Gerd Koch (cultural anthropologist)

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Gerd Koch (born July 11, 1922 in Hanover ; † April 19, 2005 in front of Newfoundland ) was a German cultural anthropologist and ethnologist . He was best known for his field research into the material culture of Kiribati , Tuvalu and the Santa Cruz Islands in the Pacific.

For many years he was associated with the Ethnological Museum in Berlin-Dahlem (Museum für Völkerkunde until 1999) and was also a lecturer in ethnology and museology for the neighboring Free University of Berlin . His field research since the 1950s focused on the collection of the material culture of indigenous societies. This included researching and recording music and dance from Pacific island societies. In 1964 he researched and published together with the ethnomusicologist Dieter Christensen on the music of the Ellice Islands . Koch also collected and published songs from Tuvalu .

Life

As a child, Gerd Koch was fascinated by stories about explorers, including the Pacific journeys of James Cook . After he graduated from high school, his family could not finance him to study. So he began an apprenticeship as a businessman at the fountain pen manufacturer Pelikan in Hanover.

He was drafted into the Navy during the Second World War in 1941 and worked there as a radio operator , particularly in monitoring radio traffic in the English Channel. After the war he studied ethnology at the Georg August University from 1945 . He was particularly interested in acculturation , the process of cultural change that occurs as a result of contact between cultures.

In 1949 he wrote his dissertation entitled The early European influences on the culture of the inhabitants of the Tonga Islands 1616-1852 . After completing his doctorate , he worked on the collection and cataloging of the exhibits at the Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin, which were relocated to Celle during the war.

Field research

In 1951, Koch conducted field research in Tonga and also visited Samoa , Fiji, and New Caledonia . After his return he worked temporarily at the Landesmuseum Hannover , where he cataloged the collection. In 1957 he took on a position as curator of the Pacific Department at the Museum of Ethnology (later renamed the Ethnological Museum) in Berlin and taught at the Free University of Berlin.

In 1960 and 1961 he undertook field studies on the Ellice Islands (now Tuvalu ). He returned to the Ellice Islands in 1964, and then conducted research on the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati ). At the time these islands were under British administration as the "Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony". In 1966 he undertook field studies in the Pacific, visited the Gazelle Peninsula near Papua New Guinea ; Research stays on the Santa Cruz Islands and the Reef Islands of the Solomon Islands followed . In the 1970s, he conducted field research in the Indonesian province of Papua New Guinea, near the border with Papua New Guinea.

For his research, Koch developed techniques for recording culture, including the use of tape recorders and film cameras. The films created by Koch were included in the collections of the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica (EC), Göttingen and the Technical Information Library (TIB), Hanover in 1954 . Koch did not collect items that were indispensable for the residents. Important items that he brought to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin were the gable roof of a large men's house in the East Sepik Province and the last fully preserved Tepukei , a seaworthy outrigger boat .

Koch was deputy director of the Ethnological Museum Berlin for more than two decades. He was co-editor of the Baessler archive series Contributions to Ethnology, New Series , in which articles from the spectrum of social anthropology were published. In 1984 he received an honorary professorship at the Free University of Berlin. His last exhibition was boats from all over the world . He retired in 1985, but lectured until 1990.

Tepukei (seaworthy outrigger boat) from the Santa Cruz Islands brought into the collection of the Ethnological Museum Berlin by Gerd Koch .

legacy

Koch returned to Tuvalu and Tonga in 1996, where he met islanders who had been children when he visited the islands in the 1960s. In retirement he continued to write and publish on ethnological topics. Gerd Koch died on April 19, 2005 off the coast of Newfoundland when he was taking a boat to New York.

Based on his field research, Koch produced 121 documentaries. The Ethnological Museum Berlin also preserves around 12,000 photos and an extensive collection of tapes from Koch's estate.

He designed the Pacific permanent exhibition in the Ethnological Museum Berlin. It was opened in 1970 and has existed in this form for over 30 years. It covered 3000 m². The 17 m high exhibition room also made it possible to display large outrigger boats with erected masts. These exhibits will be shown in the exhibition rooms there after the completion of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin-Mitte (the opening is planned for [out of date] 2020).

Gerd Koch's geographic research and collection areas only gained state independence from the United Kingdom at the end of the 1970s (Kiribati on July 12, 1979, Tuvalu on October 1, 1978, Santa Cruz Islands on July 7, 1978). The collection activity took place during their colonial times. As part of the decendent debate, the Ethnological Museum begins to research the origin of its collections and to assess possible restitution claims . This investigation is still pending for the collections compiled by Koch.

The second important collection location, Gerd Koch's film archive at the Georg-August University in Göttingen , does not participate in the trend research on the South Sea exhibits. The cinematic legacy of Koch is archived purely for conservation purposes. However, the Institute for Ethnology and Ethnological Collection at the Georg-August University in Göttingen held film workshops on the Gilbert Islands in 2010 and 2011, in which the residents, descendants and others affected by the cultural change. a. of the actors from Koch's ethnographic films, these were shown and thus gained insights into the representation of the culture of their ancestors.

Kiribati, whose inhabitants live on 33 coral atolls, is severely affected by the rise in sea levels as a result of climate change . A cultural change takes place through resettlement and emigration, so that the Koch collections in Berlin and Göttingen become the archive of a disappearing cultural region.

Fonts

  • South seas. Yesterday and today: The cultural change among the Tongans and the attempt to interpret this development. 1955
    • English edition: Pacific in yesterday and to-day: acculturation with the Tongans and an attempt at an interpretation of this development. PE Klarwill, Wellington, NZ 1958.
  • The material culture of the Ellice Islands. Museum of Ethnology, Berlin 1961.
    • English edition: The Material Culture of Tuvalu. University of the South Pacific, Suva 1981. (Translator: Guy Slatter).
  • The material culture of the Gilbert Islands. Nonouti, Tabiteuea, Onotoa. Museum of Ethnology, Berlin 1965.
    • English edition: The Material Culture of Kiribati. University of the South Pacific, Suva 1986. (Translator: Guy Slatter).
  • Abelam culture. The Berlin "Maprik" collection.
  • The Material Culture of the Santa Cruz Islands. With special attention to the reef islands. Museum of Ethnology, Berlin 1971.
  • Iniet. Ghosts in stone: the Berlin Iniet figure collection. Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin 1982. (Also in English: Iniet: Spirits in stone: Iniet figures in the Berlin Collection from New Britain, PNG ).
  • Malingdam. Ethnographic notes on an area of ​​settlement in the Upper Eipomek Valley, central mountainous region of Irian Jaya (Western New Guinea), Indonesia. (= People, culture and the environment in the Central Mountains of West New Guinea ; 15).
  • Songs of Tuvalu. Translated by Guy Slatter, Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 2000.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Laura Corlew: The cultural impacts of climate change: sense of place and sense of community in Tuvalu, a country threatened by sea level rise. Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2012. (PDF; accessed March 22, 2017).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Marion Melk-Koch: Short portrait: Gerd Koch. Interviews with German anthropologists: The History of Federal German Anthropology post 1945. December 20, 2012. Accessed March 22, 2017.
  3. ↑ South Seas. Yesterday and today: The cultural change among the Tongans and the attempt to interpret this development. Limbach, Braunschweig 1955.
  4. ↑ Gerd Koch: Possibilities and limitations of ethnographic film work. In: Vision , Volume 10, 1972, pp. 28-33.
  5. ↑ IMF Knowledge and Media. Film Archives Online. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
  6. ^ National Museums in Berlin: Ocean-going sailing boat with boom, Ident. No. VI 48850 a. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
  7. ↑ Barbara Üem: Witnesses to Memory in Tuvalu. On the trail of Gerd Koch's films and publications. In: Baessler-Archiv , Volume XLV, 1997, pp. 103-114.
  8. ↑ 70 silent films by Gerd Koch from the Gilbert Islands. University of Göttingen. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
  9. ↑ https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/public+screening+of+gerd+koch%27s+films+in+kiribati/304849.html
  10. ↑ Storms and floods are already driving millions away . Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 29, 2017
  11. ↑ Review: PE Klarwill: The Material Culture of the Ellice Islands by Gerd Koch. In: The Journal of the Polynesian Society , Vol. 71, No. 3 (September, 1962), pp. 356-357.
  12. ↑ Review: Hans Fischer : The material culture of the Ellice Islands by Gerd Koch. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie , Vol. 87, H. 2 (1962), pp. 308-309. ( JSTOR 25840831 ).
  13. ↑ Review: Herbert Tischner : Material Culture of the Gilbert Islands. Nonouti, Tabiteuea, Onotoa. New episode 6, Department South Seas III by Gerd Koch. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie , Vol. 92, H. 2 (1967), pp. 308-309. ( JSTOR 25841127 ).
  14. ↑ Review: Bernd Lambert : The Material Culture of Kiribati by Gerd Koch, Guy Slatter. In: The Journal of the Polynesian Society , Vol. 98, No. 2 (June 1989), pp. 227-229.
  15. ↑ Review: Georg Höltker: Kultur der Abelam. The Berlin "Maprik" collection by Gerd Koch. In: Anthropos , Vol. 63/64, H. 3./4. (1968/1969), pp. 614-615 ( JSTOR 40457174 ).
  16. ↑ Review: Georg Höltker : Material Culture of the Santa Cruz Islands. With special consideration of the reef islands by Gerd Koch. In: Anthropos , Vol. 67, H. 1./2. (1972) pp. 316-317 ( JSTOR 40458055 ).
personal data
SURNAME Koch, Gerd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cultural anthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 2005
Place of death off Newfoundland