Tanzania's Heritage at the University of Tübingen
A student project in the Tübingen university collections
In recent years, museums and universities have increasingly begun to engage more critically with the origins and histories of their collections. They have initiated collaborative projects with representatives of source communities, fostering a deeper understanding of collection histories and providing new insights into the networks of actors and collectors involved. At the University of Tübingen, for example, seminars offered in the Master Profile Line Museum & Collections MuSa by the staff of the MUT have been looking into the colonial past of the collections.
Dealing with Discriminatory Language
One of the challenges students faced was the racist and discriminatory language frequently encountered in historical sources and publications. To avoid reproducing such terminology, we decided to replace problematic terms or to cross it out for the reader to be sensitised that a problematic word was used – i.e. collection(s). We followed the guidelines set out in the booklet Was Macht Sprache? (‘What Does Language Do?’) and drew on the work of Prof. Dr. Albert Gouaffo when doing so.