Research

The Research Center for Material Culture (RCMC) is a flagship research institute within the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, Wereldmuseum Leiden, Wereldmuseum Berg en Dal (now closed) and Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, that serves as a focal point for research on ethnographic collections in the Netherlands. We foster interdisciplinary research, focused on our internationally renowned collections, which comprise over 376.000 objects and almost 1.000.000 photographs cataloguing the diversity of world cultures. Our research projects and programs address the historical and contemporary meanings of these collections, the national and global histories of which they are a part, and the contemporary societal questions around issues of heritage, cultural identity and belonging that these objects raise.

Our Research

The RCMC is committed to research at the highest academic standard, while promoting the widest possible accessibility to the knowledge we generate. We strive to be a vibrant hub within national and international networks of research partners, fostering research collaborations with individuals and institutions.

Please look at the below video to find out more about the vision and mission of the Research Center (director of the RCMC Wayne Modest talks about his ambitions)

• foster innovation and critical approaches to understanding, interpreting and displaying our collections, and ethnographic collections more generally;
• encourage the development of new strategies for their proper care and preservation;
• contribute to the development of state-of-the-art approaches to engaging various local and international audiences through collections-based research and programming.

Would you like to know more about the Research Center for Material Culture (RCMC)? Please visit the website.