The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, invites you to a joint lecture featuring fellows from the Restitution and Reparation: Africa and the Post-Colonial Condition Fellowship (Spring 2026).
This session brings together three fellows whose work engages critically with questions of restitution, memory, and the afterlives of colonial archives and objects. The lecture will be presented by Dr. Katarzyna Puzon (anthropologist and incoming Senior Fellow, Faculty of Law, Humboldt University of Berlin), Dr. Philip Kwame Boafo (Independent Scholar-Artist), and Nandiuasora Mazeingo (Chairperson, Global Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, and doctoral candidate, University of Aristotle, Thessaloniki).
The lecture will take place online on Thursday, April 23, 2026, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM GST via Zoom.
This talk examines colonial-era sound recordings produced under asymmetrical and coercive conditions, including voices of African and Indian Ocean subjects captured through colonial and wartime recording practices and held in archives far from the regions from which they were taken. Rather than treating these recordings as archival materials subject to restitution, it asks what it means to work with sound as evidence and as a carrier of historical violence and its ongoing legacies. Focusing on recordings made in First World War prisoner-of-war camps in Germany and held in Berlin’s Sound Archives, it considers how these voices unsettle conventional logics of access and origin. What does it mean to restitute a voice? Moving beyond restitution understood primarily in terms of ownership and return, the talk reframes restitution as a sonic and ethical practice, grounded in listening, attentive to the violence of recording technologies, and concerned with how these voices can be heard again.
This talk examines restitution as both an ethical demand and a contested practice. While recent returns of looted African cultural heritage are often framed as acts of redress, they frequently leave intact the epistemic systems that shape how objects are understood and governed. Drawing on ethnographic research in Ghana and engagement with museum and archival theory, this work explores what are termed the “ritual afterlives” of restituted objects. It argues for restitution as a process of reintegration, one that moves beyond institutional frameworks toward an African-centred understanding of repair as an ongoing practice of care, obligation, and becoming.
The 1904–1908 genocide of the Ovaherero people in German South West Africa (GSWA) represents the first genocide of the twentieth century. This doctoral research investigates this atrocity as a foundational event in the history of twentieth-century state-sponsored violence. While existing scholarship often prioritises Western archival perspectives, this project, situated within the University of Aristotle in Thessaloniki, Greece, seeks to decentre the colonial narrative. By integrating traditional archival research with the innovative application of oral histories, the study analyses how the social, economic, and political dimensions of the genocide continue to manifest in the contemporary lived experiences of the Ovaherero people.
As one of the first research programmes undertaken systematically by an Omuherero scholar-activist embedded within his community and serving as Overall Leader of the Global Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, this study offers insights into the ongoing legacies of genocide that are often overlooked in Western scholarship. The Global Ovaherero Genocide Foundation is a platform dedicated to pursuing a just settlement and meaningful closure for the multi-generational harms, losses, and trauma of genocide. The study critically examines current negotiations between the Namibian and German states concerning a proposed settlement, highlighting the exclusion of Ovaherero and Nama peoples and identifying significant deficiencies in process, substance, and principle.
In foregrounding Indigenous agency, the study advances an organically grounded Ovaherero articulation of justice, rooted in the community’s own perspectives and priorities. Under the supervision of Dr. Kosta Papastathis, Dr. Maria Kavala, and Professor Grigorius Zarotiadis, this research aims to bridge the gap between historical record and intergenerational memory, ultimately articulating an Indigenous-defined framework for reparative justice and historical reconciliation.
This project is not a political protest but an academic intervention designed to bridge the gap between traditional Western archives and Indigenous-defined frameworks of justice, thereby contributing a vital African perspective to the University of Aristotle.
Katarzyna Puzon is an anthropologist whose work engages anthropology, critical heritage studies, and creative practice. Trained at the University of Edinburgh, the Polish Academy of Sciences, and University College London, her research focuses on heritage, temporality, and loss. She is also an incoming Senior Fellow, Faculty of Law, Humboldt University of Berlin. Read more.
Philip Kwame Boafo is a scholar of theatre and performance studies, as well as a movement practitioner and curator. His work explores ritual, embodied knowledge, and African cultural expression. He holds a Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore and an MA from the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Read more.
Nandiuasora “Nandi” Mazeingo is Chairperson of the Global Ovaherero Genocide Foundation and a scholar-activist working on reparative justice. He serves as a technical advisor to Ovaherero leadership and focuses on addressing the ongoing legacies of the 1904–1908 genocide. Read more.
Mohamed Faroug A. Ali is a Visiting Associate Professor of Archaeology at The Africa Institute, Global Studies University. He is co-founder and CEO of the American Sudanese Archaeological Research Center and Executive Director of the Sudanese Archaeologists Union. Read more.
The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, invites you to a joint lecture featuring fellows from the Restitution and Reparation: Africa and the Post-Colonial Condition Fellowship (Spring 2026).
The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, invites you to a joint lecture featuring fellows from the Restitution and Reparation: Africa and the Post-Colonial Condition Fellowship (Spring 2026).
This session brings together three fellows whose work engages critically with questions of restitution, memory, and the afterlives of colonial archives and objects. The lecture will be presented by Dr. Katarzyna Puzon (anthropologist and incoming Senior Fellow, Faculty of Law, Humboldt University of Berlin), Dr. Philip Kwame Boafo (Independent Scholar-Artist), and Nandiuasora Mazeingo (Chairperson, Global Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, and doctoral candidate, University of Aristotle, Thessaloniki).
The lecture will take place online on Thursday, April 23, 2026, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM GST via Zoom.
This talk examines colonial-era sound recordings produced under asymmetrical and coercive conditions, including voices of African and Indian Ocean subjects captured through colonial and wartime recording practices and held in archives far from the regions from which they were taken. Rather than treating these recordings as archival materials subject to restitution, it asks what it means to work with sound as evidence and as a carrier of historical violence and its ongoing legacies. Focusing on recordings made in First World War prisoner-of-war camps in Germany and held in Berlin’s Sound Archives, it considers how these voices unsettle conventional logics of access and origin. What does it mean to restitute a voice? Moving beyond restitution understood primarily in terms of ownership and return, the talk reframes restitution as a sonic and ethical practice, grounded in listening, attentive to the violence of recording technologies, and concerned with how these voices can be heard again.
This talk examines restitution as both an ethical demand and a contested practice. While recent returns of looted African cultural heritage are often framed as acts of redress, they frequently leave intact the epistemic systems that shape how objects are understood and governed. Drawing on ethnographic research in Ghana and engagement with museum and archival theory, this work explores what are termed the “ritual afterlives” of restituted objects. It argues for restitution as a process of reintegration, one that moves beyond institutional frameworks toward an African-centred understanding of repair as an ongoing practice of care, obligation, and becoming.
The 1904–1908 genocide of the Ovaherero people in German South West Africa (GSWA) represents the first genocide of the twentieth century. This doctoral research investigates this atrocity as a foundational event in the history of twentieth-century state-sponsored violence. While existing scholarship often prioritises Western archival perspectives, this project, situated within the University of Aristotle in Thessaloniki, Greece, seeks to decentre the colonial narrative. By integrating traditional archival research with the innovative application of oral histories, the study analyses how the social, economic, and political dimensions of the genocide continue to manifest in the contemporary lived experiences of the Ovaherero people.
As one of the first research programmes undertaken systematically by an Omuherero scholar-activist embedded within his community and serving as Overall Leader of the Global Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, this study offers insights into the ongoing legacies of genocide that are often overlooked in Western scholarship. The Global Ovaherero Genocide Foundation is a platform dedicated to pursuing a just settlement and meaningful closure for the multi-generational harms, losses, and trauma of genocide. The study critically examines current negotiations between the Namibian and German states concerning a proposed settlement, highlighting the exclusion of Ovaherero and Nama peoples and identifying significant deficiencies in process, substance, and principle.
In foregrounding Indigenous agency, the study advances an organically grounded Ovaherero articulation of justice, rooted in the community’s own perspectives and priorities. Under the supervision of Dr. Kosta Papastathis, Dr. Maria Kavala, and Professor Grigorius Zarotiadis, this research aims to bridge the gap between historical record and intergenerational memory, ultimately articulating an Indigenous-defined framework for reparative justice and historical reconciliation.
This project is not a political protest but an academic intervention designed to bridge the gap between traditional Western archives and Indigenous-defined frameworks of justice, thereby contributing a vital African perspective to the University of Aristotle.
Katarzyna Puzon is an anthropologist whose work engages anthropology, critical heritage studies, and creative practice. Trained at the University of Edinburgh, the Polish Academy of Sciences, and University College London, her research focuses on heritage, temporality, and loss. She is also an incoming Senior Fellow, Faculty of Law, Humboldt University of Berlin. Read more.
Philip Kwame Boafo is a scholar of theatre and performance studies, as well as a movement practitioner and curator. His work explores ritual, embodied knowledge, and African cultural expression. He holds a Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore and an MA from the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Read more.
Nandiuasora “Nandi” Mazeingo is Chairperson of the Global Ovaherero Genocide Foundation and a scholar-activist working on reparative justice. He serves as a technical advisor to Ovaherero leadership and focuses on addressing the ongoing legacies of the 1904–1908 genocide. Read more.
Mohamed Faroug A. Ali is a Visiting Associate Professor of Archaeology at The Africa Institute, Global Studies University. He is co-founder and CEO of the American Sudanese Archaeological Research Center and Executive Director of the Sudanese Archaeologists Union. Read more.
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