ICME NEWS ISSUE 90 AUGUST 2020

black lives matter and etHnographic museums A statement from ICME Committee Announcements AND NEWS / Exhibitions and Conferences: Announcements and Reviews / ARTICLES / NOTICES ICME NEWS 90 AUGUST 2020 2

CONTENTS

Words from the Editor...... 3

ICME Board Announcements and News Black Lives Matter and Ethnographic Museums: A Statement from ICME...... 4. Postponement of the 2020 ICME Conference...... 5

Exhibitions and Conferences: Announcements and Reviews Conference Review: Absence and Belonging in Museums of Everyday Life – Laurie Cosmo...... 6 Conference Review: Beyond collecting; new ethics for museums in transition – Flower Manasse...... 13 Conference Announcement: Anthropology and Geography...... 15 Conference Announcement: Mapping South-South Connections...... 16 Film Review: Bang the Drum – Jenny Walklate...... 17

Articles How can Museums Challenge Racism and Colonial Fantasies? - Boniface Mabanza in conversation with Anette Rein...... 19 Getting out, getting in: Amerindian and European perspectives around the museum - Rui Mourão...... 25 Kurmanjan Datka. Museum of Nomadic Civilization, The Kyrgyz Republic - Aida Alymova and Gulbara Abdykalykova...... 29 Beyond Trophies and Spoils of Wars - Staci-Marie Dehaney...... 33 The Village Museum: Rural settings in an Urban Environment - Wilbard Lema & Flora Vicent...... 38

Notices UK Heritage Organisations Issue Joint Statement in Response to Black Lives Matter Movement...... 42 Launch of Online Resource on Repatriation Issues – MEG Group...... 43

Contact ICME News...... 44 On the cover: The Genocide Monument outside the National Museum of Namibia in Windhoek (Photo: J. Silvester) ICME NEWS 90 AUGUST 2020 3 words FROM THE EDITOR

This edition of the ICME access to debates and virtual newsletter carries a statement exhibitions and events that from the ICME Board. It argues are now being posted online. that ethnographic museums have a responsibility to play Museums across the world are a leading role in combating being challenged to find new injustice and ignorance, but ways to be both accessible and that this will require critical meaningful to their publics. In reflection and new forms of the next newsletter we would action. The features in this like to showcase some of the edition of the newsletter ways in which ethnographic include an interview with museums have engaged with Dear ICME members, Boniface Mabanza in which the cultural impact of the he reflects on the implications virus. We would also like to Welcome to the 90th Edition of the Black Lives Matter share some of the imaginative of our ICME newsletter. The movement on museums. We ways in which museums Black Lives Matter movement also have an introduction to have continued to provide a has placed demands on the new web site created by service. The editorial team Ethnographic Museums to the Museum Ethnographers is committed to making the acknowledge the fact that Group (MEG) in the UK which newsletter reflect different many collections contain provides resources on the perspectives from many objects that were removed repatriation of artifacts. different parts of the world. from their owners in the context However, to achieve this goal of colonial violence. Many We are also living through a we rely on our members. So ethnographic museums have time when COVID-19 is making please, contact a member of released statements stating a us all radically rethink our the editorial team if you would commitment to confront the assumptions about travel like to suggest or provide an history of their collections (and and communication. On the article for the next newsletter. the newsletter includes one joint one hand the pandemic is statement made by a number forcing us to explore new Jeremy Silvester of UK heritage institutions). ways to network through the Some museums now see the internet and encouraging repatriation of artifacts as an international dialogue on ethical obligation, but one virtual platforms. On the that also creates opportunities other hand, these initiatives for developing new creative are also reinforcing the digital collaborative projects. divide, particularly in terms of ICME NEWS 90 AUGUST 2020 19 ARTICLES

How can Museums Challenge Racism and Colonial Fantasies? Boniface Mabanza in conversation with Anette Rein (March, 2020)1

Dr Anette Rein and Dr Theol. Boniface Mabanza (Photo: Laura Plönnigs)

Rein: So how do you define racism? classification of people, combined with spontaneous meetings and Mabanza: Racism has two basic with the existing cultural, economic, expressions of sympathy. Do you elements: 1. racialisation: the cate- political and military instruments have the impression that something gorisation of people on the basis of of power, have made it possible for has changed, and that the topic of external characteristics such as skin some Europeans to enslave, colonise racism as a mechanism of marking colour or cultural attributes. 2. The and exploit. Racification has served to and exclusion has arrived in the con- use of instruments of power to make justify this colonial exploitation and sciousness of the population ‑ as the racialisation effective. Behind this this brutality of enslavement ... reactions in the Frankfurt football lies a history that has been shaped by stadium on 20.2.2020 let us hope? Europe in its encounters with the rest Large parts of the population For Germany as a whole, I cannot yet of the world. In short, it can be said reacted to the murders in Hanau, say that the context has been sensi- that hierarchisation, racialisation and Germany, in February this year tized. I would say that here there is ICME NEWS 90 AUGUST 2020 20

The "Reiter" statue in storage at the National Museum of Namibia after its removal (Photo. Randy Mwatondange)

both. There is the development that we people meet with massive rejection from the public eye. Wouldn’t it make are becoming increasingly aware of the because the discourses of the right- much more sense to place the corre- racist socialization we are experiencing wing forces are spreading, so that many sponding history under the existing in Germany. On an institutional level, see the presence of people who look street signs to explain why a new this is expressed by the fact that there different or come from somewhere name was introduced? are more and more institutions that else as a threat to themselves, to their An example from Namibia shows us are conducting anti-racism training in life situation, to their culture, to their how it could also work in the German order to work sensitively with diversity. comfort ‑ and express this. It goes so context: In Namibia, there was an Even sports associations are attaching far that, according to my observation, equestrian monument that had been more and more importance to the there are many people who think that inaugurated in 1912 in the then colony training of trainers in order to deal all non-white people only came to Ger- of German South West Africa at a very constructively with diversity, due to the many after 2015. The fact that Germany prominent location in Windhoek. In large presence of people with migra- has a long history with Africa and with 2013 it was moved to the inner court- tion biographies. Due to the experience black people living here has increasing- yard of the Alte Feste, which houses the of the two world wars, especially after ly been pushed into the background. National Museum of Namibia. When the Second World War, there are many the government decided to implement people in Germany who are sensitive As a result of the postcolonial dis- it, white groups, mainly from the com- and also able to react immediately to courses of the last decade, street munity of German descent, protested. racist thinking and racist behaviour. names of people who were greedy They wanted to keep the representative and murderous during the colonial of the then German “Schutztruppen” But there is also the counter-devel- period as merchants, military or at exactly this place. However, the opment since 2015, that "non-white" explorers in Africa are to disappear government wanted to build a symbol ICME NEWS 90 AUGUST 2020 21

of Namibia’s independence (since 1990) from West Africa. He changed elemen- the global North until the 1930s. In there ‑ a genocide memorial. They tary school several times, because he 2005, when a German zoo invited Af- argued that the aim was not to erase was directly confronted with it by the rican musicians and traders, among the equestrian monument from the pupils. He fought because he could not others, to offer their wares, weave memory of mankind, but to keep it in a stand it. I understand him when he told plaits and make music for four days museum where the historical context me: “I cannot hear the word, I cannot on the zoo grounds under the motto could be better conveyed than on the accept it if someone speaks the word “African Village”, ethnologists and street. This is also my suggestion with in my presence”. I feel the same way. activists published the problematic regard to Lüderitz and von Trotha etc. But when it is told in a history lesson connection to the former Völkerschau- We should not name any more streets that this word was used in the 60s, in en. Interestingly enough, the Africans after Lüderitz and von Trotha, because the time of Martin Luther King, it is themselves did not see any connec- they were not Einsteins and Mozarts. accepted by those concerned. And also tion to the Völkerschauen. How do War criminals should not be honoured when it is used in a fighting attitude: you assess the mediation mandate in public by giving street names. There “We are not what you think ‑ we are of zoos or ethnographic museums, is a completely different way of contex- what we are. You can call us what you which normally tend to avoid close tualizing their person in a museum, so want”, then it is something else. But this cooperation with each other? that everyone can understand why the story will not be told to the end if it is There can be no excuse in this matter streets were renamed. not made clear that this group has been for an institutional leadership with a working since that time on a self-de- strong impact on society. It must be Various names and words were fined identity as “African Americans”. familiar with history and know the subject to censorship in the German The people concerned do not forbid aftermath of history. Hiding behind the language. Thus one speaks of the their children to know that there was a interests of the merchants to legitimize “N-word” or the “M-word” [a reference time when the N-word was used as a this is too cheap for me. There are to German words that are considered term for them. But let them know that’s people from Africa whose profile could derogatory – Ed]. Companies should over now. The term must be classified, have helped the director better than rename themselves if they use the the ban has an educational effect. It the traders in her assessment of the M-word as their name or abolish their should make people think about how matter. But the director had no contact defamatory logo. What do you think bad the word is and that those affect- with them and she did not hear the about the argument that in a few ed do not want to go back there. I am African voices that had already taken a years, when the knowledge about the in favour of this ban, because for me stand on such issues. It is not the first words and their underlying meaning the latent danger is that people do time that such events took place. will be forgotten because they are no not think about it, make jokes about longer allowed, then, for example, the it, trivialize the pain of those affected Do you find such events problematic historical awareness of the N-word and say afterwards: “But that was not even in a museum park? will be lost with the disappearance of meant badly”. Both the N-word and the A museum park, on the other hand, is the meaning of the complete N-word? M-word are insulting and hurtful for something completely different from a As far as the N-word is concerned, those affected. That’s what matters ‑ zoo and therefore not comparable. The I believe that it is important to take and that’s where it stops. accommodation of people in zoos dur- into account the point of view of those ing the folk shows was the equation of concerned. A very good friend of mine Ethnographic shows supported the people with animals ‑ that is the back- was born in Germany, his parents are spread of racism in the countries of ground. But basically one has to say, ICME NEWS 90 AUGUST 2020 22

as already Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o wrote in from my perspective, means that they wing milieus identities are reduced to his book “Secure the Base: Making Africa can influence each other, which can only one criterion: the criterion “origin” Visible in the Globe”: everything that can have effects on their respective cul- or, so to speak, “culture”. “They have a somehow give the impression that Afri- tures. In any case, living with each other different origin, they have a different can art, African goods do not find their presupposes that they consciously or culture. They have nothing to do with place in quite normal places where unconsciously identify commonalities us.” In the case of Germany, we would other goods of the same category are by which they orient themselves. say: “They don’t belong here, they sold or exhibited, is a problem, because belong somewhere else.” That’s what this again brings with it a classification So both terms mean something was said with regard to Jewish fellow and thus a racialisation. different than ethnopluralism, which citizens and what is being said today is nothing other than holding on to with regard to Muslim fellow citizens Postcolonial studies have decoupled the old idea of radical alterities that or even black people and PoCs [People the concept of racism from natural cannot meet. This automatically of Colour – Ed]. characteristics. This de-biologization leads to apartheid. In South Africa, it originally reacted to developments in was claimed that there are different, But identities are plural in the sense right-wing identity politics in which biological races, they have nothing to that what defines me is not only my ethnopluralism has been propagat- do with each other, but they can share origin, the fact that I was born in the ing since the 1970s: “Cultures are a territory with each other ‑ whereby Congo, but also my education, my equal but incompatible, and each cul- the white people determine what the passion for music, for football, my ture has its own territory”. Not only a others are allowed to own and how eating habits. All these are things I “home”, but also quasi unchangeable they have to live. Ethnopluralism is a share with many other people in the characteristics are thus located. The White vested interest, a refusal to deal world ‑ regardless of their origin. originally biologically based racism with the effects of a persistent racism When it comes to music or football, has become ethnoracism. Do you see - without races. I can perhaps have more in common a connection between this “ethnic with someone who is in England or racism” and the terms “multicultural” When one uses the terms “inter-“ Hawaii than with someone who lives or “intercultural” that are commonly and “multiculturalism”, one assumes in Kinshasa, where I grew up. used in our country? that there are different cultures. Interculturality means that cultures can Some scientists even want to abolish When using the two terms “inter-“ and come into contact with each other, can the term “culture”. Instead, these “multicultural” it is always a question cross-fertilise each other. For example, approaches speak of milieus and of definition in which direction they when we speak of intercultural com- identities, each person belongs to point. If “multicultural” also means petences to be mobilized for justice, it different milieus with different roles that cultures that stand side by side means that resources that exist in in- and identities, whereby one speaks have nothing to do with each other dividual cultures are activated to bring of plural identities and plural affili- and therefore cannot learn anything about justice. Multiculturalism says ations, which can also change again from each other, then we are not far first of all that there are several cultures. and again and are not eternally fixed from what the ethnoracists say. How- That is descriptive. The term also has for an individual. ever, if diversity and mutual material something normative in that it implies That’s exactly the point. It depends on and immaterial fertilization are at the a coexistence of people of different na- the definition. Identities can also be forefront, then it is a positive, for- tionalities, languages, religions, which, recorded as singular or plural. In right- ward-looking concept. ICME NEWS 90 AUGUST 2020 23

Racism and colonialism cannot be quota of women for leading positions does not belong here”. But if the migra- separated from each other, they are is another requirement to change tion stories, the global biographies and interdependent. The educational structures sustainably and to place gender diversity are an enrichment to institution, the museum, is also new topics. the local context ‑ that alone is inter- affected in three ways: Through For me, the decisive factor is whether esting for me. The more perspectives the collections, the staff structure the history of migration must remain in (migration stories, women, non-hetero- and through topics that museums the background. A friend of mine said sexuals etc.) are represented in leading convey in exhibitions. Let us concen- that if people already call me a “person positions, the better for the pluraliza- trate here on the last two levels: One with a migration background”, they tion of the stories. demand for the decolonisation of should call me a “person with a migra- museums is to employ more MiMi- tion foreground”. Anyway, you can see What do you think the optimal com- Mi (fellow citizens with a migration that I am different. However, there position of a museum team should background) in responsible, scientific are people who, when they say “with look like in order to develop other positions. On the other hand, the migration background”, think: “He/she visions and objectives in museums? What kind of training do you consider necessary that goes beyond a profes- sional training? What I wish for is not only valid for museums. On the level of conceptual work, that is: what is presented and how, and how a museum should be filled with life, as many perspectives as possible should be represented. It depends on the respective focus of a museum how people with global biographies, with their experiences and local knowledge can contribute something to bring out the diversity of a museum’s work in a different way.

As you said in your commentary on a scene in Jean-Marie Téno’s docu- mentary film “The Colonial Misun- derstanding” (2004), a curator in the film made a derogatory statement about the Herero from your point of Renaming von Trotha view, because she emphasized that Street (Photo. afrika- hamburg.de Herero leaders “already knew how to read and write and exchanged their agreements on fighting strategies in writing” (= racial, ethnic marking: ICME NEWS 90 AUGUST 2020 24

“Africans could not read and write”). one was not allowed to formulate to address broad sections of society. In In your opinion, how could racist, dis- it in such a way that the Herero had my view, that would be an important criminatory or even sexist statements anything to learn from for their own function for society. In contrast to the in museum exhibitions be avoided? everyday life. There is much that the common interfaces with adult educa- The emphasis on the fact that the colonizers observed and adopted, tion centres, Protestant and Catholic formerly illiterate Herero learned to but it did not fit into the story of the academies, for example, museums still read and write in the missionary school ignorance of the others. To this day, focus on collections in order to convey is an expression of the fact that they the medical knowledge of medicinal special themes. And in this I also see have thus come closer to the model of plants is stolen in certain areas, for the opportunities for museums to help their role models, the colonial masters. example by some companies in the shape important social discourses. The fundamental question remains: pharmaceutical industry. So far, only why is writing the central criterion of a few court cases against this have be- Thank you very much for the exciting evaluation? There are cultures that have come known. The industry continues conversation! developed other forms of communica- to say: “We discovered it ourselves!” tion, including historiography, and the They don’t say that the knowledge is Dr. Anette Rein is an ethnologist preservation of their traditions. This centuries old and that they have used and journalist, former Director of the was not discussed in the exhibition! it without question. Museum of World Cultures, Frankfurt Museums should always convey many and is the President of the German contexts and perspectives. What do you see as the greatest tasks Association for Freelance Ethnologists and opportunities for museums as (http://www.bundesverband-ethnol- But one could also understand this complex educational institutions? ogie.de/webvisitenkarte/15) remark by the curator in a completely As I said earlier: How do museums different way. After the arrival of the manage to convey the historical con- Dr. Theol. Boniface Mabanza Bambu foreigners from Europe, for example, textualization of objects? How do they is a literary scholar, philosopher, the- the indigenous craftsmen very quick- manage to develop a connection to ologian and expert on development ly adapted to the new needs and current social and global problems with and trade,. He has been working since produced objects of desire in suitcase their historical objects? They must con- 2008 as the coordinator at the church size, which the soldiers or colonial tribute to the many opinion-forming office for Southern Africa (KASA) in officials could transport home more processes that take place in society and Heidelberg (www.kasa.de) easily. That is a creative potential. The provide cross-generational offerings. Herero were in the mission schools, The latter is already practised in many learned to read and write there ‑ in museums. With reference to world Endnotes order to then use these techniques of cultural heritage, museums are pre- 1 The full version of this interview their enemies for their own warfare. destined to break down these divisions was published in German (with In my view, this is a creative, strategic that the racists of yesterday or today footnotes) in MUSEUM AKTUELL, achievement and not a devaluation have established. Museums have the vol. 263 and 264, pp. 30-35, 2020 of the Herero. potential to deconstruct identities and under the title: "Boniface Maban- I agree with you. If one were to ask ‑ develop a critical potential for society. za im Gespräch mit Anette Rein. but these questions are not asked like There are museums that function in an Rassismus: Wie kann man ihm that ‑ what the colonialists learned elitist way. They address a specific audi- begegnen, wie können Museen mit from the Hereros. But, at that time, ence. But museums must also be able kolonialen Phantasien umgehen?“