Annika Dörner

since March 2024
Research assistant in the project "Menschliche Überreste aus kolonialen Kontexten – Provenienzforschung in den anthropologischen Sammlungen der Universität Göttingen und im MARKK Hamburg" funded by the Deutschen Zentrum Kulturgutverluste

September 2022 – January 2023
Research associate in the third-party funded project Kartographien Afrikas und Asiens (1800-1945) funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research/BMBF. A digitisation project on the Perthes Gotha Collection (KarAfAs)

February 2019 – June 2023
Doctoral Fellow, EPPP Junior Research Training Group "Wissensgeschichte der Neuzeit", University of Erfurt

September 2018 – February 2019
Student assistant for the International Tracing Service, Bad Arolsen

July 2018 – August 2018
Research assistant at the University of Kassel

July 2017 – September 2018
Editor of the journal Historische Anthropologie

September 2016 – June 2017
Research associate and assistant to the Chair of Modern History (Prof. Dr Rebekka Habermas) at the Department of Medieval and Modern History Göttingen

February 2014 – August 2016
Student assistant at the chair of Prof. Dr Rebekka Habermas

October 2013 – June 2016
Master of Arts in History at the Georg-August-University Göttingen

October 2009 – October 2013
Bachelor of Arts in History and English Studies at the Georg-August-University Göttingen, 2011 Erasmus stay at the Royal Holloway University of London

Trading Animals / Animals that act. Animal-Human-Relations between the Horn of Africa, Germany and the World

Live elephants, giraffes, ostriches and dromedaries, baboons and donkey species unknown in Europe - the list of animals traded globally in the 19th century was long. In addition to the numerous animals, a wide variety of people were involved in this enterprise, which brought animals from the interior of Africa to European zoos or transported animals to other African regions to be used in colonial projects. German animal trader and trapper Josef Menges (1850-1910) was involved in this enterprise for more than thirty years, during which time he hunted, trapped, transported, and sold thousands of animals, large and small, live and dead.

This dissertation project explores the animal trade during the early 20th century, focusing on the interplay between colonial and economic forces and their influence on animal-human relationships. Employing a micro-historical approach, the study investigates the animal trade enterprise of Josef Menges as a case study. The research aims to analyze the functioning of the animal trade, the key actors involved, and the networks and practices that emerged from it. By examining these dynamics, the study sheds light on the reciprocal impact between concrete animal-human relations and the shaping of colonial power structures.

This project offers a unique perspective by emphasizing African viewpoints and incorporating African actors and their behaviors and rationales. By doing so, it broadens the scope to consider non-European perspectives and practices. This approach brings attention to the inherent power asymmetries in animal hunting and trapping, which were not always skewed exclusively in favor of Europeans. Additionally, the project focuses on the agency of animals themselves, highlighting individual animals, their specific actions, their involvement and contributions to the animal trade, as well as instances of resistance. Through this analysis, the project seeks to address the ambiguity in the project title: Animals are not only traded, they also act.

This project utilizes previously overlooked and unpublished sources, such as the travel diaries of Josef Menges and his correspondence with renowned animal trader and zoo director Carl Hagenbeck. These sources provide direct insights into the practices and actors involved in the animal trade, without editorial bias or omission of ruptures, conflicts, difficulties, or the agency of African actors and animals that were sick or resistant. The project incorporates theoretical and methodological contributions from Human-Animal Studies, expanding the concept of a history of entanglement within the framework of post-colonial studies to include the category of species. Consequently, the history of animal trafficking is approached as a complex, interconnected history, wherein not only the colonial metropolis and periphery, but also animals and humans, are analyzed on an equal analytical level.

By tackling the theoretical and methodological challenges posed by human-animal studies informed by post-colonial perspectives, this project offers a novel perspective that enriches the history of the Horn of Africa, the animal trade, and colonial history in general by incorporating an animal-historical lens.

• Human-Animal Studies
• Colonial History
• New Imperial History
• History of Knowledge
• Childhood/Youth
• Mission

Kamelgeschäfte. Carl Hagenbecks Verkauf von 2.000 Dromedaren an die deutsche Schutztruppe in Namibia, in: Tobias Mörike/Bettina Zorn (eds.), Auf dem Rücken der Kamele, Berlin 2024, pp. 59-72.

Auftritt: Löwe, Giraffe, Zebra und zwölf Jäger. Tiere auf Völkerschauen im 19. Jahrhundert, in: Themenportal Europäische Geschichte, 2023. open access

Review: Susanne Heyn, Kolonial bewegte Jugend. Beziehungsgeschichten zwischen Deutschland und Südwestafrika zur Zeit der Weimarer Republik, Bielefeld 2018, in: H-Soz-Kult, 11.06.2019. open access

"Von einer seltsamen Missionsreise“. Die poetics und politics einer Ausstellung,, in: Linda Ratschiller/Karolin Wetjen (eds.), Verflochtene Mission. Perspektiven auf eine neue Missionsgeschichte, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2018, pp. 141-162.

Camels for Kaiser: Mobilizing Hagenbecks Trading Network to sell 2000 Dromedaries to the German Colonial Army, held at the conference Colonial Dimensions of the Global Wildlife Trade in Göttingen from 28-29 November 2022.

The invisible labourers of zoology at the Horn of Africa, held at the Annual Meeting 2022 of the British Society for the History of Science, Belfast, 20-23 July 2022.

Capitalising on Gerry. Giraffes as lively commodities in the global animal trade around 1900, a case study, held at the 6th Swiss History Days, University of Geneva, 29 June - 1 July 2022.

Das Horn von Afrika als Möglichkeitsraum für den Handel mit Dromedaren trotz / durch koloniale Grenzen um 1900, held at the workshop "Territorialität, Materialität und Praktiken als Schnittstellen der Grenzforschung", Erfurt on 17 June 2022.

Trading Animals / Animals that act. Animal-Human- Relations between the Horn of Africa, Germany and the World, held at the Postgraduate Animal Studies Symposium (PASS), University of Glasgow and University of Strathclyde Glasgow (digital), 24-25 May 2021.

Josef Menges und seine Tiere. Eine globale Verflechtungsgeschichte von Mensch-Tier-Beziehungen, held at the colloquium of Cultural and Literary Animal Studies (CLAS) at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften of Goethe University, Bad Homburg from 03-05 September 2020.

Ferne Welten ganz nah. Kolonialausstellungen zwischen Metropole und Provinz, held as part of the Nordlichter conference in Göttingen from 17-18 May 2019

Abenteuer, Unterhaltung und Wissen aus Kolonie und Übersee. Das Koloniale in Lebenswelten von Kindern und Jugendlichen, 1910-1933, held at the workshop "Kindheitsgeschichte(n) - Grenzen mit- und überdenken" in Hildesheim from 25-26 January 2019.

Sammeln, ausstellen, anschauen. Dinge des Wissens, der Werbung und der Unterhaltung auf der völkerkundlichen Ausstellung der Rheinischen Mission, held at the workshop Wissensdinge in Gotha from 30 June to 1 July 2016.

„Von einer seltsamen Missionsreise“. Die völkerkundlichen Ausstellungen der Rheinischen Mission, held at the workshop "New Approaches to Mission History" in Fribourg (Switzerland) from 17-18 June 2016.