The expansion of European empires and the systematic mapping of the world prompted the creation of extensive collections and the building of modern museums. At the same time, academic knowledge production was differentiated into disciplines and their respective categorization tested in the colonies, assigning to people forms of “law”, “economy”, “politics”, “religion”, and “art”. This double process of canonisation and its various processes of exclusion has been described by Bruno Latour as the "cleansing work of modernity", which continues to be constitutive for the institutional structures of research and educational institutions, archives and museums.

To the extent that these structures perpetuate unequal access to epistemic, social, economic and ecological resources, they are at the centre of intense social debates. A reorientation is demanded to enable equal cooperation between the Global North and the Global South, and to foster a more democratic coexistence in the post-migrant societies of today. With the call for a new relational ethics (Sarr/Savoy 2018) museums and their colonial collections have moved to the centre of public debates about (post)colonial continuities, persistent racism and more equitable participation. Like museums, universities face the challenge of decolonising their structures and practices and developing new forms of knowledge production, participation and cooperation.

The interdisciplinary field of critical heritage studies explores these dynamics and investigates the epistemological, social and political conditions under which the past is reconstructed, and the present and future are renegotiated. Enmeshed with national identity politics and international governance structures, the preservation of heritage has become a contested arena within and between societies of the Global North and the Global South.

Work on and in critical museum and heritage studies at the Global South Studies Center is structured into three cross-cutting themes:

• In the first area Knowledge, the epistemic foundations of the heritage disciplines are examined and collections and their history scrutinized with regard to alternative epistemic practices and forms of knowing.
• In the second area, Sociali-es, processes of inclusion and exclusion are explored and possibilities for a comprehensive decolonisation and democratisation of museums, collections and heritage sites discussed.
• In the third area, Ecologies, the more-than-human forms of co-existence in the Anthropocene are examined through a new survey of museums, collections, and (natural) heritage sites to put colonial and post/colonial extractivism into focus.

Currently there are two working groups that operate in wider national and transnational networks.

1. Transforming Knowledge-Practices of Restitution explores situated knowledge practices of restitution that are currently developing in a variety of situations that are intertwined with, but located outside of, Europe. These knowledge practices tend to be complex, conflictual and transformative. They multiply and decentre the ways in which restitution can be thought and develop a variety of critiques of the reified cultural orders that colonialism produced (Comaroff & Comoraff 1991) and that continue to shape ongoing restitution debates and practices in Germany and Europe today.
2. A second working group, provisionally entitlted Material Culture & Heritage, is envisioned to study how material cultures of the past are positioned in the present world. It investigates the interplay of practices, infrastructures and narratives that lend meaning to the past. A focus is placed on geographical areas that face the epistemic and institutional legacy of colonialism, with a specific interest in local contexts of heritage practices and knowledge making. The working group is designed to bring a range of subject areas into dialogue, including archaeology, ancient world studies, social anthropology, history, and literary studies.

 

 

Summer-, Spring- and Autumn Schools:

• Elephants in the Room. Situatng Post/Colonial Histories and Imaginaries (6.- 22.September),  Spring/Autumn School Cape Town and Johannesburg (Funding: Graduiertenkolleg anschliessen-ausschliessen in Kooperation with the Graduiertenkolleg Contradic-on Studies, UoB, and the African Programme in Museum and Heritage Studies, UWC) (Martin Zillinger with Anna Brusm Michi Knecht, Ciraj Rassool)
• Environmental archaeology: dealing with natural and cultural environment, 22 September to 1 October 2023, summer school, Dakhla Oasis, Egypt (funding: DAAD) Organiser: Dr Karin Kindermann, Institute of Prehistory, University of Cologne; Dr Mohamed Atalla, Cairo University
• Language as/and Heritage, 23-24 August 2023 and 29 August to 2 September 2023, summer school, Nairobi (funding: UoC, Santander Universities) Organisers: Anne Storch, Heinz Felber

 

Conferences and Workshops:

• Embracing the future together. Reflections on genuine collaboration in repatrition and restitution. Workshop November 21, 2023 (Prof. Dr. Dany Adone)
• Decentring the Museum for a Postmigrant Society, International Conference, University of Cologne, November 17, 2023 (Prof. Dr. Nina Möntmann in co-operation with Dr. Sabine Dahl Nielsen)
• Zur Restitution von Objekten aus Kolonialismus und Nationalsozialismus. Historische Rechts- und Eigentumsvorstellungen, Gießen, Justus-Liebig-Universität 12.7.-14.7. 2023 (funded by the Thyssen Foundation) (Ulrike Lindner with Prof. Dr. Simone Derix, Uni Erlangen-Nürnberg, Prof. Dr. BeUna Brockmeyer, Universität Gießen)
• Archaeology and society, 30 June to 2 July 2023, international conference, University of Cologne (co-funding: GSSC) (Richard Bussmann)
• Decentring Restitution, Monday 26 June 2023, International Workshop, University of Cologne (Martin Zillinger, Richard Bussmann)
• Extractivism in Past and Present: Mass-Extraction of Artefacts from Papua New Guinea during German Colonial Rule and Ressource Extractivism Today Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum June 5-7, in cooperation with U Bremen IFEK, African Programme in Museums and Cultural Heritage, University of the Western Cape, National Museum and University of Port Moresby, Divine Word University Medeng, Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, GSSC, Dept. of Social Anthropology and Dept. of Art History, UoC (Dr. Anna Brus; Prof. Dr. Michi Knecht, Prof. Dr. Martin Zillinger)
• The Imperial Museum, Workshop (ECAS) (Ciraj Rassool and Martin Zillinger), May 31 2023)
• Museum Struggles: The Transforming Museum and Its Publics, (ECAS), June 1 2023 (Martin Zillinger and Ciraj Rassool),
• New Museologies in Africa, (ECAS), June 2 2023 (Anna Brus and Susanna Soussa)

 

Performances, Installations and Outreach:

• Film-Screening, Talk and Performance „A Homecoming of Sorts“ & “The Vocal Museum” with Artist Masello Motana, Goethe Institute Johannesburg, 19.09.2023 (Dr. Anna Brus)
• The Diaspora Experiment: A collective sound space on musical memories of diaspora communities in NRW (with artist in residence Masello Motana), 4.07.2023, Katakomben Theater Essen, 6.07.2023 Forum Unser Ebertplatz (Dr. Anna Brus, Prof. Dr. Martin Zillinger) (Funding: Wissenschalsforum zu Köln und Essen, City of Cologne) 
• Curatorial Projects “The Entire Story Starts Where. Anschlüsse und Ausschlüsse translokaler Positionen“ (Graduiertenkolleg anschliessen-ausschliessen (Funding: DFG) (in Cooperation with Akademie der Künste der Welt (ADKDW), Filmhaus Köln, GLASMOOG, Unser Ebertplatz, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Temporary Gallery), May 12 – July 2 2023. (Sandra Kurfürst, Nina Möntmann (UoC) with Carolin Höfler (TH Köln)
• The Contested Legacy of Black Consciousness in Azania (Lecture Performance with artist in residence Masello Motana), June 16 2023 (Funding: Wissenschalsforum zu Köln und Essen) (Dr. Anna Brus) hhps://artist-residency.uni-koeln.de/the-contested- legacy-of-black-consciousness-in-azania
• Public Panel Discussion: The Transforming Museum and its Publics. Rautenstrauch- Joest Museum (ECAS Conference), June 2, 2023 (Prof. Dr. Ciraj Rassool and Prof. Dr. Martin Zillinger) (Funding: GSSC, DFG, City of Cologne)
• The Counter Museum (Lecture Performance with artist in residence Masello Motana), 31.5. 2023 (Funding: Wissenschalsforum zu Köln und Essen / City of Cologne) (Dr. Anna Brus) hhps://artist-residency.uni-koeln.de/the-counter-museum
• Re/despair. Intervention in der Ausstellung des Rautenstrauch-Joest Museums (mit Studierenden der Universitäten Köln, Bremen und Western Cape) 22.05.-12.06.2023 (Funding: International Office, UoC, DAAD, Research- and Teaching Playorm World of Contradiction, University Bremen) (Dr. Anna Brus, Prof. Dr. Ciraj Rassool, Prof. Dr. Martin Zillinger)
• Cologne Crossroads Conversation No.1 with Bénédicte Savoy (Berlin) and Ciraj Rassool (Cape Town). (Watch Full Video here)

 

Teaching:

• Global Classroom VOICE: Decentring Epistemologies (EUniWell; in Kooperation mit Marleen Decker (Leiden) William Ellis (University Western Cape), Anne Kamau (Nairobi), Badiha Nahhass (Rabat), Francis Pope (Birmingham), (Februar-März 2023) (Martin Zillinger)
• Forschungsklasse Welterbe
• Beatrice Hendrich, Turkish Studies, Stephan Köhn, Japanese Studies, Stephan Milich, Islamic Studies, Richard Bussmann, Egyptology, Ulrike Wesch, Social Anthropology, Monika Böck, Social Anthropology
• Masterseminar: Dekolonisation und Restitution - aktuelle Debatten um dem Umgang mit dem Erbe des Kolonialismus (Ulrike Lindner, History)
• Vorlesung ‚Das Post/Koloniale Museum. Extraktivismus, Kanonisierung und kritische Museologien‘ (Anna Brus, Vertretungsprofessur für Kunst und visuelle Kulturen Afrikas, FU Berlin)
• Seminar: Resist! Rethinking the Ethnological Museum for Postmigrant Societies: Curatorial Challenges and Theoretical Implications (Freya Purzer, University of Cologne)