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DAS MUSEUM VERLERNEN? Kolonialität und Vermittlung in ethnologischen Museen (Unlearning the Museum? Coloniality and Education in Ethnological Museums)

Volume 1: Nora Landkammer: Eine Analyse gegenwärtiger Diskurse in einem konfliktreichen Praxisfeld (An Analysis of Contemporary Discourses in a Conflict-Ridden Practice)
Volume 2: Praxen und Reflexionen kritischer Bildung und Wissensproduktion (Practices of and Reflections on Critical Education and the Production of Knowledge) Edited by Stephanie Endter, Nora Landkammer, Karin Schneider
ISBN Band 1: 978-3-937624-71-6
ISBN Band 2: 978-3-937624-72-3

Vienna: Zaglossus, 2021
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€24,95


How does the educational work of an ethnological museum respond to the colonial inheritance of institutions? Can an ethnological museum be a place of unlearning, and if so, how? This two-volume publication looks at museum education from a decolonising perspective.


Volume 1: Nora Landkammer: Eine Analyse gegenwärtiger Diskurse in einem konfliktreichen Praxisfeld (An Analysis of Contemporary Discourses in a Conflict-Ridden Practice)

Volume 1 is based on a qualitative study structured around interviews with museum educators in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, which seeks to investigate the positioning of education in dealing with the colonial inheritance of museums. The analysis presents education in ethnological museums as a discipline marked by antagonistic categorisations of knowledge, situated between the conventions of visitor-oriented museum education, participation, reflexive ethnological approaches, and postcolonial criticism. It is precisely critical educators who see their actions in terms of contradictions, positioned between their own interests and the interests of the visitors, or between their desire – as white educators who belong to the majority – to interrupt this “speaking about others”, which they perceive as the core definition of their role in the museum. Through historical contextualisations the argument is made that these contradictions themselves have to be subjected to a decolonising reading and realigned in order to create the scope for action. Postcolonial and decolonial entry points within the discipline of pedagogy serve as the basis for carving out “double binds” that are central to a pedagogical ethics in ethnological museums, while also providing a starting point for decolonising perspectives.


Volume 2: Praxen und Reflexionen kritischer Bildung und Wissensproduktion (Practices of and Reflections on Critical Education and the Production of Knowledge) Edited by Stephanie Endter, Nora Landkammer, Karin Schneider

With contributions by: Julia Albrecht, Bea Barrois, Stephanie Endter, Nadine Golly, Rilando June Lamadjido, Pernilla Luttropp, Nora Landkammer, Berit Mohr, Trinity Mesimé Njume-Ebong, Carolin Philipp, Esther Poppe, Pia Razenberger, Karin Schneider, Nora Schön, Hodan Warsame and Simone Zeefuik  

This volume brings together arguments from critical educational practice and the production of knowledge in ethnological museums. The publication was inspired by an action research project conducted between 2016 and 2018 by the education department at Frankfurt’s Weltkulturen Museum and the Institute for Art Education at the Zurich Hochschule der Künste as part of the TRACES – Transmitting Contentious Cultural Heritages with the Arts project. The volume also includes sections on critical educational activities both within and beyond ethnological museums, with a special focus placed on German-speaking countries. The common characteristic of all the written contributions is that they bridge the gap between utopian decolonisation and the frequently sobering everyday work in institutions, by reflecting upon concrete practices as well as their potential and their contradictions. 

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Further information: http://e-a-r.net/