Wednesdays, 1-2 pm CET, online

Natural history collections come into existence through a myriad of avenues – colonial extraction, war time plundering, and donations from naturalists and game hunters to name just a few. The legal and ethical justifications for each avenue provide unique insight into how “nature” is turned into a collectable natural history object. What bureaucracies and paper trails exist to establish and protect museum collections? How do modern digital technologies perpetuate or transform concepts of heritage, ownership and access? Are taxidermies, fossils or herbarium specimens legally defined as cultural artifacts and what consequences do these definitions have for indigenous sovereignty and restitution? This lecture series brings together international scholars with diverse perspectives across legal, ethical, and professional frameworks. It aims to open up a research field and map the complexities that lie at the intersection of law, ethics, politics, sovereignty, and natural history collections.

Confirmed Speakers (more TBA in 2025)

• 27.11.2024 - Ulrike Schaper (Freie Universität Berlin)
  Multinormativity and Institutional Plurality. Methodological Reflections on Understanding the Legal Situation in the German Colony of Cameroon, 1884-1916
• 04.12.2024 - Anna Echterhölter (Universität Wien)
  Pacific Patterns of Justification. „Nature“ and Management of Nature in German Colonial Collections of Indigenous Law (1884-1914)
• 11.12.2024 - Anne MacKinney (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
  Owning nature: Transforming Specimens into Property in 19th Century Prussia
• 18.12.2024 - Dorothy Lippert (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington) 
  Intellectural Property and Repatriation (tbd)
• 22.01.2025 - Alicja Jagielska- Burduk (University of Opole, Poland)
  Natural Collections and New Technologies

Kontakt:
Dr. Katja Kaiser (katja.kaiser(at)mfn.berlin)
Humanities of Nature
Museum für Naturkunde
Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science
Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin