Academic Centre
The conference will gather researchers in history, cultural heritage studies, ethnography and anthropology, art, and museology, at different stages of their careers. Two keynote lectures and 23 presentations will address concerns about various types of contentious collections: virtual, private, museum, university, etc. For the purpose of the conference, contentious collections are defined as groups of non-European objects that were purchased and incorporated into Central and Eastern European collections in the 19th and 20th century, in which the themes of Otherness, savagery, primitivism, exoticism, and racism played a significant role. The complex history of contentious collections, together with the contemporary entanglements of their status, perception, and interpretation, will be the main topics of conference presentations discussed from a comparative, interregional, and dialogical standpoint.
The conference is organized with the support of the Academic Development Project of the University of Latvia and the financial assistance of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
