Friederike Schmidt
Contact:
University of Greifswald
Department of History
Rubenowstraße 2
17489 Greifswald
Email: friederike.schmidt2@stud.uni-greifswald.de
Person:
- Since 9/2018 Associate Member of the Research Group ‚The Transcultural Heritage of Northwest Australia: Dynamics and Resistances’ at the Excellence Initiative Project ‚Transcultural Studies’, Heidelberg University
- 2016-2018 Master of Arts (M.A.) History, University of Greifswald
Doctoral Project:
“Sammler und Sammlungen Indigener Objekte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert”
My project investigates the collecting processes of private collectors and those of British officials in Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria between the 1840s and 1960s, with emphasis on the transcultural character of the collected artefacts. This transcultural perspective on the collecting process and mobility of artefacts offers a unique view on the entanglements of local cultural material and global collector networks. Ethnographic fieldwork on the provenance of artefacts is combined with a prosopographical approach to the collectors, in order to offer a comprehensive dataset for statistical and geographical analysis as well as the visualisation of artworks’ and collectors’ specific transcultural histories.
The theoretical and methodological combination of prosopographical methodology and ethnographic fieldwork is subjected to statistical analysis and visualisation using the geographic information system (GIS). The examination of written sources will furthermore be accompanied by interviews with descendants and representatives of Indigenous communities. Based on this interdisciplinary approach and the use of qualitative and quantitative methods, the project provides i) a comparative perspective on collection processes of officials and private collectors of Aboriginal artefacts, ii) a comprehensive study including a statistical analysis of the biographies of collectors and their transcultural artefacts, and iii) a geographical database with digital maps on collectors' movements and the provenance of collected items.
Research Assistance:
- 06/2013-09/2018 International Research Training Group (IRTG) “Baltic Borderlands: Shifting Boundaries of Mind and Culture in the Borderlands of the Baltic Sea Region” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), Research Student
- 05/2015-07/2015 “Desert River Sea: Kimberley Art Then &Now”, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Intern/Curatorial Assistance
Scholarships/Grants:
- Since 2018: Doctoral Scholarship holder funded by the State Graduate Funding Mecklenburg Vorpommern
- 2015: DAAD Scholarship (German Academic Exchange Service), funding used for internship at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
