This episode is about the impossibility of telling the story of a child from Batibo, who died during the German colonial period in Cameroon at about eight years old. It is about the deliberate erasure of people, their knowledge, their culture, societal and political structures and the very real challenges with which this violence confronts us today. Current efforts towards restitution have to navigate the manifold effects of this violence, which often limit the possibilities of recovery and restoration. In this episode, Mikael Assilkinga talks about a part of his academic journey that brought him in contact with the physical remains of people from Cameroon, housed in a German university collection.

This is the English version of this podcast. You can also listen to the versions in French and Fulfulde.

Credits
Author: Mikael Assilkinga
Script editing: Sophie Schasiepen with support from Andri Burnett
Narrators: Tshiamo Moretlwe and Mamello Makhetha
Producer / editor: Andri Burnett
Concept and executive production: Sophie Schasiepen

Acknowledgments 
Special thanks go to Richard Tsogang Fossi, Holger Stoecker, Yann LeGall, Katharina Stötzel for commenting on an earlier version of the script. Mikael Assilkinga also thanks Christian Vogel and Jonatan Kurzwelly. His colleagues working at the Anthropological Collection. The Blumenbach Collection,  participants of the project “Sensitive Provenances” at the University of Göttingen and the Ethnological Museum of Hamburg.

Further Reading

This podcast is based on research in different German archives and includes references to works by Eugen Zintgraff, Bongfen Chem-Langhee, Richard Tsogang Fossi, as well as research conducted by the project The Restitution of Knowledge at Technical University of Berlin. Please find the full references listed here.

Funding

The Mourning the Dead podcast was produced as part of the contribution by the University of the Western Cape to the research project “Reconnecting 'Objects': Epistemic Plurality and Transformative Practices in and beyond Museums”, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.