presented by 99 Questions at Humboldt Forum
A series of discussions that attempts to unpack the necessary care and ethics of digitising African heritage, particularly in the age of restitution.
The Access for who? podcast hosted by Chao Tayiana Maina and Molemo Moiloa is a five part mini-series that looks to begin a conversation on digitisation of African heritage. While digitisation is often considered a strategy for future oriented safekeeping, distribution and greater engagement, they ask: For who? And for what purposes? And are we making decisions about digitisation that ensure these objectives are met in ethical, equitable ways?
In order to explore, and think together about the difficult questions that digitisation of African heritage brings to the fore they have spoken with practitioners, primarily from the African continent, across the spectrum of heritage, digital, intellectual property and museum work. Among them are Temi Odumosu, Nothando Migogo, Neema Iyer, Minne Atairu, Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún, Golda Ha-Eiros, Andrea Wallace, Samba Yonga and Mulenga Kapwepwe.
–Episode 1: Digital from an African perspective
–Episode 2: Digital Collections (Part I)
–Episode 3: Digital Collections (Part II)
–Episode 4: Ownership and Intellectual Property
–Episode 5: African Data Futures
For wider accessibility of the podcast’s subject matter, transcripts of the episodes are available in English, French and German through a free zine, which can be downloaded from the websites of Open Restitution Africa and Humboldt Forum. (Please note that the German zine will follow soon.)
The podcast is brought to you by the Open Restitution Africa project, a collaboration between African Digital Heritage and Andani.Africa. It was made possible by 99 Questions at the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss.
The podcast is produced by Chao Tayiana Maina and Molemo Moiloa with Phumzile Nombuso Twala and Lethabolaka Gumede on research. Thank you to Josh Chiundiza for the music, Karugu Maina on design and Annelien van Heymbeeck on editing.
You can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify or via the websites of Open Restitution Africa and Humboldt Forum.
The Open Restitution Project is an Africa-led project seeking to open up access to information on restitution of African material culture and human ancestors, to empower all stakeholders involved to make knowledge-based decisions.
99 Questions at the Humboldt Forum combines different formats of dialogues, podcasts, workshop gatherings and residencies to raise questions on past and future museum practices, whilst reflecting on the historical and contemporary impact of colonialism.
The Humboldt Forum is a cooperation of the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss; the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz with the collections of the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin with the Humboldt Lab; and the Stadtmuseum Berlin with the BERLIN GLOBAL exhibition.
