edoc

Re-Individualising Human Remains from Namibia: colonialism, grave robbery and intellectual history

Förster, Larissa and Henrichsen, Dag and Stöcker, Holger and Eichab, Hans. (2018) Re-Individualising Human Remains from Namibia: colonialism, grave robbery and intellectual history. Human Remains and Violence, 4 (2). pp. 45-66.

Full text not available from this repository.

Official URL: https://edoc.unibas.ch/82338/

Downloads: Statistics Overview

Abstract

In 1885, the Berlin pathologist Rudolf Virchow presented three human skeletons from the colony of German South West Africa to the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory. The remains had been looted from a grave by a young German scientist, Waldemar Belck, who was a member of the second Lüderitz expedition and took part in the occupation of colonial territory. In an attempt to re-individualise and re-humanise these human remains, which were anonymised in the course of their appropriation by Western science, the authors consult not only the colonial archive, but also contemporary oral history in Namibia. This allows for a detailed reconstruction of the social and political contexts of the deaths of the three men, named Jacobus Hendrick, Jacobus !Garisib and Oantab, and of Belck’s grave robbery, for an analysis of how the remains were turned into scientific objects by German science and institutions, as well as for an establishment of topographical and genealogical links with the Namibian present. Based on these findings, claims for the restitution of African human remains from German institutions cannot any longer be regarded as a contemporary phenomenon only but must be understood as part of an African tradition of resistance against Western colonial and scientific practices.
Faculties and Departments:04 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > Departement Geschichte > Ehemalige Einheiten Geschichte > Geschichte Afrikas (Harries)
04 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > Fakultär assoziierte Institutionen > Zentrum für Afrikastudien Basel
UniBasel Contributors:Henrichsen, Dag
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
Publisher:Manchester University Press
e-ISSN:2054-2240
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
Identification Number:
Last Modified:23 Mar 2021 13:16
Deposited On:23 Mar 2021 13:16

Repository Staff Only: item control page