Prof. Dr. Paul Basu

Hertz Chair for Global Heritage
University of Bonn

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

Critical heritage and museum studies in transcultural contexts

Temporalities, spatialities, positionalities

Paul Basu is an anthropologist specialising in critical heritage, museum and material culture studies in transcultural contexts. He draws upon a wide range of ethnographic, historical and participatory methods to explore how pasts are differently materialized and mediated in the present, and how they shape futures. Basu's research examines the complex ways in which natural as well as cultural heritage is entangled in shifting regimes of value and geopolitical configurations. His work has often involved re-engagements with colonial archives and collections relating to West Africa, exploring their ambiguous status as both sites of epistemic violence and, potentially, resources for communities to recover cultural histories, memories and alternative ways of knowing and being in the world. Basu is director of the Global Heritage Lab, which brings together an international team of researchers to experiment with decolonial approaches to activating the pluriversal possibilities of historical collections and archives, not least to address the social, environmental and planetary crises of our time.

Avatar Basu

Prof. Dr. Paul Basu

Hertz Chair for Global Heritage, Transdisciplinary Research Area "Present Past" of the University of Bonn

Bischofsplatz 1

53113 Bonn

+49 228 73-6528


Curriculum Vitae

Paul Basu studied social anthropology at University College London, where he received his PhD in 2002. He subsequently held a lectureship then senior lectureship in anthropology at the University of Sussex, before taking up a readership at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, where he coordinated its renowned museum studies programme. He became Professor of Anthropology and Cultural Heritage at University College London in 2014, and Professor of Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2015. He joined the University of Bonn as Hertz Chair for Global Heritage in 2022.

Before becoming an anthropologist, Basu trained and worked in film and television production, and he continues to use audio-visual as well as other multimodal and participatory approaches in his research. He has designed and curated numerous exhibitions and museum spaces.


Third-Party Funded      Projects

Entanglements: West African heritage and community curation in the UK

Duration:

2019-2021

Principal Investigator:

Prof. Dr. Paul Basu

Funder:

National Lottery Heritage Fund (UK)


Museum affordances: Activating West African ethnographic archives and collections through experimental museology

Duration:

2018-2021

Principal Investigator:

Prof. Dr. Paul Basu

Funder:

Website:

Arts & Humanities Research Council (UK)

https://re-entanglements.net


Reassembling N. W. Thomas’s anthropological mission to Sierra Leone, 1914-15

Duration:

2014-2015

Principal Investigator:

Prof. Dr. Paul Basu

Funder:

Leverhulme Trust (UK)


Archives, histories, landscapes: Surveying Sierra Leone’s cultural memoryscape

Duration:

2013-2014

Principal Investigator:

Prof. Dr. Paul Basu

Funder:

British Academy (UK)


i-Treasures: ICT for Intangible Cultural Heritage

Duration:

2013-2016

Principal Investigator:

Prof. Dr. Paul Basu

Funder:

European Union


Utopian archives: Excavating colonial pasts for postcolonial futures

Duration:

2012-2013

Principal Investigator:

Prof. Dr. Paul Basu

Funder:

Arts & Humanities Research Council (UK)


Reanimating cultural heritage: Digital repatriation, knowledge networks and civil society strengthening in post-conflict Sierra Leone

Duration:

2009-2012

Principal Investigator:

Prof. Dr. Paul Basu

Funder:

Website:

Arts & Humanities Research Council (UK)

https://www.sierraleoneheritage.org


Object diasporas, resourcing communities: Surveying Sierra Leone’s material culture in the global museumscape

Duration:

2007-2008

Principal Investigator:

Prof. Dr. Paul Basu

Funder:

British Academy (UK)


Publications

Towards the pluriversal museum

Basu, P.

Culture et musées, forthcoming (2023).


Re-mobilising colonial collections in decolonial times

Basu, P.

In: Mobile museums: Collections in circulation

Driver, F., Nesbitt, M. & Cornish, C. (eds.)

UCL Press (2021).


The Inbetweenness of Things

Basu, P. (ed.)

Bloomsbury (2017).


N. W. Thomas and colonial anthropology in British West Africa

Basu, P.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 22, 84-107 (2016).


Utopian archives, decolonial affordances

Basu, P. & de Jong, F. (eds.)

Social Anthropology, 24 (2016).


Reanimating cultural heritage: Digital curatorship, knowledge networks and social transformation in Sierra Leone

Basu, P.

In: Museum Transformations

Coombes, A. & Phillips, R.B. (eds.)

Wiley-Blackwell (2015).


Colonial histories of heritage: Legislative migrations and the politics of preservation

Basu, P. & Damodaran, V.

Past and Present, 223, 239-270 (2015).


Museums, heritage and international development

Basu, P. & Modest, W. (eds.)

Routledge (2015).


Recasting the national narrative: Postcolonial pastiche and the new Sierra Leone Peace and Cultural Monument

Basu, P.

African Arts, 46, 10-25 (2013).


Object diasporas, resourcing communities: Sierra Leonean collections in the global heritagescape

Basu, P.

Museum Anthropology, 34, 28-42 (2011).


Administrative and Academic Staff

Helen Siegburg

Office Manager / Global Heritage Lab

Contact

+49 228 73-8477

siegburg@uni-bonn.de

Emilia Schmidt, M.A.

Research Manager / Global Heritage Lab

Contact

+49 228 73-8476

emilia.schmidt@uni-bonn.de

Avatar Ugwuanyi

Dr. J. Kelechi Ugwuanyi

Global Heritage Lab

+49 228 73-8474

Avatar Gmayi

William Nsuiban Gmayi

Global Heritage Lab

+49 228 73-8475

Dr. Alejandro Mora Motta

Global Heritage Lab

Contact

+49 228 73-8473

a.moramotta@uni-bonn.de

Further Information

TRA Present Pasts

Research on the preconditions and conditions of the emergence of modern societies as well as on negotiation processes of heritage.

High Profile Professorships

What is a Hertz Chair? 

Research profile

The University of Bonn has stood for top-level research for over 200 years.

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