Sankofatization and decolonization: The Rapprochement of German Museums and Government with Colonial Objects and Postcolonialism

Abstract

This paper examines how node three national museums in Germany are dealing with colonial objects in their spaces. It also explores the German government’s recent rapprochement with scholars in its ex-colonies on how to deal with its colonial past within a discourse of evidence and sankofatization. Sankofatization is defined as a Ghanaian- Akan ideology that signifies the selection of past ideas for retention within a type of renaissance paradigm. In December 2015, the German Federal Foreign Office invited delegates from Togo, Ghana, Namibia, Tanzania, and Cameroon to take part in a unique program dubbed “A Themed Tour of German Colonial History.” Reporting on this tour, the paper assesses the activism of German civic organizations and museums in their ongoing attempts to decolonize colonial cityscapes, street names, and exhibits. But this discussion is much more than an ethnographic report. The implications of this rapprochement policy for discourses on the archaeology of German colonialism and the anthropology of colonial museums denote significant changes in transnational cooperation. Overall, the themed tour recalled that silencing of negative past experiences and past misdeeds is never permanent. Generational change often influences a renaissance, or sankofatization, of past realities to serve emerging postcolonial needs. [museum anthropology, Africa, Germany, decolonization, repatriation]