Jun.-Prof. Dr. Julia Binter

Competing Legacies? Remembering Enslavement and Colonization in the Atlantic World

In 2022, the Restitution Study Group (RSG), an NGO in New York that fights for reparations for descendants of enslaved people, sued the Smithsonian Institution over its decision to return the so-called Benin Bronzes from its collection to Nigeria. They claimed that the Kingdom of Benin had been instrumental in enslaving neighboring populations and selling them to European traders in exchange for manillas, the same metal currency used to produce the Benin Bronzes. In Nigeria, however, the involvement of the Kingdom of Benin in the enslavement trade has not been part of official memory cultures. At the same time, the Benin Bronzes have become a symbol in Europe for the struggle of Africans to return their heritage to the continent. Similar dissonant demands for reparation and restitution can be traced between the survivors of the last slave ship Clotilda, which brought captives from the Kingdom of Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin) to the US, and France's recent restitution of royal treasures to the Republic of Benin in 2021, as well as between the descendants of enslaved people in Brazil and the Kingdom of Congo (now DRC, Angola, Republic of Congo and Gabon) and restitution demands from the DRC to Belgium. While there are some Pan-African efforts to productively link claims for restitution and reparation, enslavement and colonization have also turned into competing legacies.

These competing legacies can only be properly understood if we look at enslavement and colonization not as separate or identical phenomena but rather as interrelated, dynamic and shifting SADs across the Atlantic World. Hence, this project studies memory cultures and heritage practices of colonization and enslavement in the Atlantic World in its cross-continental entanglements and in their dynamic, historical depth. It brings together hitherto separate strands of research – on colonization, restitution and enslavement, reparation – crossing the discursive boundaries of the anglophone, francophone and lusophone Atlantic World. It thereby looks at heritage practices in the broadest sense, analyzing how people use material culture in museums, film, literature, public art and activism to relate to the past, stake claims in the present and envision futures. Ultimately, it will examine how recent debates about restitution and reparation reconfigure the ways in which formerly colonized and formerly enslaved people perceive SADs in the Atlantic World, relate to one another and mobilize their heritage to demand social, economic and cultural justice.

2020
PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, UK

2003–2009
MA in Theatre, Film and Media Studies, University of Vienna, Austria

2003–2009
MA in Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna, Austria

since 2023
Argelander Professor of Critical Museum and Heritage Studies, University of Bonn

2019–2023
Research Fellow, Ethnological Museum/Central Archive, State Museums of Berlin-Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Germany

2018–2019
Research Fellow, Ethnological Museum, State Museums of Berlin-Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Germany

2017–2018
Wiener-Anspach Doctoral Fellow, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

2016–2017
Curatorial Fellow, International Museum, German Federal Cultural Foundation, Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany

2016–2017
Caird Short-Term Research Fellow, National Maritime Museum, UK

2010–2013
Assistant Curator, Weltmuseum Wien, Austria

2010–2012
Lecturer, Institute for Theatre, Film and Media Studies, University of Vienna, Austria

2009–2023
Lecturer, Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna, Austria

• Africa
• Anthropocene
• Gender
• Heritage
• Material Culture
• Postcolonialism
• Temporality/Spatiality

2024–2026
Academic Advisor, Provenance Research for Museum Audiences, Royal Museum for Central Africa Museum, Tervuren

since 2023
Investigator, Cluster of Excellence Bonn Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies, University of Bonn

since 2023
Deputy Director, Global Heritage Lab, Transdisciplinary Research Area Present Pasts, University of Bonn

2021–2026
Academic Advisor, ERC Project: 'Repatriates and New Originals. Artistic Research in Museums and Communities in the Process of Repatriation from Europe,' Central European University, Vienna

since 2018
Member, Royal Anthropological Institute, London

since 2018
Co-founder of the transdisciplinary network Colonial Ports and Global History (CPAGH), University of Oxford

since 2011
Member, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie (DGSKA)

since 2008
Member, European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)

• 2022. As editor. With C. Howald, I. Labischinksi, B. Sporleder, and K. Weber-Sinn. 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. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
• 2020. "Becoming Imperial. The Politicization of the Gift in Atlantic Africa." In On Materiality and Connectivity in Anthropology and Beyond, edited by P. Schorch and M. Saxer, 53–71. UCL Press.
• 2020. With J. Fine and L. Förster. "Historische Forschung und kreative Praktiken. Ein Kooperationsprojekt zu Objekten aus Namibia im Ethnologischen Museum Berlin." In Provenienz und Forschung 2: 46–51.
• 2020. With J. Fine. "'Eure Konzepte versus meine Philosophie' – Cynthia Schimmings künstlerische Auseinandersetzung mit den Sammlungen aus Namibia." In Baessler-Archiv 66: 179–188.
• 2019. "Beyond Exhibiting the Experience of Empire? Challenging Chronotopes in the Museum." In Third Text 33(4–5): 575–593.
• 2017. As editor. The Blind Spot. Bremen, Colonialism and Art. Reimer Verlag.
• 2017. "Blind Spots. Bremen's Global Trade and Patronage in the Colonial Period." In The Blind Spot. Bremen Colonialism and Art, edited by J. Binter, 10–27. Reimer.
• 2017. "The Art of Colonial Contact Zones." In The Blind Spot. Bremen Colonialism and Art, edited by J. Binter, 117–119. Reimer.
• 2017. "Contemporary Perspectives on Bremen's Colonial Heritage. Ngozi Schommers, (Un)Framed Narratives, 2017. Hew Locke, Cui Bono, 2017." In The Blind Spot. Bremen Colonialism and Art, edited by J. Binter, 162–175. Reimer.
• 2014. "Unruly Voices in the Museum. Multisensory Engagement with Disquieting Histories." In The Senses and Society 9(2): 342–360. Reprinted in The Auditory Culture Reader, edited by M. Bull and L. Back. Bloomsbury, 2015.
• 2014. "Vermittler zwischen Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft. Ethnographische Museen im Spannungsfeld von Orten der Repräsentation und 'glokalen' Kontaktzonen." In Ethnohistorie. Rekonstruktion und Kulturkritik. Eine Einführung, edited by W. Zips and K. Wernhart, 80–100. Promedia Verlag. 
• 2013. "Radioglaz and the Global City. Possibilities and Constraints of Experimental Montage." In Transcultural Montage, edited by R. Willerslev and C. Suhr, 183–197. Berghahn Books.
• 2011. "Globalization, Representation, and Postcolonial Critique. Austrian Documentary Film Auteurs' Take on Globalism." In Global Studies. Mapping Contemporary Art and Culture, edited by H. Belting, J. Birken, A. Buddensieg, and P. Weibel, 158–173. Hatje Cantz. 
• 2009. We Shoot the World. Österreichische Dokumentarfilmer und die Globalisierung. LIT Verlag.