The dissertation project is designed as provenance research and focuses on the history of the impact of the Ethnographic Collection Göttingen from colonial contexts by analysing its documentation, use and interpretation history. University collections are understood as places with epistemological power, which have been and are still being interrelated with academic practices of teaching and research. Provenance research is understood as a contribution to understanding complex collection histories also beyond the approaches of acquisition history and object biography. In a combination of historical and ethnological methods, insights into collection-related historical practices of the appropriation of objects as well as the university production of meaning and knowledge as academic practices are to be generated. By means of cooperative research elements, the current relevance of colonial collections for today's research practice will also be investigated. The overarching goal of the project is to contribute to the understanding of complex collection histories and thus to the history of science, disciplines and institutions as well as to coloniality in interaction with the production of meaning and knowledge.

Kontakt:

Researcher: Hannah Stieglitz (geb. Feder) (Georg-August-University Göttingen)

Head of the Subproject: Dr. Michael Kraus (Georg-August-University Göttingen)

Academic Adviser: Prof. Dr. Elfriede Hermann (Georg-August-University Göttingen)