How to re-connect ethnographic-historical collections with Patagonian indigenous communities? Institutional experiences with the re-circulation of the Robert Lehmann-Nitsche (1874-1938) collection

The objective of the workshop is to discuss challenges of re-connection, re-circulation and re-appropriation of ethnographic-historical collections. We are not concentrating on museum objects, which are in the center of current debates, but rather on diverse materials such as diaries, audio recordings, vocabularies, manuscripts, photos and postcards. They are just as important for indigenous communities, but are often located in the “peripheries” of central knowledge infrastructures. The workshop will focus on the collection of the German anthropologist Robert Lehmann-Nitsche (1874-1938), which is distributed between Berlin (mainly the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut) and La Plata, Argentina (mainly the Museo de La Plata). We will introduce institutional strategies to re-connect the collection and make it accessible to indigenous communities, in particular from Patagonia. Various examples of the re-appropriation and reinterpretation of the collection by indigenous communities in Patagonia will be presented. In this context, we are also looking at the potential and challenges of digital transformation for the re-circulation of the collection. The workshop takes advantage of the research stay of Máximo Farro (Conicet / Universidad Nacional de La Plata), who has dealt intensively with all these questions in research and institutional practice.

10.00 – 10.15   
Welcome address and rationale of the workshop

10.15 – 10.30  
Introduction to the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (Barbara Göbel, Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut)

10.30 – 12.00   
The German anthropologist Robert Lehmann-Nitsche (1874-1938) in Argentina: Relevance of his work and his collections (Máximo Farro, Conicet / Universidad Nacional de La Plata and IAI Fellow)

12.00 – 13.00  
How to manage cultural diversity in a knowledge infrastructure? Lessons learned from the Robert Lehmann-Nitsche collection (Barbara Göbel, Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut)

13.00 – 14.00   
Lunch break

14.00 – 16.00   
What is the importance of the Robert Lehmann-Nitsche collection for indigenous communities today? What does this mean for anthropological practice? 
(Máximo Farro, Conicet / Universidad Nacional de La Plata and IAI Fellow)

16.00 – 16.30   
Final remarks and general discussion (Stephanie Schütze, FU Berlin)

Co-organization:
Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut
Freie Universität Berlin
Mecila – Maria Sibylla Merian Centre Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America