Die Restitution von Wissen: Museen als (post)koloniale Archive, 1850-1939
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The DFG-AHRC funded project has greatly contributed to a broader acknowledgement of the symbiosis between museums and the colonial military. Thanks to a study of the mechanisms of colonial plunder in German Cameroon, three articles on the entanglements between appropriation of cultural heritage and colonial conquest in northern Togoland (today’s Togo & Ghana), as well as two exhaustive lists of events of colonial spoliation that currently serve as foundation for ongoing research on provenance, but also for state-to-state negotiations on restitution, the project has greatly increased scientific and public awareness on the ubiquitous presence of spoils of war from colonial contexts in West and Central Africa in ethnographic museums. Besides, the trail left by some of those shipments of war booty to Germany led the research team to museums in Britain and the US. This has shed light on an international network of institutions implicated in the dispossession of African communities of their cultural assets, including symbols of power and sacred artefacts of utter spiritual and religious significance. The list of 181 military expeditions undertaken in the colony of German Cameroon and of 60 campaigns in the colony of German Togoland compiled in the project is the first research data that provides direct evidence of the close link between more than 1,000 evaluated reports from the colonial military and more than 10,000 inventory numbers in museum or university collections in Germany. This fundamental research, which the project team has shared with scholars in Togo, Ghana, Cameroon, but also with museum professionals in Germany, serves as a solid basis for quicker and more thorough research in provenance. In the spirit of a “restitution of knowledge”, the project made the list of expeditions in Cameroon available open access on the Technical University’s repository. The list for German Togoland is currently being reviewed and completed and will be published on the TU repository as well. The team also presented these results at the University of Lomé, the University of Kara (Togo) and the University of Ghana (Accra), as well as to the Cameroonian scientific community in Germany, raising awareness among African scholars in colonial history and museum studies. The project will culminate in the publication of an edited volume that brings together thirty experts on looted art, colonial history, African studies, and anthropology for a comprehensive study of looting events in British, German, French and Belgian colonial contexts on the African continent. The volume, entitled Fifteen Colonial Thefts: A guide to looted African heritage in museums (2024), features the perspective of twenty-five African experts on the matter, discussing contemporary issues in academia and cultural diplomacy such as restitution, decolonial studies of language, postcolonial historiography and provenance research, in a way that is unprecedented. Kuhn, Nicola, “Geschenkt, gekauft, geklaut: Wie im Humboldt Forum die Herkunft von afrikanischen Exponaten verschleiert wird”, Tagesspiegel, 27 September 2021. LeGall, Yann & Sebastian Sprute, “Steile Thesen: Als „Amateur-Ethnologen“ in Kamerun „sammelten“”, Der Freitag, 7 October 2021. Häntzschel, Jörg, “Der Raub von Kameruns Kulturerbe:Wahn und Wissenschaft”, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 5 June 2023.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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Kriegshemd. Sammlung Digital, Linden-Museum Stuttgart. https://sammlung-digital.lindenmuseum.de/de/objekt/kriegshemd_15242
Aguigah, Elias
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Deutsch-Ostafrika – ein permanenter Kriegszustand. In Wolfgang Geige and Henning Melber (eds.), Kritik des deutschen Kolonialismus: Postkoloniale Sicht auf Erinnerung und Geschichtsvermittlung (Frankfurt a. M.: Brandes & Apsel, 2021), 95–111. ISBN: 978-3955583071
LeGall, Yann & Mnyaka Sururu Mboro
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Possessions, Spoils of War, Belongings: What Museum Archives tell us about the (Il)legality of the Plunder of African Property. Verfassungsblog, 2 December 2022
LeGall, Yann & Gwinyai Machona
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Colonial Violence in the North of Togo and the Plunder of Biema Asabiè’s belongings. VOICES, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 19 Jan. 2023.
Aguigah, Elias, LeGall, Yann & Jeanne-Ange Wagne
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Koloniale Gewalt im Norden Togos und die Plünderung der Besitztümer von Biema Asabiè. VOICES, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 19 Jan. 2023.
Aguigah, Elias, LeGall Yann & Jeanne-Ange Wagne
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Ne s’obtient que par la force’: La violence militaire coloniale au Cameroun et les collections muséales en Allemagne, histoire d’une symbiose. VisionsCarto, 18 Dec. 2023.
LeGall, Yann
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Nur mit Gewalt zu erlangen: Militärische Gewalt und Museumssammlungen. In Mikaél Assilkinga et. al, Atlas der Abwesenheit: Kameruns Kulturerbe in Deutschland (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 2023), 113–137. ISBN: 978-3-496-01700-4
LeGall, Yann
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Remnants of ‘Adibo dali’ (1896) and the Plunder of Yendi in German Museums. History Workshop Journal, 96, 71-95.
LeGall, Yann & Aguigah, Elias
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Fifteen Colonial Thefts. Pluto Press.
Adjei, Sela K. & LeGall, Yann (Eds.)
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‘Punitive’ Expeditions in German Colonial Contexts in Africa. History, 109(386-387), 308-334.
LeGALL, YANN
