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

Living elephants, giraffes, ostriches, and camels, baboons, and donkeys unknown in Europe – the list of animals traded globally in the 19th century was extensive. Besides the numerous animals, various individuals were involved in this enterprise, bringing animals from interior Africa to European zoos or transporting animals to other African regions for use in colonial projects. German animal trader and catcher Josef Menges (1850–1910) was engaged in this business for more than thirty years, hunting, capturing, transporting, and selling thousands of large and small, living and dead animals during this period.

The dissertation project focuses on the animal trade around 1900. Its aim is to examine, through a microhistorical approach to the animal trading enterprise of Josef Menges, how colonial and economic logics structured and influenced human-animal relationships. Additionally, it explores how these specific human-animal relationships had an impact on the configuration of colonial power structures. The project investigates how the animal trade operated, who was involved, and what networks and practices emerged from it.

The project places a special emphasis on African perspectives, identifying specific African actors and their actions and logics. This approach allows for the examination of non-European human-animal relationships and practices, bringing attention to the asymmetrical power dynamics, especially during animal hunting and trapping, which were not always exclusively in favor of Europeans. Another focus is on the animals themselves – individual animals, specific actions by animals, cooperation, the contribution of animals to the animal trade, as well as their resistance.

Drawing on previously unpublished and overlooked sources such as the travel diaries of Josef Menges and the correspondence between Menges and the renowned animal trader and zoo director Carl Hagenbeck, the project provides a direct insight into the practices and actors involved in the animal trade. Theoretical and methodological inspiration is derived from the field of Human-Animal Studies, particularly incorporating the concept of a history of entanglements developed within post-colonial studies. This expands the understanding of the history of the animal trade as a doubly entangled narrative, where not only the colonial metropolis and periphery but also animals and humans are examined on an analytical level.

Informed by post-colonial studies, the project addresses the theoretical and methodological challenges of Human-Animal Studies. It aims to enrich the history of the Horn of Africa, the animal trade, and contemporary colonial history with an animal historical perspective.

• 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.

Summer semester 2024
Seminar: Diversity vor Ort trifft Stadtlabor 2.0 – Wege zur kolonialkritischen Stadt, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Institute for Diversity Research

Winter semester 2016/17
Proseminar: Deutsche Kolonialgeschichte (with excursion to the special exhibition "Heikles Erbe" at the Landesmuseum Hannover), Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Chair of Modern History

Winter semester 2016/17
Workshop on the topic of "Genocide" in cooperation with Prof Dr Martin Tamcke and the regional group of the Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV)