Non-normative relations wanted: Testing queer methods at the Berlin Ethnological Museum

These are materials that may inform our agreement on how to communicate, create a safe space and make sure we are practicing respectful interaction in the seminar. Please do send additional materials to Isabel and they will add them to the folder.

The PowerPoint teaching culture slides are a basis for discussion and alteration in the 2nd session.

1) Gell, Alfred. “The Problem Defined” and “The Theory of the Art Nexus” In: Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998.

2) Küchler, Susanne, and Timothy Carroll. "Aesthetics and the Ethics of Relation" In: A Return to the Object: Alfred Gell, Art, and Social Theory /  Susanne Küchler, Timothy Carroll. 1st. London: Routledge, 2020.

Please read Isabel’s text and select one out of the two additional texts. Two groups who have read these texts will jointly and in a relaxed atmosphere of the reading group tell the others what the text they did not read is about. You are of course also welcome to read all texts 

1)     For all: Bredenbröker, Isabel. Queering Alfred Gell’s Art Nexus Model: Conceptualising non-normative relations and queer methods in the art and museum context. Forthcoming with Ikonotheka, University of Warsaw Press.

2)     Either: Sullivan, Nikki, and Craig Middleton. “From LGBTQ+ inclusion to queer ethics” In Queering the Museum. Museums in focus. Abingdon, Oxon, New York, NY: Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.

1)     Rivers, W. H. R. “A Genealogical Method of Collecting Social and Vital Statistics.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 30 (1900): 74.

2)     Carsten, Janet. “The Stuff of Kinship.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Kinship. Edited by Sandra Bamford. Cambridge University Press, 2019. In Bamford, Sandra, ed. The Cambridge Handbook of Kinship. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

1)     For all: Bouquet, Mary. “Figures of Relations: Reconnecting Kinship Studies and Museum Collections.” In Cultures of relatedness: New approaches to the study of kinship. Edited by Janet Carsten. 1. publ. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000.

Please also have a look at this link (to get a sense of the current discussion): https://www.materialculture.nl/en/events/taking-care-recreating-kinship-ethnographic-museum-europe

and then one of the two texts (of course you are welcome to read both)

2)     “Distancing, Determining” and “The Black Beach” In Glissant, Édouard. Poetics of Relation. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Pr, 1997

3)    “The Dissimilar and the Different” In Strathern, Marilyn. Relations: An Anthropological Account. Durham, London: Duke University Press, 2020.

1)     For all: Bradway, Tyler, and Elizabeth Freeman. “Introduction Kincoherence / Kin-Aesthetics / Kinematics.” In Queer Kinship: Race, Sex, Belonging, Form. Edited by Tyler Bradway and Elizabeth Freeman, 1–24. Theory Q Ser. Durham: Duke University Press, 2022.

AND Select between

2)     Butler, Judith. “Kinship Beyond the Bloodline.” In Queer Kinship: Race, Sex, Belonging, Form. Edited by Tyler Bradway and Elizabeth Freeman, 25–47. Theory Q Ser. Durham: Duke University Press, 2022.

3)     Davis, Heather M. "Queer Kin" In Plastic Matter. Elements. Durham: Duke University Press, 2022

4)     TallBear, Kim. “Making Love and Relations Beyond Settler Sex and Family.” In The material kinship reader: Material beyond extraction and kinship beyond the nuclear family. Edited by Clementine Edwards and Kris Dittel. Onomatopee 208. [Netherlands]: Onomatopee, 2022.

Additional reading (voluntary and for further research)

5)     Scott, Lwando. “"Sy Is ’N Eendjie Van ’N Ander Dam": Race, Class and Sexual Identity Intersections in Same-Sex Marriage.” In Beyond the Mountain: Queer life in "africa's gay capital" Edited by b camminga and Zethu Matebeni. Routledge/UNISA Press series. [S.l.]: Routledge, 2023.

6)     Lewin, Ellen. ““Natural” Achievements: How Lesbian and Gay Families in North America Make Claims to Kinship.” In, 253–76.

7)     Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. “White Possessions.” In The material kinship reader: Material beyond extraction and kinship beyond the nuclear family. Edited by Clementine Edwards and Kris Dittel. Onomatopee 208. [Netherlands]: Onomatopee, 2022.

8)     https://humansandnature.org/kinship/ - Link to a great 5 volume edited book series and an amazing book club / podcast!

1)     Macdonald, Sharon. “Doing Diversity, Making Differences. Multi-Researcher Ethnography in Museums and Heritage in Berlin.”in Macdonald, Sharon J., ed. Doing Diversity in Museums and Heritage: A Berlin Ethnography. 1. Auflage. Cultural heritage studies volume 1. Bielefeld: transcript, 2022. https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-6409-6/doing-diversity-in-museums-and-heritage/?number=978-3-8394-6409-0.

1)     Lehrer, Erika. “Material Kin : “Communities of Implication” in Post-Colonial, Post-Holocaust Polish Ethnographic Collections.” In Across Anthropology. Troubling Colonial Legacies, Museums, and the Curatorial. Edited by Margareta von Oswald and Jonas Tinius, 288–323. Leuven University Press, 2020.

2)     Von Oswald, Margareta. “Troubling Colonial Epistemologies in Berlin’s Ethnologisches Museum: Provenance Research and the Humboldt Forum” in Post-Colonial, Post-Holocaust Polish Ethnographic Collections.” In Across Anthropology. Troubling Colonial Legacies, Museums, and the Curatorial. Edited by Margareta von Oswald and Jonas Tinius, 107–129. Leuven University Press, 2020.

Read one of these texts for preparation:

Schneider, Arnd. “Art-Anthropology Interventions in the Italian Post-Colony: The Scattered Colonial Body Project.” In Across Anthropology. Troubling Colonial Legacies, Museums, and the Curatorial.. Edited by Margareta von Oswald and Jonas Tinius. Leuven University Press, 2020.

Deliss, Clémentine. ““Against the Mono-Disciplinarity of Ethnographic Museums”: A Conversation with Clémentine Deliss.” In Across Anthropology. Troubling Colonial Legacies, Museums, and the Curatorial.. Edited by Margareta von Oswald and Jonas Tinius. Leuven University Press, 2020.

Luntumbue, Toma Muteba. ““Finding Means to Cannibalise the Anthropological Museum”: A Conversation with Toma Muteba Luntumbue.” In Across Anthropology. Across Anthropology. Troubling Colonial Legacies, Museums, and the Curatorial. Edited by Margareta von Oswald and Jonas Tinius. Leuven University Press, 2020.

1)    „Act 1“ In Povinelli, Elizabeth A. The Inheritance. Durham: Duke University Press, 2021.

2)    „The Ancestors don’t mind“ In Nkabinde, Nkunzi Z. Black Bull, Ancestors and Me: My Life as a Lesbian Sangoma. Johannesburg, London: Jacana, 2009.