Archive

Past events programmes

2024

International network meeting on 7 November

With the following guests:

  • Harmut Andres (Wachagga Project)
  • Bruce Niyonkuru and Melissa Kurkut (Milele Museum)
  • Iain Johnston and Jay Kickett (AIATSIS)
  • Mutanu Kyany'a (Africal Digital Heritage)
  • Fransizka Bangarah (Hendrik Witbooi Foundation)

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Network meeting on new digitisation projects in Germany on 5 July

With the following projects:
 
  • Lautarchiv der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, "Towards Sonic Resocialization", Katarzyna Puzon
  • Schifffahrtsmuseum Bremen, Alexander Reis
  • Amani-Projekt der Museen Stade, Lea Steinkampf und Antonia Schmidt
  • MIDA-Projekt (modern India in German Archives) Jannes Thode

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International info meeting on 14. and 16.2.

The information meeting aimed at international interested participants who wanted to find out about research opportunities in German institutions, museums, archives, etc. and get an overview of the German funding landscape. The event was very well attended with 50 participants each from Africa, Australia, South East Asia and Central and South America.

Background:

One aim of postcolonial provenance research is for international and German experts to jointly analyse historical collections. This presupposes that not only the collection themselves, but also other relevant materials (e.g. archive sources or library collections) are accessible to an international public or can be found in the first place. The same applies to research that deals with other aspects of the colonial past, such as analysing historical events and processes from multiple perspectives or in the field of remembrance culture.

However, many of the projects that arise in this area are still characterised by an imbalance: German partners develop the concept and research agenda and then approach potential international partners. However, the declared goal in terms of relinquishing sovereignty of interpretation and control would be a reverse process: experts (or partners) abroad develop projects that are relevant to their respective environment and then carry them out with or without German partners. The basic prerequisite for this is that financial resources in Germany can then also be utilised by foreign partners and used to build up their own academic networks, institutions or individual careers. What can the Colonial Contexts Network contribute to this?

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2023

Online network meeting on 25.10.23: planning meeting on international info meeting in February 2024

At the international information meetings interested international participants will be able to find out about research possibilities in
German institutions, museums, archives, etc. and to get an overview of the German funding landscape.
The first step of the information meeting(s) should be to present the diverse structural contexts in Germany in general, i.e. federalism, private and public funding bodies, etc., as well as concrete individual programmes which allow central project participation or even the submission of applications by
international project partners.

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Online network meeting on 12.06.2023:

These were our presentations:

  • Milena Täschner (LWL-Kulturstiftung): Vorstellung Förderschwerpunkt (Post)Kolonialismus der LWL-Kulturstiftung
  • Christiane Bürger und Sahra Rausch (KET): Vorstellung Koordinierungsstelle koloniales Erbe Thüringen
  • Alexander Sachse und Sarah Wassermann (Museumsverband Brandenburg): Globale Geschichten in Brandenburger Museen mit Museum Digital
  • Larissa Schmid, Lars Müller und John Woitkowitz (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin): Vorstellung des Projekts „IN_CONTEXT: Colonial Histories and Digital Collections"
  • Nadine Schmitt (Universität Köln): Vorstellung SocioHub

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2022

Online network meeting on 22.11.22:

This was our programme:

  • Katja Hofmann (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden): Die Daphne-Datenbank innerhalb der SKD
  • Cindy Zalm (Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, Leiden): Trust, Transparency and Access: dealing with heritage form a colonial context in the Netherlands
  • Inker-Anni Linkola-Aikio (The National Archives of Finland/ Sámi Archives, Inari): Sámi Archives in Finland. Indigenous archives within the National Archive - how to work ethically and digitally?
  • Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren-Brussels): Through the Belgian Archival Maze : Provenance research and the Belgium, Congo, Rwanda & Burundi Guide to the sources of the colonization history (19th – 20th)  
  • Rita Gaspar und Juliana Alves (The Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto): Words matter. Can database reframing enable new perspectives?
  • Angela Kailus (Deutsches Dokumentationszentrum für Kunstgeschichte - Bildarchiv Foto Marburg): NFDI4Culture - Vernetzungs- und Serviceangebote

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Online network meeting of the entire network on 21.06.2022

with the following topics:

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Meeting with colleagues from Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. on 24.2.2022

A (virtual) meeting with colleagues from Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. took place on 24 February 2022. We would like to thank them for the exchange on Wikimedia's activities in the field of colonial contexts.

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2021

Series of workshops organised by the network's Working Group on International Cooperation about collaborative digitisation projects.

Abstracts of the events as well as "takeaways and recommendations" can be found here.

  • Shared experiences of working with databases for shared history
    Friday, November 12
    Chair: Paul Turnbull (University of Tasmania); Isabelle Reimann (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
  • Repatriation in Australia: the lessons learned, the work yet to be done
    Friday, October 29
    First Session
    Speakers: Michael Pickering (National Museum of Australia), Lyndon Ormond-Parker (Cultural Heritage Expert with Alyawarra decent, a.o. Honorary Senior Lecturer at Australian National University)
    Chair: Paul Turnbull (University of Tasmania)
    Second Session
    Speakers: Leah Umbagai (Dambimangari Aboriginal Corporation); Kim Doohan (independent consultant anthropologist)
    Chairs: Richard Kuba (Frobenius-Institute); Martin Porr (University of Western Australia)
  • The Global Database of Kenyan Objects of the International Inventories Programme (IIP)
    Friday, October 1
    Speakers: Juma Ondeng (Principal Curator at the regional museum in western Kenya, Kitale Museum - National Museums of Kenya, founding member of the IIP); Jim Chuchu (Director of The Nest Collective, member of the IIP)
    Chair: Larissa Förster (German Lost Art Foundation)
  • Connect – Comprehend – Communicate. The „Amazonas future lab“
    Friday, September 17
    Speakers: Andrea Scholz (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin); Thiago da Costa Oliveira (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin); Fidel Thomet (FH Potsdam)
    Chair: Katja Kaiser (Museum of Natural History Berlin)

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Workshop "Openness vs ethics?" July 8, 2021

We discuss with researchers how access to digitised materials with ethically difficult content should look like:

How do we ensure that people in the countries and regions where the research took place know about and can use digitised sources? What are the ethical implications of digitising material that was created in colonial contexts and in many cases reflects the thought patterns, attitudes and knowledge systems of its time/culture, with all its racisms, power-political distortions and hurtful abuses? And how can the societies of origin or the Global South as well as the needs of researchers be included in these decisions and discussions so that colonial structures of the knowledge system are not revived here?

Inputs by:

  • Matthias Harbeck (FID SKA)
  • Alexis von Poser (Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, SPK)
  • Aisha Othman (FID Afrikastudien)
  • Michi Knecht (DGSKA-Vorstand)
  • Hillary Howes (Centre for Heritage & Museum Studies, Canberra/AUS
  • Emelihter Kihleng (Pohnpei Historic Preservation Program, Federated States of Micronesia)
  • Magueye Kassé (Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Senegal)

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2020

Network for sustainable research structures in colonial contexts founded

23.11.20. The first DFG roundtable on cooperation in the field of infrastructure and provenance research projects on collections and holdings from the colonial era took place virtually. Approx. 40 participants agreed on networking. FID SKA and FID African Studies involved. Follow-up meeting planned for February 2021. Click here for the press release in German.