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

“知识的复苏”是一个新的跨国合作之间的历史和策展方法，以欧洲人类学收藏和（后）殖民遗产。它确定，研究，文件和重新思考的历史和正在进行的当代意义的“掠夺”的民族学收藏。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，从而为发展新形式的（后）殖民纪念和归还做出了重大贡献。该项目创建了一个新的比较资源，通过创新的合作方法记录殖民掠夺行为，将博物馆文物形式的历史知识与各种历史和当代观点重新联系起来。在（后）殖民起源研究的新兴领域进行重大的新干预，该项目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要，对在“惩罚性远征”中被带走的物品的事件进行系统的库存-目前完全缺乏的库存。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，出处研究和世界艺术的策展，为源社区和国家的对象和历史的意义开辟了一个新的资源，包括来自非洲和全球南部的土著群体，将在未来进行探索。通过这项工作，该项目为目前欧洲、非洲和全球关于文化归还的辩论增添了一个新的层面，为知识交流和发展开发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，而且还充满了冲突，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位为文化记忆的场所，在那里，归还不仅涉及文化财产的实物归还，而且还涉及纪念和知识共享。

‘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.