Books and journal issues
In which ways are environments (post-)socialist and how do they come about? How is the relationship between the built environment, memory, and debates on identity enacted? What are the spatial, material, visual, and aesthetic dimensions of these (post-)socialist enactments or interventions? And how do such...
This co-written book offers a collaborative ethnographic investigation of Indigenous museum practices in three Pacific museums located at the corners of the so-called Polynesian triangle: Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Hawaiʻi – Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa – Museo Antropológico Padre Sebastián Englert, Rapa Nui.
This book provides a new look at the old anthropological concern with materiality and connectivity. It understands materiality not as defined property of some-thing, nor does it take connectivity as merely a relation between discrete entities. Somewhat akin to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, it sees materiality and connectivity as two...
What is the future of curatorship? Is there a vision for an ideal model, a curatopia – whether in the form of a utopia or dystopia? Or is there a plurality of approaches, amounting to a curatorial heterotopia? This pioneering volume addresses these questions by considering the current state of curatorship.
Rapa Nui: Dilemas contemporáneos
Los artículos presentados en este dossier dan cuenta en su conjunto, de un giro paradigmático en la investigación dialógica sobre Rapa Nui y que tiene dobles repercusiones: se plantea desde la generación de conocimiento nuevo y pretende aportar en la comprensión de...
Experiencing Pacific Environments: Pasts, Presents, Futures
In the context of pressing environmental challenges in the Pacific and indeed the world, this special issue sheds light on the diverse ways in which people in Oceania experience environments, as well as the diverse ways in which environmental knowledge can be articulated.
Sensitive Heritage: Ethnographic Museums, Provenance Research and the Potentialities of Restitutions
This special issue juxtaposes articles on approaches to provenance research conducted at German museums and universities with articles on past, present and future potentialities of restitutions...
Articles and chapters
Book chapter in: A la croisée des vagues. Océaniens et Occidentaux: anthropologie historique de la violence (16e-19e siècles) by Éric Conte, Guillaume Molle and Serge Tcherkézoff (Papeete: Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme du Pacifique)
Re-membering Hawai‘i: Provenienzforschung und Restitution als (post)koloniale Erinnerungsarbeit
Material entities, mostly classified as “human remains”, held in German collections and museums still bear witness to the political, economic and scientific entanglements between Hawai‘i and...
Collaborative conservation and collections care. An ethnographic study of collaboration between Indigenous actors and conservators
Collaborations with source communities on exhibitions, provenance research, and restitutions have been widely introduced to museum practices worldwide. However...
“Like Pregnant Hippos”. Ethnographic Museums and the Legacy of European Colonialism
An old Bible from Namibia, a mask from Cameroon, a spear from New Guinea, even human remains: ethnological museum collections include thousands of objects from Africa, Asia and the South Seas, but what is the real history of these things?
In this article, we approach the museum as archive and as infrastructure. We do so by introducing two research initiatives that set out to conceptually explore this nexus, and by hinting at methodological approaches and empirical lines of inquiry to be further pursued. The parallels between museums and archives as memory institutions...
La antropología chilena en Rapa Nui. Una retrospectiva
El presente ensayo analiza el desarrollo de la antropología – y en particular la antropología social chilena – en Rapa Nui y el lugar que ocupa la isla en la disciplina, al determinar sus características y aportes en la comunidad local. El estudio aborda...
Materielle Verflechtungsgeschichte. Ein Plädoyer
Um es auf den Punkt zu bringen: Historiker:innen lesen und schreiben. Die Handwerkskunst dieser Profession zeichnet sich dadurch aus, basierend auf vornehmlich schriftlichen Quellen, Texte zu verfassen, die versuchen, sich an...
This article introduces the art historical method of functional deixis into the study of material culture in anthropology. Functional deixis begins with a thorough empirical description of communicative effects – visual and embodied – produced by a material thing on the beholder. It then proceeds by tending to a kind of...
Romper el encierro. Las fugas como micropolítica: Rapa Nui (1940–1960)
En este escrito analizamos los itinerarios y las estrategias de acción desplegadas por los jóvenes rapanui en la ejecución de sus fugas. Con ambos aspectos accedemos a una dimensión micropolítica y fenomenológica de estas.
Films
Set on Rotuma in Fiji, this classic tale of unconditional love is given new meaning and relevance today as it explores issues of conservation, tradition versus freedom, and prejudice against black skin among Polynesians.