A legacy of colonial ambivalence
Research project on the unlawful history of the Sámi cultural heritage in German museum collections
Ausstellung Enâmeh láá mii párnááh – These lands are our children, Siida Sámi Museum in Inari, Finnland 2023
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Ausstellungsausschnitt De čalbmi ii olat guhkibuidda – Then the eye reaches no longer, Davvi Álbmogiid Guovddáš / Senter for nordlige folk, Sámi Museum in Samuelsberg, Norwegen, 2024
Image: Nicola Groß- First supervisor: Prof. Dr Anja Laukötter de
- Second supervisor: Prof Dr Jörg Paulus (Bauhaus University Weimar)
In the course of the history of injustice suffered by the Sámi communities in Fennoscandia since the 16th century, today summarised under the term Nordic colonialism, many Sámi cultural artefacts and human remains have ended up in European museums. In recent years, Sámi collections have also become the focus of active decolonisation work in Germany, which had previously prioritised the Global South. However, Northern Europe and the colonial relations between German and Sápmi have so far received little attention in cultural heritage and restitution discourses and in the examination of (inner-)European and especially German colonial history. The dissertation project addresses this research desideratum and examines the historical and conceptual gap in provenance research in relation to the fragility of colonial injustice contexts in Europe. Using the case study of the Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg, today the Museum am Rothenbaum, Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK)External link, with the second largest Sámi collection in Germany and as a central location of German and European knowledge production and dissemination of its time, the colonial mechanisms of cultural heritage appropriation and participation in the colonial exercise of power over the Sámi will be analysed. In a critical examination, the concept of the context of injustice and colonialism in the case of the history of injustice between Germany and the Sápmi will be analysed in detail and expanded, specified or delimited from interdisciplinary perspectives. The aim is to grasp the historical traces and continuities of this European colonial history up to modern times from an intellectual-historical and cross-border perspective.
Nicola Groß
Doctoral candidate at the (university) chair of Cultural History
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Research focus|main research areas
- Methods and discourses of provenance research (formation of contexts of injustice)
- History and practice of collecting (colonial period)
- Restitution history and practices in European museums
- Sámi cultural heritage research in European museum collections
- Museum studies
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Presentations and moderations
Lecture Body-Violence-Instrumentalisation of the Sámi: A Scene of Colonial Practices of 'Othering', on the occasion of the 8th Annual Conference Bodies in, as, of, with, and 'Identity and Heritage' of the DFG Research Training Group »Identity and Heritage«, Berlin 07.11.2024.
Conception and moderation of the 7th annual conference WITH/OUT IDENTITY. On the question of identity constructions in space, heritage and communities of the DFG Research Training Group »Identity and Heritage«, Weimar 23-24 November 2023.
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Publications
Groß, Nicola: Sámi and the human gaze. A differentiated examination from the perspective of Sámi artists, in: Arnisa Halili, Olga Juutistenaho, Beate Piela, Martín Cornejo Presbítero, Annika Sellmann, Martha Ingund Wegewitz (eds.): Bodies in, as, of, with, and 'Identity and Heritage', publication series of the DFG Research Training Group »Identity and Heritage«, Volume VII, [planned publication 2025].
Juan Carlos Barrientos García, Nadja Bournonville, Fridtjof Florian Dossin, Nicola Groß, Wolfram Höhne, Niloufar Tajeri, Olga Zenker (eds.): WITH/OUT IDENTITY. On the Question of Identity Constructions in Space, Heritage and Communities, Series of the DFG Research Training Group »Identity and Heritage«, Volume VI, [planned publication 2025].
Groß, Nicola: Building bridges. The Danish-Greenlandic Utimut Process (1982-2001) as an example of successful bilateral restitution endeavours, in: transfer - Journal for Provenance Research and Collection History, 1/2022, pp. 203-208, https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/transfer/article/view/91528
Groß, Nicola: Portrait of the artist Alisa Berger, Atelierhaus Bonner Kunstverein 2018, https://www.alisabergermun.com/de/bonnerkunstverein