Missionary collections

For what purpose did members of missionary orders bring ethnological objects and other things from the environment of their missions to Europe during the German Empire (and beyond)? What was the significance of these collections for the religious communities at that time? And what is their significance today? Are the objects still of interest today for the indigenous communities and churches of origin? What do these collections have to do with colonialism? And what does this mean for dealing with the collections in question in the here and now?

Such questions are at the heart of the “Missionary Collections” project, which aims to engage with the holdings of primarily ethnographic objects that missionaries gathered in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. This discussion is urgently needed, because in many religious congregations with such collections it is questionable whether the preservation of this missionary heritage can be secured in the long term in view of scarce personnel resources. In addition, the current debate on the reappraisal of German colonial history urges that ethnological collections in general be subjected to a critical revision with regard to the acquisition processes associated with them as well as their use in historical exhibition practice.

Collections in the cognitive interest of different sciences

The study of the collections in question, some of which are accessible to a broader public in specially established mission museums, while others are less exposed or even stored elsewhere, is today in the interest of various scholarly disciplines. For some time now, history and religious studies have been turning to non-written sources, while missions are also being researched as places of exchange and cultural contact in the context of global or interconnected history. Against the background of postcolonial theory, this naturally also involves the reappraisal of colonial structures.

For museology, mission-historical collections are typologically concerned with questions of collection genesis and constitution: What constitutes their specificity in comparison to other ethnographic collections? In ethnology, the examination of mission-historical collections ultimately serves to explore the discipline’s own history, in which missionaries often contributed significantly to the collection of data and collection objects or distinguished themselves through scholarly work. At the same time, museums with ethnographic collections today are challenged to face the debate about the provenance of their holdings in the colonial era, to deal with demands for restitution, and to use new formats to critique Eurocentric modes of presentation in exhibitions that have been cultivated for decades and that take into account multiperspectivity and different interpretations.

Project goals

Against this background, this project pursues two goals: On the one hand, a differentiated contribution to the determination of the relationship between missions and colonial undertakings is to be made through the processing of collections from the history of missions. Such a contribution can consist of elaborating mission-theological and spirituality-historical aspects in order to show the motivations for missionary collecting in contrast to imperial collecting projects. For example, it would be necessary to ask to what extent missionary personnel pursued the claim of a universalistic communal ideal of the gospel and whether this was reflected in the collections. In this context, a focus must also be placed on the agency of the indigenous population, because it is relevant for the evaluation of the collections how and for what reasons objects were disposed of.

On the other hand, dealing with these questions has consequences for the interpretation of mission history within the church. The significance of the collections has undoubtedly changed in the respective religious houses and communities; therefore, studies within the framework of the new project that start from this can also shed light on contemporary historical contexts, such as the emancipation process of former mission churches from European mother churches or on inculturation and nation-building as Christian identity issues in postcolonial processes. In this context, the fundamental change in the understanding of mission with the Second Vatican Council, which led to a clear intercultural orientation of religious orders, must also be taken into account. It is obvious to assume that this was accompanied by a process of identity formation of the missionary communities concerned, which needs to be historicized.

Finally, the project intends to address the interests and issues of local church communities: How do local churches that have emerged from missionary engagement assess the collections and the current discussions? And what are their thoughts on the practical use of the objects?

In view of the quantity of missionary collections produced by Catholic religious congregations alone and located in Germany, the project cannot be designed to carry out a comprehensive survey, evaluation and provenance research. Rather, it is planned to initiate projects on specific collections with the help of suitable cooperation partners, to raise third-party funds for them, and to bundle their results in Sankt Georgen if they are successfully implemented, so that other religious communities can also be supported in an advisory, mediatory, and accompanying capacity.

Markus A. Scholz

Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter – Missionsgeschichtliche Sammlungen

+49 69 6061-705 scholz@iwm.sankt-georgen.de