Sensitive Heritage: Ethnographic Museums, Provenance Research, and the Potentialities of Restitutions

Schorch, Philipp (2020): Sensitive Heritage: Ethnographic Museums, Provenance Research, and the Potentialities of Restitutions. [Introduction]. In: Museum and society, Vol. 18, No. 1: pp. 1-5

Abstract

This introduction lays out this special issue, which juxtaposes articles on approaches to provenance research, conducted at German museum and university institutions, with articles on past, present and future potentialities of restitutions to originating societies in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and Namibia. In doing so, the issue makes the argument that provenance research and processes of restitution, and their underlying ethical and sensitive considerations, generate, rather than restrict, new knowledge. They are brimming with epistemic and ontological potentialities: for the people related to the material entities concerned, for the (anthropological) knowledge about them, and for the institutions involved. The ultimate goal pursued is the establishment and further development of provenance research and processes of restitution as ethnographic work and an integral dimension of ethnographic museums in the 21st century.

• Item Type: Journal article
• EU Funded Grant Agreement Number: 803302
• EU Projects: Horizon 2020 > ERC Grants > ERC Starting Grant > ERC Grant 803302: IndiGen - Indigeneities in the 21st century: From 'vanishing people' to global players in one generation
• Faculties: Cultural Studies > Department of Ancient and Modern Cultures > Ethnology
• Subjects: 300 Social sciences > 300 Social sciences, sociology and anthropology
• Language: English