Consulting the things of the spirits: Evidencing unseen presences in missionary collections

IF 0.7 Q3 ANTHROPOLOGY
Marleen de Witte, Birgit Meyer
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Contributing to current efforts to grapple with museums' colonial legacies, this article takes the question of evidence as an entry point to unlock the multi-layered make-up of African spiritual artifacts in missionary collections. Focussing on Dutch and German missionary collections of legbawo and dzokawo from the Ewe region in Ghana and Togo, we analyze how such artifacts were subjected to “practices of evidencing” by multiple parties over a span of 120 years. These collections enshrine coexisting, clashing ways of evidencing: multiple possibilities of knowing (about) the items, their trajectories, and their relations with humans and other-than-human beings. Next to analyzing the missionary and museal frames imposed on these artifacts, we investigate contemporary Ewe religious practitioners' ritual technologies of knowing about the presence, identities, and wishes of spirits as alternative modes of evidencing unseen presences. Pluralizing evidencing, we argue, offers opportunities for decolonial critique and rethinking established museum and research frameworks.

Abstract Image

咨询精神的事情:在传教收藏品中发现看不见的存在
这篇文章以证据问题为切入点,为当前努力与博物馆的殖民遗产作贡献,以解开传教士收藏的非洲精神文物的多层构成。以荷兰和德国传教士收集的来自加纳和多哥Ewe地区的legbawo和dzokawo为重点,我们分析了这些文物在120年的时间里是如何受到多方“证据实践”的影响的。这些藏品体现了共存、冲突的证据方式:了解这些物品的多种可能性,它们的轨迹,以及它们与人类和非人类的关系。接下来,我们分析了强加在这些文物上的传教士和博物馆框架,我们调查了当代Ewe宗教实践者的仪式技术,以了解精神的存在,身份和愿望,作为证据看不见的存在的替代模式。我们认为,多元化的证据为非殖民主义批判和重新思考已建立的博物馆和研究框架提供了机会。
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来源期刊
Museum Anthropology
Museum Anthropology ANTHROPOLOGY-
CiteScore
0.80
自引率
75.00%
发文量
23
期刊介绍: Museum Anthropology seeks to be a leading voice for scholarly research on the collection, interpretation, and representation of the material world. Through critical articles, provocative commentaries, and thoughtful reviews, this peer-reviewed journal aspires to cultivate vibrant dialogues that reflect the global and transdisciplinary work of museums. Situated at the intersection of practice and theory, Museum Anthropology advances our knowledge of the ways in which material objects are intertwined with living histories of cultural display, economics, socio-politics, law, memory, ethics, colonialism, conservation, and public education.
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