Jun.-Prof. Dr. Julia Binter

Argelander Professor for Critical Museum and Heritage Studies
University of Bonn

Research professorship of the Transdisciplinary Research Area "Present Pasts" of the University of Bonn.

Plurifying the formation of knowledge across museums and heritage

I am a social anthropologist with a background in theatre, film, and media studies, specialising in material culture, critical museum and heritage studies. I have worked in numerous transdisciplinary settings, including art, historical and ethnological museums, and with a variety of stakeholders from academia, art, activism, and cultural heritage communities. A key focus of my academic and curatorial work is analysing the colonial entanglements of museums and their collections and to develop innovative ways of bringing the stakeholders’ diverse modes of knowledge formation with and about museum collections into dialogue. Moreover, I understand museums as a prominent and powerful form amongst many heritage practices. I therefore also study more broadly how people engage with things, understood as images, artefacts, bodies, and the environment, to relate to the past, create presents and envision possible futures.

In my previous research, I have analysed how heritage is negotiated in museums, film, theatre, visual arts, funerals and fashion in Nigeria, Namibia, Great Britain, and Germany, and how it is shaped by dynamic, historically grown political economic relations.

I strive to put postcolonial theory in practice and, consequently, my research not only reflects on cultural, political, and economic entanglements past and present, but also seeks to reshape them in collaborative film and exhibition projects.

I am currently co-leading the collaborative research, curation and restitution project Confronting Colonial Pasts, Envisioning Creative Futures on collections from Namibia at the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin. Funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, this project develops new, more equitable and sustainable ways of returning cultural goods from colonial contexts and reconnecting them with artists, scholars, communal knowledge keepers and creators and the wider public in Namibia.

Related to this, I am also co-leading the project Artistic Research and Communal Knowledge. Building Trust for a Better Future. Funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, this project brings together contemporary artists and communal knowledge keepers and creators to strengthen dialogue across urban-rural as well as generational divides in Namibia, plurifying the formation of knowledge with and about ‘cultural belongings’ from colonial contexts.

I am currently developing two lines of research:

The Heritage of Mission asks about the colonial entanglements and future affordances of missionary collections. In particular, it examines the impact of missionization on the body, ranging from changes in religious practices to clothing styles, gender norms, and healing practices.

The Heritage of Water takes the current global water crisis, ranging from extreme floods to drought, as a starting point to examine the relationships between people and water in global, comparative perspective.

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Julia Binter

julia.binter@uni-bonn.de

Argelander Professor for Critical Museum and Heritage Studies, Transdisciplinary Research Area "Present Past" of the University of Bonn

Calendar appointment slots

Affiliation (zB Institut)
Affiliation 2 (zB Department)
Affiliation 3 (zB TRA)

Curriculum Vitae

I studied social and cultural anthropology as well as theatre film and media studies at the University of Vienna and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Supported by an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award and a Wiener-Anspach Doctoral Fellowship, I received my DPhil in Anthropology from the University of Oxford in 2020. I also trained as assistant curator in the Africa department of the Weltmuseum Wien from 2010 to 2013. In 2016/2017, I was curatorial fellow of the German Federal Cultural Foundation at the Kunsthalle Bremen, where I curated the exhibition ‘The Blind Spot. Bremen, Colonialism and Art’. From 2018 to 2023, I worked as research associate for postcolonial provenance research at the Ethnologisches Museum/ Zentralarchiv of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. I have been lecturing at the University of Vienna since 2009. In May 2023, I joined the University of Bonn as Argelander Professor for Critical Museum and Heritage Studies.

Networks

I am the co-founder of the transdisciplinary research network ‘Colonial Ports and Global History’ at The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH). I am also a member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie (DGSKA) and the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) and contribute to the AG Koloniale Provenienzen of the Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung and the EASA Network Anthropology of History.

Third-Party Funded Projects

Artist Research and Communal Knowledge. Building Trust for a Better Future

Duration: 2023-2024

Principal Investigator: Julia Binter, Ndeenda Shivute (National Art Gallery of Namibia), Golda Ha-Eiros (National Museum of Namibia)

Funder: Heinrich Böll Foundation

Confronting Colonial Pasts, Envisioning Creative Futures

Duration: 2018-2024

Principal Investigator: Julia Binter, Kristin Weber-Sinn (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), Ndapewoshali Ashipala (Museums Association of Namibia)

Funder: Gerda Henkel Foundation

The Blind Spot. World trade, Art Patronage and Collection History in Colonial Times Based on the Kunsthalle Bremen

Duration: 2016-2017

Principal Investigator: Julia Binter

Funder: Curatorial Fellowship 'Internationales Museum', Kulturstiftung des Bundes

Global Port Cities and Legitimate Trade in the Age of Empire (1867-1914)

Duration: 2016-2017

Principal Investigator: Julia Binter

Funder: Caird Short-Term Research Fellowship, Royal Museums Greenwich

The Cultural Worlds of the African Palm Oil Trade

Duration: 2013-2016

Principal Investigator: Julia Binter

Funder: AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award

Monographs, edited books and special journal issues

Em II power II relations. A booklet on postcolonial provenance research in the permanent exhibitions of the Ethnologisches Museum and Museum für Asiatische Kunst at the Humboldt Forum

Binter, J.T.S., Howald, C., Labischinksi, J., Sporleder, B., Weber-Sinn, K. (eds.)

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (2022).

macht II beziehungen. Ein Begleitheft zur postkolonialen Provenienzforschung in den Dauerausstellungen des Ethnologischen Museums und Museums für Asiatische Kunst im Humboldt Forum

Binter, J.T.S., Howald, C., Labischinksi, J., Sporleder, B., Weber-Sinn, K. (eds.)

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (2021).

The Blind Spot. Bremen, Colonialism and Art (German edition: Der Blinde Fleck. Bremen und die Kunst in der Kolonialzeit)

Binter, J.T.S. (ed.)

Reimer Verlag (2017).

We Shoot the World. Österreichische Dokumentarfilmer und die Globalisierung

Binter, J.T.S.

LIT-Verlag (2009).

Journal articles and book chapters

Towards Democratising the Formation of Knowledge. Collaboratively Researching Sensitive Collections from Namibia

Binter, J.T.S.

In: Collections as Relations. Belonging, Cultural Heritage, and Infrastructures of Knowing

Dilger, H., Göbel, B. von Poser, A. Schütze, S. (eds.)

Routledge (forthcoming).

Postkoloniale Provenienzforschung im Ethnologischen Museum und Museum für Asiatische Kunst: Methoden und Ziele einer kooperativen Forschungspraxis

Binter, J.T.S., Howald, C., Labischinksi, J., Weber-Sinn, K.

In: Tagungsband des Arbeitskreises Provenienzforschung (forthcoming).

Man kann die Zukunft nicht ohne Vergangenheit denken. Dialogische Reflexionen über das kooperative Forschungsprojekt 'Confronting Colonial Pasts, Envisioning Creative Futures' am Ethnologischen Museum Berlin

Binter, J.T.S., Ha-Eiros, G.

In: Playbook Klimakultur. Strategien für einen nachhaltigen Kulturwandel

Lurz, B., Schlag, W., Wolkinger, T., et al. (eds.)

Bundesministerium für europäische und internationale Angelegenheiten – Sektion für internationale Kulturangelegenheiten, 39-42 (2021).

Becoming Imperial. The Politicization of the Gift in Atlantic Africa

Binter, J.T.S.

In: Material Relations. On Materiality and Connectivity in Anthropology and Beyond

Schorch, P., Saxer, M. (eds.)

UCL Press, 53-71 (2020).

Historische Forschung und Kreative Praktiken. Ein Kooperationsprojekt zu Objekten aus Namibia im Ethnologischen Museum Berlin

Binter, J.T.S., Fine, J., Förster, L.

Provenienz und Forschung, 2, 46-51 (2020).

‚Eure Konzepte versus meine Philosophie’ – Cynthia Schimmings künstlerische Auseinandersetzung mit den Sammlungen aus Namibia

Binter, J.T.S., Fine, J.

Baessler-Archiv 66, 179-188 (2020).

Beyond Exhibiting the Experience of Empire? Challenging Chronotopes in the Museum

Binter, J.T.S.

Third Text, 33:4-5, 575-593 (2019).

Blind Spots. Bremen’s Global Trade and Patronage in the Colonial Period

Binter, J.T.S.