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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin has published a commentary highlighting how digitization in a contextualized form can be used as a powerful research tool to better understand and make colonial natural history collections more accessible. Using the famous collection of fossils extracte in the colony of German, now Tanzania, as an example, they argue that natural history objects from colonial contexts must be made accessible online together with the associated archival records. Digitization as research is an innovative method to investigate and make visible the intercultural and interdisciplinary significance of colonial natural history objects.
The development of natural history museums and collections in Europe was inextricably linked to colonial expansion from the end of the 15th century onwards. Scientific, economic and political motives were closely intertwined. The aim of natural history collecting was to describe the diversity of flora and fauna as well as minerals on the basis of as many objects as possible and to organise them according to Western ideas. At the same time, the exploration of natural resources in the colonised countries served their economic exploitation. The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is exemplary of these connections: since its foundation in 1810, it has received collections from all over the world. Here - as in all other large Western natural history museums - collections from colonial contexts still form an important basis for research, education and exhibitions.
At the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, an intensive and critical examination of the history of institutions and collections is taking place in several projects. The focus is on collection items from colonial contexts. One example is the book Dinosaur Fragments. On the history of the Tendagura expedition and its objects, 1906-2018. The aim is to initiate processes of reflection and transformation and to open up the collection for a global dialogue. The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is thus taking on a leading role.
The lead author of the study, geoscientist Verónica Díez Díaz, emphasises: ‘Fossils are not only palaeontological research objects, but also cultural assets with a multi-layered object biography. Natural scientists need to broaden their perspective and take these connections more into account.’
Digital research approaches make it possible to investigate and visualise the intercultural and interdisciplinary significance of such objects. ‘Through digitisation, we can uncover different levels of meaning and initiate a dialogue between the institutions holding the objects, communities of origin, scientists and civil society,’ explains Ina Heumann, a researcher at the museum who works on political museum and colonial history.
However, digitalisation does not automatically go hand in hand with unrestricted accessibility. Technical, financial and legal hurdles can make free access to digitised objects more difficult. Therefore, digitisation must be understood as a dynamic, critically reflected process, says Katja Kaiser, who specialises in natural history collections from colonial contexts as a research assistant at the Museum für Naturkunde.
An important aspect of this is the provision of data in accordance with the FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability, reusability) and CARE (collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility, ethics) principles. ‘It is crucial to be transparent in the selection and publication of digital collection data and to close knowledge gaps through interdisciplinary research,’ adds co-author Sara Akhlaq.
The digitisation project is part of the ‘Research and Responsibility: Virtual Access to Integrated Fossil and Archive Material from the German Tendaguru Expedition (1909-1913)’ project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Its aim is to make the colonial Tendaguru collection openly and transparently accessible.
‘Such a project requires not only an interdisciplinary team, but also a continuous exchange with institutions, researchers and communities in the objects‘ country of origin,’ emphasises palaeontologist Daniela Schwarz. With this work, the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is taking on a pioneering role in the critical and solution-oriented reappraisal of colonial natural history collections.
In Nature Review Biodiversity: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44358-025-00031-2
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Biology, Cultural sciences, Geosciences, Information technology
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