Margit Berner, Anette Hoffmann, Britta Lange

Sensible Sammlungen
Aus dem anthropologischen Depot (From the Anthropological Depot)
VOLUME 210

A Spotlight on “Sensitive” Collection Holdings

In the museum context, “sensitive objects” refers to objects or documents of dubious provenance, such as human remains and sacred objects, whose acquisition and transfer into a collection would be seen as unjust by today’s standards. And as such, dealing with their storage, presentation, and research subsequently becomes problematic.

In addition to artifacts and objects, scientists and collectors produced all kinds of measurement data, body descriptions, drawings, photographs, plaster casts, films, and sound recordings of living people during their expeditions. These testimonies were taken from bodies using manual and technical procedures. They were often created in life-threatening situations for those being recorded, such as war prisons, concentration camps, or military facilities, and are shaped by structures of colonial domination and the interpretative authority of scientists and officials. Today, they are often the last evidence of the ancestors for the surviving relatives of the communities of origin. Collections and museums in Europe are full of such “sensitive objects” whose provenance often remains unclear to this day.

This book uses a series of examples to tell the story of these collections in their specific cultural-historical context. With the help of plaster casts and audio recordings, the authors shed light on objects in “sensitive collections” that have rarely been studied so far.