Digital Panel Discussion: Kambek. The Future of Pacific Collections after Acknowledging Colonial Violence and Destruction”

On  June 28, a digital panel discussion titled “Kambek. The Future of Pacific Collections after Acknowledging Colonial Violence and Destruction” took place, as we announced here on boasblogs.

You can now listen to the audio recording of the discussion (in German) on the homepage of the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste (German Lost Art Foundation).

Kambek means “coming back” – also the “coming back of things” – in Tok Pisin, one of two national languages in Papua New Guinea. For the former German colonies in Oceania, the debate about provenance and restitution is still in its early stages. In his new book (“Das Prachtboot”), historian Götz Aly focuses on the colonial violence against the people of Papua New Guinea. He shows how central it is to place the acquisition histories of collections and objects in broader historical contexts.

Do the stories of objects and collections from the Pacific need to be told differently than before? How are provenance research, colonial historiography, and museum representations of the Pacific changing? And what does this mean for cooperative research approaches and structures at museums and universities, for a possible Kambek of objects and their reappropriation by indigenous actors?

These and other questions were addressed and discussed by:

Prof. Dr. Rainer Buschmann, California State University
Prof. Dr. Rebekka Habermas, University of Göttingen
Prof. Dr. Michi Knecht, University of Bremen / DCNtR Blog Collective
Dr. Ulrich Menter, Linden Museum Stuttgart
Moderation: Dr. Larissa Förster, German Center for the Loss of Cultural Property

In collaboration with CARMAH, Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and the DCNtR-Blog, University of Cologne.