The Digital “Space of Knowledge” and the Mobilization of Ethnicity: Reflecting on Digital Prospects of the St. Petersburg Kunstkamera

Abstract

Considering the digital extension of Kunstkamera as a “knowledge space”, I discuss the potential forms of knowledge and sociality that can be produced by digital media in an ethnographical museum and beside it. The Kunstkamera collections and archival documents can be integrated into a digital environment that would represent a museum object in the context of the history of its acquisition, description, exploration, and exhibition and thus bring to the surface tacit practices of ethnographic knowledge-making. The digital environment enhances working with source-communities and alternative forms of knowledge. Existing models of such work are based on the polyphony and openness typical of digital knowledge. When entering the digital world, a museum should take a certain stance towards political agendas into which its collections may be incorporated. Taking the case of the Dusunology page on Facebook, I show how the Kunstkamera collections gain their role in local ethnic projects of East Malaysia.