Projects | Research Center for Material Culture

Our research projects and programs are intended to contribute to research innovation within fields relevant for ethnographic museums and their collections. The RCMC actively develops and participates in (funded) research projects with national and international research partners, and provides opportunities for researchers at all levels.

Fellow Research

Srefidensi Foto

To mark 40 years of Surinamese independence, artist and researcher Sara Blokland together with FOTODOK initiated the project Srefidensi.

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Research Projects

TM-3444-5. Een plantagedirecteur met huismeid en huisjongen. T. (Théodore) Bray, (1818 - 1887) - RCMC

Materializing Slavery

Materializing Slavery is an ongoing research project on the materiality of enslavement and its afterlives in the present.

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The Popular Culture of Illegality

This project studies the popular culture through which the socio-political authority of criminal gangs is produced in Latin America and Caribbean countries.

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Baggage and Belonging: Military Collections and the British Empire (1750-1900)

Focussing on military campaigns in India and Africa from 1750 to 1900, this project will undertake an interdisciplinary reappraisal of military collections.

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Framing Indonesian Art

This research project focuses on how ‘Islam’ was collected, categorized and exhibited in Dutch museums, in particular the almost total absence of Indonesia.

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Institutional Collaborations

CoHERE - Critical Heritages: performing and representing identities in Europe

CoHERE explores the ways in which European identities are constructed through heritage representations and performances.

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Museum Affordances

Can historical ethnographic collections transcend the colonial contexts of their collection and be used as resources for decolonisation?

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Sharing a World of Inclusion, Creativity and Heritage (SWICH)

SWICH explores the role that ethnographic and world cultures museums can play in processes of citizenship and belonging in contemporary Europe.

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Community Projects

HABITAT: Practicing Neighborhood Rituals

How can the Museum re-imagine its role and responsibilities in the community in which it is embedded?

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Activate

Activate is a series of projects intended to uncover the contemporary meanings of our collections for local and global stakeholders.

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Diasporic Connections: Ghana 60 Years After

To mark the 60 anniversary of Ghana’s independence in 1957, the RCMC along with Imagine IC organized a year-long series of events.

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Bijlmer 50 Years

How is and was the Bijlmer important for Amsterdam and its citizens? With this series we aim to highlight the agency in the Bijlmer over the years.

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Student Research

Vivian Mac Gillavry

Can the waka be seen as an 'ambassador project' and represent Maori people?

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Caroline Spijkers

De introductie van het economisch belang van de koloniën bij het Nederlands publiek (Dutch).

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Wayang Kulit - Photo Tentrem Yogyakarta - RCMC

Eva Christiane von Reumont

Applying 'Western' Conservation Ethics onto Javanese Wayang Kulit.

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Katie M. Sandels

An ethnographic exploration of cultural representations of 'Africa' in the Buitenmuseum, Afrika Museum.

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Anke Bosma

Decolonizing Dutch Ethnographic Museums? An analysis of the coloniality of exhibiting war loot.

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Charlotte de Jong

Sámi Identity Representation and Revitalization in Northern Norway.

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Past projects

Turbulent Lives | 2016-2017

Two large-scale research initiatives that aim to study the object biography and cultural context of several Mixtec artefacts from Mexico.

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Globalisation, Photography and Race

This project addresses the intersection of new digital technologies and Aboriginal traditions surrounding visual imagery.

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Creating the 'New' Asian Woman

Entanglements of Urban Space, Cultural Encounters and Gendered Identities in Shanghai and Delhi (SINGLE) deals with the representation of single women in China and India.

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All past projects