The meanings of ancestral remains from former German colonies at the University of Strasbourg in contexts of repatriation. Crossed perspectives between Africa, France and Germany

Objective

Over the past years, the return of cultural objects and human remains from former European colonies housed in museums and universities worldwide has been repeatedly described as the most central topic in the cultural heritage sector today. Because the seizure, preservation, and study of ancestral remains participated in a dehumanization of persons from former colonies, repatriations bear several challenges: re-humanize ancestral remains, shed light on the role of science in the development of racial theories, and contribute to a greater dialogue between the global North and South. Despite the crucial cultural, societal and political relevance of repatriations, little is known, from a socio-anthropological perspective, about the meanings that individuals and groups in the global South and North attribute to ancestral remains from former colonies. This is exactly the research question I will tackle. AnceStra departs from a specific collection: the Institute of Anatomy of the University of Strasbourg. Between 1892 and 1911, during the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, when the University of Strasbourg had become the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität, 149 human remains from the African continent entered the institute, mostly from at the time German colonies: Cameroon, Togo, and present-day Namibia and Tanzania. Demands of repatriation have been addressed to the University by organizations in two of these countries since 2019. Through a ground-breaking, two-way South-North/North-South, South-South and North-North socio-anthropological study in France, Namibia, Tanzania, and to a lesser extent in Cameroon, Germany and Togo, this project will shed light on the meanings individuals and groups demanding repatriation and individuals and groups receiving demands of repatriation attribute to ancestral remains. AnceStra will analyse the way processes of repatriation contribute (or not) to postcolonial reparation and to a reconfiguration of the links between Africa and Europe.