The Restitution of Knowledge: artefacts as archives in the (post)colonial museum, 1850-1939

“知识的恢复”是欧洲人类学收藏和（后）殖民遗产的历史和策展方法之间的新的跨国合作。它识别、研究、记录和重新思考民族学收藏中“掠夺”的历史和当代意义。在这样做的过程中，它将人类学博物馆的储藏室重新想象成一个独特的档案馆，讲述殖民掠夺的不为人知的历史，从而为（后）殖民记忆和恢复的新形式的发展做出重大贡献。该项目创建了一个新的比较资源，通过创新的协作方法，将博物馆文物形式的历史知识与广泛的历史和当代观点重新联系起来，记录了殖民掠夺行为。该项目对新兴的（后）殖民起源研究领域进行了重大的新干预，解决了博物馆专业人员、历史研究人员和土著来源社区的迫切需求，即对物品在“惩罚性探险”中被带走的事件进行系统的清单-目前完全缺乏的清单。来自德国和英国的学术和专业实践的观点汇集在一起，跨越殖民历史、来源研究和世界艺术策展，为来源社区和国家（包括来自非洲和全球南部的土著群体）的物体和历史的意义开辟了新的资源，未来将被探索。通过这项工作，该项目为目前欧洲、非洲和全球关于文化恢复的辩论增加了一个新的层面，为知识交流和发展发展了一种新的互惠和比较方法。除了对帝国历史做出主要贡献外，该项目还重新评估了人类学博物馆的地位，因为它不仅充满了物品，而且充满了关于冲突、暴力和损失的历史知识。因此，该项目将欧洲人类学博物馆重新定义为文化记忆的场所，在这里，恢复不仅包括文化财产的实物遣返，还包括纪念和知识共享。

‘The Restitution of Knowledge’ is a new transnational collaboration between historical and curatorial approaches to European anthropological collections and (post)colonial legacies. It identifies, researches, documents and rethinks the history and ongoing contemporary significance of ‘plunder’ in ethnological collections. In doing so, it reimagines the anthropological museum storeroom as a unique archive for telling untold histories of colonial spoliation, thus making a major contribution to the development of new forms of (post)colonial remembrance and restitution. The project creates a new comparative resource that documents acts of colonial spoliation through an innovative collaborative methodology for reconnecting the historical knowledge held in the form of museum artefacts with a wide diversity of historical and contemporary perspectives. Making a major new intervention in the emerging field of (post)colonial provenance research, the project addresses an urgent need among museum professionals, historical researchers and Indigenous source communities alike for a systematic inventory of incidents where objects were taken in ‘punitive expeditions’ – an inventory that is at present entirely lacking. Perspectives from German and British scholarship and professional practice are brought together across colonial history, provenance studies, and the curation of world art, opening up a new resource for the significance of objects and histories for source communities and nations, including Indigenous groups from Africa and across the global south, to be explored in the future. Through this work the project adds a new dimension to current European, African and global debates about cultural restitution, developing a new reciprocal and comparative method for knowledge exchange and development. As well as making a primary contribution to the history of empire, the project revaluates the status of anthropological museums as places filled not just with objects but also with historical knowledge of conflict, violence and loss. The project thus reframes the European anthropological museum as places of cultural memory, at which restitution that can involve not just the physical repatriation of cultural property but also remembrance and the sharing of knowledge.