01 Oct 2025  |  Philipp Schorch & Magnus Treiber

Recommoning collections: Potentials, frictions, limitations

The history of anthropology and anthropological collecting has been marked by a paradox of un/commoning. In the name of academic freedom, unrestricted access to knowledge has been feverishly sought and vigorously defended. The outcomes of such frantic exercises, often inscribed in collections (archival, material, visual), have paradoxically been largely uncommoned, hidden away in tightly controlled depots where they hibernate inaccessibly to wider publics to this day. (Post)colonial demands have put pressure on archives, galleries, libraries, museums and universities to make holdings accessible and democratize collecting institutions. Digitization is often seen as a promising means to that end. However, what happens to sacred and secret knowledges, memories and identities that are enshrined in collections and should never have been collected? What happens when formerly collected individuals and societies experience yet another intrusion as the urge of (digital) commoning puts them on public display? This workshop argues that much more nuanced, case-based and anthropological analysis is needed to assess the multiple and differing ways and forms in which collections could and should be commoned or not. We invite contributions from anthropology and beyond to reflect upon the potentials, frictions and limitations. The latter, while seemingly having negative connotations, might instead be a productive finding or situation, moving from extractivist knowledge exploitation towards collaborative approaches underpinned by guiding principles, such as relational ethics and mutual care, across publics and their multiple and differing ways and forms of defining what un/commoning entails.

This workshop is informed by the research project "Markus Mailopu and the "II. Freiburg Moluccan Expedition." 

Convenors

Philipp Schorch (LMU Munich)
Magnus Treiber (LMU Munich)

Speakers

Amanda Foote (University of Calgary)
Valerie Hänsch & Mohamed Bakhit (University of Karthoum)
Lena Scheibinger (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)
Thomas Widlok (University of Cologne)

Visit the conference website for more information on the program and view this workshop here.

The conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologieon, DGSKA (German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropology, GASCA) “Un/Commoning Anthropology“ takes place in Cologne from 29 September – 2 October 2025. It is organised and hosted by the GASCA together with the Cologne Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology.