Jennifer Tadge

The dissertation project is part of the research project "Provenance Research on Non-European Collections and Ethnology in Lower Saxony" (PAESE ), which is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation (duration 2018-2021). The project is based at the Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch Oldenburg.
Like the majority of museum collections in German and Europe, parts of the holdings of the Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch Oldenburg, founded in 1836, have their origins in the colonial era (especially the German colonial period 1884-1918/19). It is the moral, ethical and (cultural) political obligation of museums to research these collections and their origins and to involve the societies of origin of the objects in the process.

The PAESE project at the Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch Oldenburg is investigating the origin - the provenance - and the circumstances of acquisition of ethnological objects from colonial contexts. The focus is on objects from former German colonial territories, as they form the main part of the colonial contexts from which the objects in the Landesmuseum originate. This results in a regional focus on the present-day countries of Tanzania, Cameroon and Papua New Guinea.

One focus of the Oldenburg sub-project is on the collection of the Langheld brothers (Wilhelm, Johannes and Friedrich, created between 1889 and 1901). The Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch Oldenburg has more than 1000 objects from this collection (mainly everyday objects and weapons). The Oldenburg part of the collection consists primarily of artefacts from what is now Tanzania. Objects in the collection include ceramics, basketry, weapons, jewellery, clothing, pipes, figurative representations and vessels made of various materials. The Langheld brothers' collection can be used to analyse and demonstrate the spectrum of acquisition and collection circumstances in colonial contexts (gift, looting, purchase). The examination of the collectors' biographies and the analysis of the specific collection contexts and circumstances should provide a first approximation of the collectors' perceptions, thought patterns and attitudes, which allow conclusions to be drawn about the motivation and attitude of collectors towards the objects and people in their contexts of origin. This raises the question of the extent to which contexts of injustice can be reconstructed.

By focusing on the Langheld brothers' collection, the aim is also to analyse the extent to which the military structures in which the Langheld brothers were involved in colonies had a specific impact on their collecting activities. The following aspects, for example, should be considered: Use of asymmetrical power relations vis-à-vis the local population, possibility of carrying out/participating in/ordering military actions, distinction between implementing orders and using their own decision-making framework on the ground, use of military (and colonial) infrastructure (e.g. for transporting objects by land and sea), cooperation with colonial offices, effects of colonial policy, interactions between the local populations and the Langhelds in their function as military personnel, financial resources resulting from their employment, etc.

The thesis will therefore attempt to reconstruct the contexts of collection and acquisition on the basis of the - primarily German - archive sources, but will not carry out the classification and contextualisation without the involvement of representatives of the societies of origin. The PAESE doctoral project will establish contacts with scholars from Tanzania, Cameroon, Namibia and Papua New Guinea, which will provide the basis for further exchange and future collaboration.

Analysing the Langheld sources will also help to identify local actors. This can create opportunities to research the history of these local actors, to seek co-operation and to show that the history of colonising and colonised actors cannot be separated. How the work with museum artefacts and collectors' biographical sources can avoid reproducing colonial power relations and not claiming sole sovereignty of interpretation is also a question at the end of project, as is the shared/joint custody of the objects.

The investigation is intended to provide the basis for future processes of restitution, co-operation,

transparency and for the future organisation of work with and on the ethnological collection of the Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch Oldenburg. The exact form of co-operation and exchange will be defined in the process - together with representatives of the societies of origin.
Nonetheless, the Langheld collection remains the basis of the work, if only because of the source situation (in terms of the wealth of material, language, accessibility) and the opportunity to gain a fundamental understanding of the behaviour of military personnel in the colonies through the analysis.