Against this conceptual background, the conference is organised within the framework of the research project “Colonial-Era Collections from Indonesia in Lower Saxony: A German–Dutch–Indonesian Entangled History” (https://lnkd.in/gjJRSUQJ), funded by the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste and coordinated by the Museumsverband für Niedersachsen und Bremen e. V., in collaboration with the Netzwerk Provenienzforschung in Niedersachsen.
The project investigates colonial-era collections held in eight museums in Lower Saxony, comprising approximately 1,450 ethnographic objects, 300 natural history specimens, and human remains.
The key questions will be:
- How were Indonesian ethnographic and natural collections formed within colonial networks of power, knowledge, and economic and scientific interest?
- How can provenance research challenge these inherited structures and produce shared, plural understandings of history?
