Knowledge of Things: Reassessing the Indigenous American Heritage in Italy (KNOT)

Areas:
SH - Social Sciences and Humanities

Abstract:
The KNOT research project aims at producing a new understanding of the Indigenous American Heritage preserved in Italy and to have an impact on how it is displayed and narrated to the public. Although Italian polities were never directly involved in the colonization of the Americas, Italy has been for centuries a node of intellectual networks of missionaries, travelers, collectors, and scholars whose activities left tangible evidence in the form of artifacts, manuscripts and books held in Italian museums, archives, and libraries. Over the centuries, these “objects” crossed different epochs and regimes of values, being collected, exchanged, and studied by a variety of social actors, so that a multiplicity of historical trajectories and colonial/neo-colonial projects and discourses are inscribed into their long social lives. Notwithstanding their relevance, the entangled cultural biographies of the objects constituting the Indigenous American Heritage in Italy were often neglected by contemporary historiography and museum anthropology. To fill this void, the KNOT project will explore the cultural biographies of a selected group of case studies, each one focusing on specific “objects” (or collections) from various regions of what is now Latin America. Their study will be carried out in a decidedly multidisciplinary way, conjoining historical investigations with non-invasive material analyses of artifacts and documents, as well as with the ethnographic scrutiny of their value, meaning and fruition by contemporary indigenous communities. The knowledge thus generated will be disseminated into the public sphere to arouse a new understanding of the Indigenous American Heritage in Italy among the scholarly community and various sectors of the civil society. Open access publications, workshops, one conference and the KNOT Virtual Museum, i.e., a collaborative online integrated system of study and fruition, will be produced as forms of knowledge sharing and public engagement. Proposals on actual forms of museum display, in strict cooperation with selected Italian ethnographic museums, will also be produced, to conceive respectful handling and displaying strategies, fostering more decolonized and socially responsible forms of management, fully tackling complex issues of responsibility, stewardship, and ownership. The project’s outcomes will foster a critical reflection on the peculiar Italian involvement in colonial processes, so helping Italian institutions to engage in the now-flourishing international debates over the management and public fruition of Indigenous heritage.

Duration of the project: 17/10/2023 – 17/10/2025

Co-Principal Investigator: Davide Domenici

Principal investigator: Alessandro Lupo (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”)

Partnership: Università di Roma “La Sapienza” CNR

Budget of the University of Bologna: 56.798

EUR ERC sectors:
SH5_7 Museums, exhibitions, conservation and restoration
SH5_8 Cultural studies, cultural identities and memories, cultural heritage