The German Ethnographic Expeditions to the Kimberley, Northwest Australia. A Collaborative Assessment of Research History, the Interpretation of Australian Aboriginal Heritage and Digital Repatriation

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The aim of this project is to develop the first stage of a systematic and collaborative assessment of the German ethnographic expeditions to the Northwest Kimberley that were conducted by the Institut für Kulturmorphologie (now Frobenius Institute, Frankfurt am Main) in 1938 and 1939 and the then Museum für Völkerkunde (Munich) in 1954 and 1955. These expeditions were both conducted by researchers, who were originally associated with Leo Frobenius and they were among the first dedicated ethnographic/anthropological expeditions into this part of Australia. They were also the first to specifically record rock art images and accompanying narratives. This latter aspect is particularly significant, because the researchers worked within the region of the Aboriginal Wandjina Wunggurr communities, who continue to preserve a cultural tradition in which rock art constitute integral elements until the present day. The expeditions have produced an extensive amount of materials that is distributed across a number of institutions in Germany. These largely unpublished materials comprise archival materials, ethnographic objects, reproductions of rock art images as well as an extensive collection of photographs. Although a limited number of publications by the members of these expeditions have been produced in German after WWII, the materials themselves have never been assessed using modern critical methods and techniques. Most importantly, they have never been examined together with members of the relevant Aboriginal communities and information about the materials and archival records has not been made available to the Aboriginal communities in accessible and culturally-sensitive ways.In summary, the project is intended to contribute towards a critical analysis of these expeditions and the respective collections, using systematic historical and anthropological methods in collaboration with the relevant Aboriginal communities. The latter will profit from the results as materials will be made accessible to community members in responsible and culturally-sensitive ways in digital form through the respective Aboriginal community archive(s) as well as appropriate publications. The project will contribute to key areas of debate concerning ethnographic museums and collections in Germany today. The outcomes are intended to be of academic character and value and also to make suggestions for standards how to deal with a heritage shared between German institutions and Indigenous communities. Furthermore, the project results will be made available to a larger public through a travelling exhibition, developed in an international collaboration between the Mowanjum Arts Centre (Kimberley, Australia), the Wetsern Australian Museum (Perth) and the relevant museums and institutions in Germany (Museum der Weltkulturen and Frobenius-Institut in Frankfurt am Main; as well as Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich).