New explorations into South Sudanese museum collections in Europe

新成立的南苏丹国家以其深陷困境的历史而闻名;从19世纪和20世纪初的奴役和殖民统治，到导致其2011年独立的长期内战以及持续的独立后冲突。这段暴力和受害历史对学者和国家建设者都提出了分析和实践挑战：我们如何才能更好地理解人们在暴力环境中的互动和策略？我们如何研究和庆祝贯穿南苏丹历史的创造力、韧性和互惠？我们如何才能更丰富地了解该地区的过去，超越冲突和种族分裂的确定性叙述？这样做的一个资源在我们中间尚未开发。欧洲博物馆收藏了大约20，000件物品，最初是十九世纪或二十世纪初欧洲旅行者、商人、传教士和苏丹南部地区的官员获得的。这些物品从家用物品、珠宝、武器和乐器到大型的、视觉上引人注目的具象雕像。他们现在居住在圣彼得堡、罗马和肯特等不同的地方。许多收藏品都有丰富的支持文件-包括探险记录，日记，照片和有关博物馆收购的信件。然而，它们还没有成为广泛的比较研究的主题。“欧洲南苏丹博物馆收藏的新探索”是一个国际研究网络，旨在调查这一巨大但基本未开发的资源，以促进对南苏丹历史，全球联系和创意艺术的理解。这些收藏品不仅提供了关于该地区过去的新资料，还揭示了相互作用的复杂叙述，包括暴力和更和平的方面。探索物质联系和互惠将使南苏丹历史的新知识进步成为可能，并使我们能够重新思考这段历史，并产生重大的知识和社会影响。该网络将来自不同学科的学者与博物馆从业人员和遗产利益攸关方聚集在一起，制定关于整个欧洲南苏丹博物馆收藏品的研究议程。这是第一次将这些分散的收藏品与南苏丹社区联系起来，不仅解决了收藏品的学术意义，而且还解决了它们对发展对南苏丹身份的更具包容性的理解的潜在贡献。这些物品可以揭示南苏丹地区的经济和文化交流历史。通过它们在欧洲的收购、出口和展示，它们也体现了该地区往往以暴力和榨取的方式被纳入帝国和跨国经济。通过与国际参与者的三次研讨会，该网络将采取切实步骤，开展一项涉及欧洲和南苏丹机构的重大藏品研究计划。它将成为拥有大量南苏丹收藏品的博物馆的独特国际中心，促进对尚未分离的收藏品和历史的新的比较视角。一个关键的优先事项是让南苏丹人参与这一研究进程，同时为现任策展人和研究人员提供一个重要的机会，反思这些藏品的过去和现在的展示，欧洲观众对它们的接受以及它们所表达的叙述。初步结果将发表在针对多学科受众的特刊上，并在网上尽可能广泛地接触学术和非学术受众。

The new state of South Sudan is best known for its deeply troubled history; from enslavement and colonisation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the prolonged civil wars that led both to its independence in 2011 and to continued post-independence conflicts. This history of violence and victimhood poses both analytical and practical challenges to scholars and nation-builders alike: how can we better understand the interactions and strategies pursued by people even in violent contexts? How can we study and celebrate the creativity, resilience and reciprocities that also run through South Sudanese history? How can we gain a richer picture of the region's past, one that reaches beyond deterministic narratives of conflict and ethnic division? One resource for doing this lies unexploited in our midst. European museums house an estimated 20,000 objects, originally acquired by European travellers, traders, missionaries and officials in the Southern Sudanese region in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. These items range from household objects, jewellery, weaponry and musical instruments to large, visually striking figurative statues. They are now housed in locations as diverse as St Petersburg, Rome and Kent. Many of the collections have rich supporting documentation - including accounts of expeditions, diaries, photographs and correspondence concerning acquisitions by museums. Yet they have not yet been the subject of extensive comparative enquiry.'New explorations into South Sudanese museum collections in Europe' is an international research network investigating this huge but largely untapped resource for advancing understandings of South Sudan's history, global connections and creative arts. Not only do these collections provide new sources on the region's past, they also expose complex narratives of interaction, in both its violent and more peaceful aspects. Exploring material connections and reciprocities will make new intellectual advances on the history of South Sudan possible and allow us to rethink this history with potential for significant intellectual and social impacts. The network brings together academics from different disciplines with museum practitioners and heritage stakeholders to develop a research agenda on South Sudanese museum collections across Europe. It is the first of its kind to connect these dispersed collections with South Sudanese communities, addressing not only the collections' academic significance, but also their potential contribution to developing more inclusive understandings of South Sudanese identity. These objects can reveal histories of economic and cultural exchange within the region that has become South Sudan. Through their acquisition, export and display in Europe, they also embody the often violent and extractive incorporation of this region into imperial and transnational economies. They offer the potential for deeper and more nuanced understandings of how people in the Upper Nile region negotiated new trading opportunities as well as the coercive predation through which these objects were acquired.Through three workshops with international participants, the network will make tangible steps towards a major programme of research on the collections, involving institutions in both Europe and South Sudan. It will serve as a unique international hub for museums with significant South Sudanese collections, facilitating new comparative perspectives on as yet disconnected collections and histories. A key priority is to involve South Sudanese in this research process, while providing an important opportunity for current curators and researchers to reflect on the past and present display of these collections, their reception by European audiences and the narratives they project. The initial results will be published in a special journal issue aimed at multidisciplinary audiences and online to reach the widest possible academic and non-academic audiences.