiquities. Journal of Financial Crime 22 (1). (In Press 2015)

Looting, trafficking, and sale of illicit cultural property from Latin America. International Council of Museums’ International Observatory on Illicit Traffic in Cultural Goods, F. Demaris (ed). (In Press 2015)

Crime, controversy and the comments section: Discussing archaeological looting, trafficking, and the illicit antiquities trade online. Internet Archaeology 39. (With Meg Lambert; 2015)

Displacement, deforestation, and drugs: antiquities trafficking and the narcotics support economies of Guatemala. In Cultural Property Crimes: an overview and analysis on contemporary perspectives and trends, J. Kila and M. Balcells (eds). Brill: Leiden, pp. 21–36. (2014)

Church theft, insecurity, and community justice: the reality of source-end regulation of the market for illicit Bolivian cultural objects. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 20 (4): 445–457. (2014)

Lies, damned lies, and archaeologists: antiquities trafficking research as criminology and the ethics of identification. Arqueología Publica Special Issue, pp. 7–19. (2014)

Publication as Preservation: A Remote Maya Site in the Early 20th Century. In From Plunder to Preservation: Britain and the Heritage of Empire, 1800–1950, A. Swenson and P. Mandler (eds). Proceedings of the British Academy, Oxford University Press, pp. 217–239. (20130

The Theft of Cultural Property in Bolivia: the absence of metal detectors. Arqueología Publica 3. (2013)

Archaeology and Autonomies: The Legal Framework of Heritage Management in a New Bolivia. The International Journal of Cultural Property 18(3): 291–307. (2011)

Trafficking Culture Encyclopedia

I have written quite a few entries for the Trafficking Culture Encyclopedia. Some of my favourites:

  • Coroma Textiles: Aymara sacred textiles removed from the village of Coroma in the 1970s and 1980s in violation of Bolivian law, by international dealers who photographed them during traditional dances and stole them afterwards.
  • The Pangboche Hand: an alleged Yeti hand, stolen from a Nepali monastery. A finger was stolen in 1958 and smuggled by actor James Stewart and the complete hand was stolen in the early 1990s.
  • Site Q: For years this Maya site was only known from looted archaeological material for sale on the art market; its location was unknown. It has recently been identified in the Peten region of Guatemala.
  • November Collection of Maya Pottery: A spectacular collection of Classic Maya pottery thought to have been systematically looted from Guatemalan sites throughout the 1980s now in the possession of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
  • Malagana: Site of a massive looting incident which may have yielded over 200 kg of Colombian gold artifacts.
  • South Pole Exploration Artefacts Taken from Campsites of Robert Falcon Scott: Antarctic buiscut theft? A violation of international law!