The thesis consists of this Introduction, six chapters, and a Conclusion.
Chapter One provides an overview of Baguia, the Makasae people and their tumultuous history over the past century. It establishes the broader social context of change and continuity in relation to local cultural practices and the material world of the Makasae as exemplified by the role and presence of the ceremonial house (oma falu, M; uma lulik, T). This analysis suggests that the Makasae have a well-developed capacity to accommodate change within a continuing customary framework. I argue that whilst the material culture of the Makasae is in transition, the repertoire of their culture – its performance and enactment – remains vibrant and continues to reinforce the identity and sociality of Makasae society. Chapter Two considers the history of Swiss ethnographic practice and the motivations behind the formation of ethnographic collections in Switzerland. It positions Swiss ethnologists and natural scientists within the wider context of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Germanic colonial salvage collecting practices and international networks of knowledge production. I argue that Switzerland, although a neutral nation, was complicit and therefore participated in colonial activities, including ethnographic collecting practices, which met civic, national and transnational agendas. This chapter provides an overview to the motivations behind the commissioning of the Timor, Rote and Flores Expedition, 1935, by the Museum Commission of the MKB and explains how the broader European agendas of physical anthropology – a fascination with the identification of racial typologies and delineation of borderlines – ultimately led Bühler to undertake ethnographic salvage collecting in remote Timor and island Southeast Asia.
123 Phillips, “Introduction,” 161; Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture
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Chapter Three documents the formation and scope of the ethnographic collections acquired in Baguia by Bühler between 31 July and 18 August 1935 and the subsequent process of the formation of the Baguia Collection; that is, its transfer from privately owned material in Baguia to becoming accessioned as ‘objects of ethnography’ into the permanent collections of a Swiss ethnographic museum. This diasporic Collection itself is addressed, in terms of its scope, documentation and classification, together with how it was documented for temporary virtual return to Baguia as part of this research project during 2014. A detailed discussion considers the sensory aspects of the material and the issues associated with the return to Baguia of digital and printed images as representations of three-dimensional objects. The chapter also provides accounts of the display and interpretation of the Collection over the intervening years since its acquisition, most specifically its display in the exhibition
Expeditions. The World in a Suitcase (2012–2016). This chapter establishes the heritage value
attributed to the Collection in Basel and Switzerland more generally.
Chapter Four begins to explore the relevance of the Baguia Collection to its source community. It commences with an overview of Makasae material culture and its continuities and changes between 1935 and 2014 to provide a context for the source community’s re- encounter with its tangible cultural heritage. It analyses the process of digital return of the Collection to the Baguia community in 2014, specifically considering the methodology used to present the Collection through a series of community viewings of slideshows in seven villages in Baguia Sub-district. I document the community’s mixed responses, both positive and negative, to encountering images of Collection objects and how the objects serve as a time capsule and a marker of change and continuity. The topics of remembering, memory- work, forgetting and prosthetic memory are explored in this chapter, together with ‘non- responses’ to the Collection. Three vignettes are presented that elucidate varying responses by residents of Baguia to re-encountering the Collection objects, further illustrating the Collection’s significance to them at that time.
Chapter Five considers the significance of the historical photographs from the Baguia Collection as containers of history for the people of Baguia. An overview to the historical photographs taken by Bühler during his three-week visit to Baguia in 1935 is provided. I argue that Bühler’s photographs exist, on the one hand, as an enduring record of his ethnographic practice, while, on the other hand, they resonate as a valuable resource for the
35 people of Baguia; as such they embody a ‘double vision’. The chapter recounts the process of viewing the historical photographs by the Makasae residents of Baguia Sub-district. The methodology used to show the Collection photographs to the Baguia community members is explained and reflected upon. Emphasis is given to the manner in which photographic images hold multiple meanings and elicit a range of responses from viewers. Three vignettes are provided as evidence of the diverse ways in which people engaged with the Baguia Collection historical photographs. This chapter establishes the manner in which the Makasae asserted their own cultural authority over the Collection.
Chapter Six considers how the Baguia community animated the Baguia Collection to serve their own agendas. Community leaders and teachers used their available resources of social capital, combined with local knowledge, skills, habitus and habitat to instigate some initial animations of the Collection. These animations, in the form of presentations, workshops and demonstrations, indicate how culture was ‘performed’ and enacted through acts of transfer with the intent of ensuring the inter-generational transmission of knowledge and intangible heritage. These animations provide insights into the potential applications of the Collection as a resource for metacultural production into the future.
The Conclusion summarises the key findings of this thesis for future museological methods and practice. It also presents some broader speculative reflections relating to the value of diasporic collections to source communities for the formation of partnerships and exchanges, ownership of cultural property and shared authority / joint custodianship arrangements between source communities and museums. The ethical implications of the digital return of museum collections to source communities are also considered as museums strive to become more relational and reciprocal institutions in the twenty-first century.