Rainer Buschmann- Art and Colonialism in New Guinea from 1870-1920

Description:
Rainer Buschmann is a professor of History at California State University, Channel Islands. He specializes in the history of colonialism in New Guinea. Buschmann discusses the hoarding and sale of New Guinea art by German colonists in New Guinea from 1870-1920. He also places himself in the debate surrounding the responsibility of museums to return artifacts that were transferred from colonized areas to Western museums by describing the concept of provenance history, the idea that the historical context around each individual artifact should be examined in order to determine whether or not it was justly or unjustly acquired.