Sharing! (Digital) sharing in fields of Material Culture

• Applicant: Dr. Klara von Lindern
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 573564477

The wide-ranging research field of Material Culture Studies has been growing for years. Numerous projects and studies deal with the world of things and their (digital) representations; with practices of their production, use and mediation; with the collection and exhibition of objects, with their preservation and with their role in the context of memory cultures, to name but just a few areas. Although all of these aspects have been intensively researched, so far, a central concept and its practices within all fields of material culture has been largely ignored: Sharing. Forms of sharing in many different facets permeate these fields on both an analog and digital level: material culture, it can be said, would be inconceivable without sharing. The network aims to address this research gap and examine the different practices of (digital) sharing in everyday object cultures by using selected but transferable case studies. For the first time, a systematic overview of material culture studies will be provided, offering a basis for wide-ranging, inter- and transdisciplinary reflections and at the same time making an important contribution to existing research. The research focuses on examples from the four (sub-)areas of ‘Museums/Collections’, ‘(Cultural) Heritage’, ‘Fashion/Textiles’ and ‘Popular Cultures/DIY Cultures’, which can be used to demonstrate the wide range of possible perspectives on the field to be researched and the close and complex interweaving of different practices, actors, structures and forms of knowledge. In the form of online and on-site meetings, research will be conducted with other guests on these four (sub-)areas. In addition to an online publication, an online exhibition and a blog are planned as (academic) outputs.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Stefanie Samida