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- Convenors:
-
Jonas Tinius
(Saarland University (ERC Minor Universality))
Sharon Macdonald (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Margareta von Oswald (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
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- Discussant:
-
Henrietta Lidchi
(National Museum of World Cultures)
- Stream:
- Who Speaks and for Whom?
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 30 March, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Over the last decades, Europe's heritage institutions have come under public scrutiny over their responsibility for representing societies in the making. This panel asks how, through such critique and activism, institutions and the meaning of Europe and 'the West' transform in this process.
Long Abstract:
Over the last decades, Europe's heritage institutions have come under public scrutiny over their responsibility for representing societies in the making. From the toppling of Leopold II statues in Belgium, the activist 'theft' of colonial loot from the Louvre in France, to calls to demolish the nascent Humboldt Forum in the German capital, Europe is called out to take responsibility for its colonial past. What is at stake in these debates, often waged and initiated by civil society organisations and minority activist groups, is the role of heritage as public theorisers of society at large.
At the core of these tensions is a renegotiation of the responsibility of 'the West' for itself and the institutions and epistemologies that emerged with its colonial enterprise. Implicated in this debate is the role of anthropology. Its institutions and its forms of knowledge production are called to take responsibility for unjust pasts and just futures. But who speaks 'for' the 'West'? And how do its institutions 'take responsibility' without reiterating the structural asymmetries of voices heard and silenced? If the institutions 'take responsibility', is this simultaneously an act of ownership and therefore potentially problematic? Are there ways of 'taking responsibility' that entail giving up responsibility - e.g. via acts of restitution?
This panel seeks ethnographic contributions on the responsibility of 'the West' in European heritage institutions. Who actually does the work in practice? And in whose name does it appear? We are interested in case studies from within heritage institutions in transition.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 30 March, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Provenance research on objects from colonial contexts is seen as an important instrument for addressing the legacies of colonialism underpinning ethnographic museums. By ethnographically studying the ways this research is done, in practice, I assess its potential to transform these institutions.
Paper long abstract:
In recent years, under the growing pressure of critical publics in Europe and its former colonies, museums officials and political decision-makers have increasingly emphasized the need to address the legacies of colonialism enshrined in ethnographic museums. Provenance research on collections from colonial contexts is considered as an important instrument to take responsibility of the imperial past and shape a more ethical present and future. However, most of the debate is driven by museum figures and academics who are rarely involved in the practice of research. Those who carry out provenance research, remain mostly invisible in public discourses. In my PhD thesis, I ethnographically study the doing of provenance research on collections from colonial contexts, examining its epistemological modes, ontological grounding and ethical implications. In this paper, based on preliminary research, I address the ways in which institutional structures and processes affect protagonists, research practices, and the production of knowledge. How are provenance researchers and their work integrated into the institutional frameworks of museums? How do divergent postcolonial positions and perspectives find their way into the research process? How does the much-invoked “transparent cooperation with the societies of origin at eye-level” work in practice? And who presents, in the end, what findings to whom? By asking these questions, I assess to which extent provenance research assists in the transformation of ethnographic museums. Does it offer an avenue towards the so-called ‘decolonization of the ethnographic museum’, or can its promotion be unmasked as another instance of ‘strategic reflexivity’ employed to appease critics?
Paper short abstract:
The paper addresses planning and daily work at the “Zwischenraum - Space Between”: an experimental space at MARKK Hamburg. From inside the institution, it reflects on curatorial challenges and strategies dealing with the "repositioning" of an "ethnographic" museum with colonial heritage in 2021.
Paper long abstract:
In February 2019, the MARKK established the experimental space “Zwischenraum - A Space Between” as a hub and venue for discursive formats and experimental exhibitions to create a space as well as the tools to work on a sustainable repositioning process of the museum. This process has included a new emphasis on German colonial heritage and coloniality/decoloniality, inclusiveness, and new approaches to provenance research and forms of participation. In my paper I aim to illuminate how recent impulses generated through academic critique, postcolonial activism and the new function of museums in global and local (cultural) politics are channeled into the ongoing processes of repositioning in the curatorial practice at the “Zwischenraum - A Space Between”. The paper will provide information on the planning process of the space in 2018, the conceptual work of the first year under the title “Food for Thought”, recent challenges in regard of the pandemic in 2020 as well as future plans of 2021 and 2022. Moreover, it will also contextualize the institutional backstory of the 1990s and 2000s. In doing so, the paper offers a historically grounded and ethnographically informed perspective on the current state and future potential of the MARKK in general and the “Zwischenraum” in concrete. Given the fact that ethnographic museums have turned into highly contested arenas, this approach is of great relevance for understanding the past, mastering the present and reshaping the future of these institutions.