Collaborative restitution of ethnographic films from the Tacana and Tsimane of Bolivia

Abstract (English)

The Frobenius Institute (Frankfurt, Germany) houses an archive of approximately 36 reels of 16mm film shot during the institute's expeditions to Bolivia in the 1950s. Some of the film material has been published by the Institute for Scientific Film (IWF) and the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica. Other parts of the film material, in particular scenes documenting ethnographic work processes, remain unpublished to this day.
The recordings of the Tacana and Tsimane in Bolivia, made during field research by the German anthropologist Karin Hissink, are the only historical sources from this period. The films show a specific social composition of the Tacana, who were already connected to the Spanish post-mission communities. In the 1990s, the legal framework for biodiversity and the promotion of multiculturalism in the Bolivian Amazon created an alliance between indigenous cultural identity and territorial claims. The ethnic movement provided the Tacana and Tsimane with a long-awaited platform to assert their legitimacy and capacity to act. The evolving political landscape created opportunities for indigenous groups to use their indigenous identity as a political tool. As a result, the ethnographic film archive has acquired significant historical value and has become a foundation for collective memory and efforts to achieve cultural identity.
The presentation will give an insight into the film material as well as discuss a project to collaboratively restitute the material to its place of recording/origin.