visualisation of the exhibition space of the «Alexander Ecker Collection» at the University of Freiburg, late 19th / early 20th century

Victims of Colonial Violence in the Care of the University:
The Historical Responsibility Holdings of the University of Freiburg from Colonial and Racialising Anthropological Research Contexts

Since September 2025, I have been working on a five-year research project concerning the Historical Responsibility Holdings of the University of Freiburg from colonial and racializing anatomical-anthropological research contexts, formerly known as the “Alexander Ecker Collection”. The individuals in the care of the University include victims of colonial violence who were appropriated, transferred, and classified within contexts of colonial and racializing science.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these deceased persons were treated as “evidence” within racist theories that contributed to legitimising colonial domination and later racial-political frameworks, including those of National Socialism. The five-year research project “Provenance Research on Colonial Scientific Collections” is situated at the Vice-Rectorate for University Culture and jointly funded by the University of Freiburg and the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg. Its aim is to reconstruct, as far as possible, the origins and histories of the individuals in the University’s care in order to support future processes of return, while also contributing to a critical examination of the involvement of Freiburg’s anthropology and related disciplines in colonial and racial science.

The project forms part of the University’s broader process of addressing its colonial past. As the University acknowledges, scholars in disciplines such as geography, ethnology, anthropology, medicine, economics, and history contributed to colonial knowledge production, and public lectures on colonial science were part of Freiburg’s academic life. The historical holdings formerly referred to as the “Alexander Ecker Collection” are closely connected to these contexts. Since 1857, they were expanded to include deceased persons from different parts of the world, often acquired without consent and catalogued through objectifying scientific categories. During the period of German colonial rule, individuals were also transferred to Freiburg from overseas territories; in 1905, for example, three heads of executed persons from German New Guinea were brought to the University.

Against this background, my research is intended as a contribution to a larger institutional effort to develop ethical, decolonial, and historically responsible approaches to individuals appropriated within colonial scientific contexts. It brings together provenance reconstruction, epistemic self-critique, and dialogue with communities of origin, with the aim of supporting future processes of return and remembrance.

For more on the University of Freiburg’s initiatives in confronting its colonial past, see: «Koloniale Vergangenheit der Universität Freiburg» (in German):
https://uni-freiburg.de/koloniale-vergangenheit-der-universitaet-freiburg/