Bringing artifacts (back) to life

Abstract

Museums’ ethnographic collections can be conceptualized as affective forces—relational intensities that emerge between human and more‐than‐human actors, unfold over time, and are embedded in and co‐shape sociomaterial environments. Drawing on debates in the anthropology of objects and political ontology, I develop this perspective through long‐term fieldwork at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, whose exhibitions are held at the Humboldt Forum, focusing on the Cameroonian deity Ngonnso and her engagements with museum staff and actors within the Nso’ community and diaspora. First, I examine how colonial acquisition and epistemic ordering produced disconnections that are now being reworked through collaborative practices and affective contestations. Second, I analyze how processes of reconnection are shaped by the ambivalent force of artifacts, linking questions of vitality and spirituality to institutional and political contexts. Attending to affect reveals these dynamics as open ended and entangled with power, offering a lens for rethinking care, restitution, and collaboration in collection‐holding institutions.