While the nation-state gave rise to the advent of museums, its influence in times of transculturality and post-/decolonial studies appears to have vanished. But is this really the case? With case studies from various geo- and sociopolitical contexts from around the globe, the contributors investigate which roles the nation-state continues to play in museums, collections, and heritage. They answer the question to which degree the nation-state still determines practices of collection and circulation and its amount of power to shape contemporary narratives. The volume thus examines the contradictions at play when the necessary claim for transculturality meets the institutions of the nation-state.

With contributions by Stanislas Spero Adotevi, Sebastián Eduardo Dávila, Natasha Ginwala, Monica Hanna, Rajkamal Kahlon, Suzana Milevska, Mirjam Shatanawi, Kavita Singh, Ruth Stamm, Andrea Witcomb.

Autorentext
Susanne Leeb works as a professor for contemporary art at Leuphana Universität Lüneburg. She is the cofounder (together with Beate Söntgen) of the program PriMus - Promovieren im Museum. Additionally, she is the co-founder of the book series »Polypen« at b_books, Berlin. Her research focusses on post-, anti- and decolonial art histories with a focus on contemporary art.Nina Samuel, born in 1977, works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The art historian and curator did her doctorate sponsored by a scholarship of »eikones - Center for the Theory and History of Images« in Basel. Her research interests are image theory and the history of science, knowledge practices and a material epistemology of the museum.