The Volkswagen Foundation-funded research project “Sensitive Provenances” investigates the provenance of human remains from (proto-)colonial contexts in two collections at the University of Göttingen. This project aims to investigate the origin of human remains, the circumstances of acquisition, their transfer to academic collections, their use for research and teaching as well as their contemporary socio-political meanings. Alongside research, the project is establishing contacts with representatives of regions from which these human remains originate, discussing their future handling and initiating restitution processes. The project focuses on human remains from Oceania and Africa. The Sensitive Provenances project is interdisciplinary and combines different methodological approaches from historical-critical provenance research, cultural anthropology and biological anthropology and welcomes inquires and applications from potential fellows in these and related fields.
The focus of the project is a) on the “Blumenbach Skull Collection”, which was initiated by the natural scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) and today comprises about 800 skulls, of which about 200 are of non-European provenance; and b) on the “Anthropological Collection”, originally created in Hamburg’s Museum für Völkerkunde. This collection contains about 1,200 human remains from Oceania and Africa. Our preliminary research suggests that currently the University of Göttingen holds remains from regions that correspond to contemporary: Australia, French Polynesia, Hawaii (USA), Indonesia, Kiribati, Malaysia, Marshall Islands (USA), Micronesia, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, in Oceania; and from Cameroon, Congo, Guinea, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania, in Africa.
Founded in 1734, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (University of Göttingen) is a non-profit public higher education institution located in the urban setting of the large town of Göttingen (population range of 50,000-249,999 inhabitants), Lower Saxony. Officially accredited and/or recognized by the Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur (Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony), Georg-August-Universität Göttingen is a large (uniRank enrollment range: 20,000-24,999 students) coeducational higher education institution. Georg-August-Universität Göttingen offers courses and programs leading to officially recognized higher education degrees such as bachelor degrees, master degrees, doctorate degrees in several areas of study. See the uniRank degree levels and areas of study matrix below for further details. This 285 years old higher-education institution has a selective admission policy based on students' past academic record and grades. International students are welcome to apply for enrollment.