ABSTRACT
The Ayoréode are a cross-border indigenous group living in the Chaco Boreal in Bolivia and Paraguay, whose (former) semi-nomadic way of life and history are marked by movement, both voluntary mobility and forced displacement. Since the mid-20th century, mission societies sedentarised most Ayoréode, and ethnologists interested in their “traditional culture” initiated research and collecting in mission villages. This article analyses the Ayoréode collection at the BASA Museum of the University of Bonn, created between 1955 and 2018, as a glocal place. It describes how the artefacts’ and collectors’ movements intermingle with those of individual and institutional actors involved in and beyond the collecting activities in (historical) contexts shaped by globally occurring endeavours like colonisation, Christianisation, and ethnographic research. It also addresses the recent threads tied by the authors’ engaging through researching, extending, and displaying the collection, which join the artefacts’ ongoing itineraries to new places, including the online portal for Collections from Colonial Contexts in Germany.
