Webinar: Thinking Routines and Colonial Archives

Thinking Routines and Colonial Archives: Reading Representation and Silence

This webinar engages with a selection of archival sources from the Africa Museum in Tervuren that are not part of the museum’s public display. These documents and images provide insight into how colonial knowledge was produced through practices of classification, visual framing, and omission, shaping what becomes visible, sayable, or left in silence. At the same time, the webinar presents a series of activities (developed on Historiana) based on thinking routines applied directly to these sources.

Participants are guided through structured tasks that support close analysis, interpretation, and reflection, with attention to questions of voice, perspective, and absence. The aim is both to engage critically with the materials and to consider how similar activities can be adapted for classroom use when working with complex and sensitive historical sources.