Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Luisa Marie Marten
(LMU Munich)
Magnus Treiber (LMU Munich)
Philipp Schorch (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Workshop
Short Abstract:
(Post)colonial demands have put pressure on collecting institutions to make holdings accessible. This workshop assesses the multiple and differing ways and forms in which collections could and should be commoned or not, inviting contributions to reflect upon potentials, frictions and limitations.
Long Abstract:
The history of anthropology and anthropological collecting has been marked by a paradox of un/commoning. In the name of academic freedom, unrestricted access to knowledge has been feverishly sought and vigorously defended. The outcomes of such frantic exercises, often inscribed in collections (archival, material, visual), have paradoxically been largely uncommoned, hidden away in tightly controlled depots where they hibernate inaccessibly to wider publics to this day. (Post)colonial demands have put pressure on archives, galleries, libraries, museums and universities to make holdings accessible and democratize collecting institutions. Digitization is often seen as a promising means to that end. However, what happens to sacred and secret knowledges, memories and identities that are enshrined in collections and should never have been collected? What happens when formerly collected individuals and societies experience yet another intrusion as the urge of (digital) commoning puts them on public display? This workshop argues that much more nuanced, case-based and anthropological analysis is needed to assess the multiple and differing ways and forms in which collections could and should be commoned or not. We invite contributions from anthropology and beyond to reflect upon the potentials, frictions and limitations. The latter, while seemingly having negative connotations, might instead be a productive finding or situation, moving from extractivist knowledge exploitation towards collaborative approaches underpinned by guiding principles, such as relational ethics and mutual care, across publics and their multiple and differing ways and forms of defining what un/commoning entails.