Citation

Schasiepen S. Hist. Anthropol. Chur. 2024; 35(1): 90-110.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/02757206.2023.2248158

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article situates Austria in wider discussions around the repercussions of colonial violence on a global scale. It focusses on the ways in which anthropological disciplines fashioned specific ideas of racial and ethnographic belonging both within and outside the Austrian-Hungarian empire. Understanding how Austrian knowledge production relied on and participated in colonial expropriation sheds light on the significance of the post-colonial for a nation that did not establish formal colonial rule overseas. The unearthing of the mortal remains of people and other forms of colonial exploitation such as geological extraction were deeply intertwined; they were often conducted within the very same expedition. These processes of colonial dispossession continue to be operative today. Anthropological and other 'collections' from colonial contexts that are housed in European institutions speak to the currency of these issues. This paper argues that different conceptions of time - of the relation between past and present - complicate ongoing negotiations of the meaning of Austria's colonial history.

Language: en

Keywords

anthropology; Austria; colonialism; museum and academic collections; post-colonial studies; time