Research

The extensive collection currently housed at the Weltkulturen Museum comprises 65,000 cultural belongings from Oceania, Africa, South-East Asia, North, Central and South America, as well as around 120,000 historical and contemporary photographs and films from the field of visual anthropology and 64,000 library volumes. We regard the interdisciplinary research into these holdings as a central task and responsibility of the museum. This is carried out in close collaboration with international partner institutions, communities of origin, researchers and a diverse range of stakeholders in civil society.

As part of our efforts towards decolonisation, we are uncovering the traces of colonial power structures in our collections and critically examining the history of our institution and our academic discipline. Postcolonial provenance research and reflection on current debates regarding restitution and repatriation play a central role in this.

On the subpages in this section, you can gain insights into some of our past and current projects (coming soon).