Decolonising knowledge in Switzerland 2024-2025

Decolonising knowledge in Switzerland 2024-2025 aims at involving Swiss GLAMs, researchers, existing networks and volunteers in making open content available on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects, and engaging communities in improving articles and data.

The project contributes to Wikimedia CH program GLAM with a specific focus on decolonising knowledge. The project makes the relevant steps to prepare and launch decolonising knowledge in Switzerland and facilitate further activities (training, GLAM Wiki collaborations with institutions, communication and involvement of more diverse communities). In 2024-2025 the project is supported by Wikimedia CH.

Infodata

Name of the project: Decolonising knowledge in Switzerland 2024-2025
Amount requested: 15'000 chf; 5'000 chf for 2024 and 10'000 chf for 2025.
Type of grantee: Individual / Organisation
Name of the contact: Iolanda Pensa - iopensa
Contact: iolanda.pensa supsi.ch

The problem and the context

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

A Western perspective strongly limits knowledge. Also in Switzerland, GLAMs are starting to document and communicate more and more strongly the necessity of multiplying perspectives, analysing how knowledge is represented and disseminated in collections, events and exhibitions, acknowledging and correcting biases and misrepresentations, and engaging a wider number of communities in redesigning cultural institutions and their approaches. This attention to decolonising knowledge and communities is strongly related to the necessity for GLAMs to be at the service of society, open, accessible, inclusive and capable of fostering diversity and operating and communicating ethically, with the participation of communities (as explicitly requested in the new definition of museums by ICOM in 2022 https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/).

What is your solution to this problem (please explain the context and the solution)?

By identifying existing collections, exhibitions and sources, this project focuses on the issue of decolonising knowledge in Switzerland. It involves GLAMs, researchers, existing networks and volunteers and it supports them in making content available and engaging communities.

The project takes a series of exhibitions about colonial history, colonisation, restitution and migration as a starting point to drive attention to the importance of connecting those initiatives to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia project and start a larger strategy.

Location	Museum	Exhibition	Until	Link
Neuchâtel	CAN Centre d’art Neuchâtel	Spatial Convers(i)or	10.11.2024	https://can.ch/en/project/spatial_conversior/
Neuchâtel	Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel	Cargo Cults Unlimited	31.12.2024	https://www.men.ch/fr/expositions/cargo-cults-unlimited
Geneva	Musée d'ethnographie de Genève MEG	Remembering. Geneva in the Colonial World	05.01.2025	https://www.meg.ch/en/expositions/remembering
Zurich	Landesmuseum Zurich	colonial – Switzerland’s Global Entanglements	19.01.2025	https://www.landesmuseum.ch/colonial
Zurich	Museum Rietberg	In Dialogue with Benin. Art, Colonialism and Restitution	16.02.2025	https://rietberg.ch/en/exhibitions/indialoguewithbenin
Bern	Bernisches Historisches Museum	Resistances. On Dealing with Racism in Bern	01.06.2025	https://www.bhm.ch/en/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/resistances
Zurich	ETH Zurich	Colonial Traces - Collections in Context	13.07.2025	https://extract.ethz.ch/en/exhibition.html
Zurich	Ethnographic museum University of Zurich	Benin Dues. Dealing with Looted Royal Treasures	14.09.2025	https://www.musethno.uzh.ch/en/Exhibitions/benin-dues.html
Lucerne	Verkehrshaus / Hans Erni Museum	Kakao, Kunst und Kolonialismus. Die Schifffahrtssammlung Philipp Keller	07.06.2026	https://www.verkehrshaus.ch/besuchen/museum/hans-erni-museum/sonderausstellung.html

Project goals

The proposal contributes to Wikimedia CH program GLAM with a specific focus on decolonising knowledge. The project makes the relevant steps to prepare and launch decolonising knowledge in Switzerland and facilitate further activities (training, GLAM Wiki collaborations with institutions, communication and involvement of more diverse communities).


Specific goals
Identifying collections, exihibitons and source related to Swiss colonial history, provenance of Swiss collections, bias and representations within existing collections, migration and communities in Switzerland.
Engaging GLAMs, researchers, existing networks and volunteers on the topic of Decolonising knowledge in Switzerland.
Involving editors in contributing to knowledge gaps related to colonial history, provenance of Swiss collections, bias and representations within collections and exhibitions, migration and communities.

Project impact

How will you know if you have met your goals?

Specific goals	Output
Identifying sources related to Swiss colonial history, provenance of Swiss collections, underrepresented communities, bias and representations within existing collections, migration and communities in Switzerland	List of collections, exhibitions, events, sources, institutions, networks, researchers and topics. Data in CC0 and uploaded on Wikidata.
Engaging GLAMs, researchers, existing networks and volunteers on the topic of Decolonising knowledge in Switzerland.	List of contacts; number of networks and institutions contacted, number networks and institutions which expressed interest in the collaboration with the Wikimedia projects.
Involving editors in contributing to knowledge gaps related to colonial history, provenance of Swiss collections, bias and representations within collections and exhibitions, migration and communities	A series of 3 online conversations, two events, number of participants, and number of edited content.

Do you have any goals or metrics around participation or content?

3 online conversations: expected 10-15 participants each
2 events: expected 40 participants
Data about GLAMs, networks, researchers: expected a selection of 150
Contacts with selected GLAMs, networks, researchers: expected in this first initiative 15

Project plan

Activities

Preparatory research about Swiss relevant collections, exhibitions, event and topics
Research and contacts with Swiss related networks and communities
A series of 3 online conversations about decolonising knowledge
Events with presentations and edit-a-thons in two locations.

Budget

Working time is calculated with a flat rate of 600 chf per day.


Activities	Unit	Cost per unit	Cost
Preparatory research about Swiss relevant collections, exhibitions, event and topics	5	600 chf	3000 chf
Research and contacts with Swiss related networks and communities	11	600 chf	6600 chf
Two events			3500 chf

Coordination 15%			1965 chf
Total request to Wikimedia CH for the proposal 2024-2025			15,065 chf
Total request to Wikimedia CH for the proposal 2024-2025			15,000 chf

Community engagement

The project activates a selection of cultural institutions, professional, researchers and volunteers. The topics of decolonising knowledge, provenance, migration, care principals, underrepresented communities, biases and misrepresentations is an important entry point to engage new contributors and GLAMs in the Wikimedia project, by triggering a specific and very topical issue.