This project discusses critical voices that have challenged the dominant colonial narrative in the context of the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia. The project combines journalistic and academic writing... Show moreThis project discusses critical voices that have challenged the dominant colonial narrative in the context of the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia. The project combines journalistic and academic writing with musical performance and film making to amplify these voices and to analyse why they have long been ignored in the public and academic debate. Show less
This book is based on Leonor Faber-Jonker’s Research Master's thesis 'More than just an object: A material analysis of the return and retention of Namibian skulls from Germany', runner-up in the... Show moreThis book is based on Leonor Faber-Jonker’s Research Master's thesis 'More than just an object: A material analysis of the return and retention of Namibian skulls from Germany', runner-up in the African Studies Centre, Leiden's 2016 Africa Thesis Award. This annual award for Master's students encourages student research and writing on Africa and promotes the study of African cultures and societies. In September 2011 twenty Namibian skulls were repatriated from the collection of the Charité university hospital in Berlin. The remains had been in Germany for more than a hundred years: they belonged to victims of the 'German-Herero war' (1904-1908) in German South-West Africa, a genocide that cost the lives of eighty per cent of the Herero and half the Nama population. The majority of the skulls had arrived in Berlin as preserved heads, and all had been used for scientific race research in the first decades of the twentieth century. Despite the triumphant return of the skulls, not everything went smoothly. The Charité was criticized for failing to answer questions about the identity of the remains, and the Namibian government and Nama and Herero representatives failed to agree on their final resting place. This had everything to do with the complicated nature of the skulls involved. Faber-Jonker analyses how these human remains – remains of individuals – became war trophies, anthropological specimens, and, finally, evidence, symbols, and relics, by examining how, by whom, why, and in what context the skulls were physically handled in the practices of collecting (1904-1910), studying (1910-1924),- and repatriating (2011). Show less
There has been a state of near-permanent revolt in Somali society since 1991. This chapter offers a cultural analysis of patterns of political and military activity from the precolonial era... Show moreThere has been a state of near-permanent revolt in Somali society since 1991. This chapter offers a cultural analysis of patterns of political and military activity from the precolonial era through the Italian and British colonial period, and State independence (1960-1991), to the present period of Statelessness. The focus is on a comparison of elements in the campaigns of revolt against the colonial States between 1900 and 1920 with those in the late Siyad Barre period (1988-1991) and the era of Statelessness (1991 onwards). A transformation of ideas of revolt and violent action has occurred in which Somali notions of egalitarian social order, kinship and local leadership have taken on a different shape. This prevented the institutionalization of crosscutting alliances and the emergence of a wider political arena - except in certain regions such as Somaliland and Puntland. The cultural and social unity of Somali society has always been overestimated. Somali political culture is by nature centrifugal, preventing the institutionalization of a legitimate leadership at State level but not at a regional clan level. Notes, ref., sum. [Book abstract] Show less
