On a winter morning in 1875, the geographer Johannes Justus Rein was staying at the German Legation in Tokyo. For over a year, Rein had been conducting field research in Japan under the auspices of a government-sponsored expedition. In a letter to August Petermann (10 January 1875), he outlined his plans for the scholarly evaluation of his fieldwork upon return...

Am Beispiel eines Briefes des Afrikanisten und Missionars Ernst Dammann gibt der Essay Einblick in die Verschränkung von afrikanistischer Sprachforschung, Mission und Kolonialismus. Anhand von Dammann...

Im August 1975 hetzte ein rassistischer Mob algerische DDR-Vertragsarbeiter durch die Stadt. 50 Jahre später wird an die rassistischen Ausschreitungen erinnert.

The brutalist Philips Building in central London does not look very inviting at first. Nevertheless, it is a magnet for students and researchers from all over the world working on Asia and Africa. Nowadays probably the most important institution in the Global North for research on the Global South, SOAS (School of Oriental and African … Continue reading Knowledge Production between Mission, University, and Colonial Administration: Swahili Studies in Britain and Germany, 1840s–1940s

Am Beispiel eines Briefes des Afrikanisten und Missionars Ernst Dammann gibt der Essay Einblick in die Verschränkung von afrikanistischer Sprachforschung, Mission und Kolonialismus. Anhand von Dammann...

The Russian campaign in Central Asia can be viewed as an episode in the long history of this territory. Claiming the city of Tashkent in 1865, the fortress of Samarkand in 1868 and the Khanate of Khiv...

The Russian campaign in Central Asia can be viewed as an episode in the long history of this territory. Claiming the city of Tashkent in 1865, the fortress of Samarkand in 1868 and the Khanate of Khiv...

In 1903 a complaint by a British official about “leaking German-Cameroonian borders” (Weiss 2000: 168) reached Garoua, the centre of German colonial administration in German-Adamawa, Cameroon. More co...

For many years I have undertaken extensive research on the maps in the British Library’s Wise Collection – showing the route between Lhasa in Central Tibet and Ladakh in the Western Himalayas over a l...

For many years I have undertaken extensive research on the maps in the British Library’s Wise Collection – showing the route between Lhasa in Central Tibet and Ladakh in the Western Himalayas over a l...