Making the Labour Visible Behind the Tendaguru Dinosaur Collection Through Wikidata

The German Tendaguru Expedition (GTE) (1909–1913) in present-day Tanzania involved the extraction of 225 tons of dinosaur fossils through labour under violent colonial conditions. Following the Majimaji Resistance (1905–1907), hundreds of men, women, and children from diverse African ethnic groups were coerced into this work. Yet, in the Tendaguru collection as well as the related archival material at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, most of their names and labour remain unrecorded. This research aims to integrate and interlink the identities and labour information that is available into Wikidata, thereby increasing the historical recognition, and access for descendant communities. Additionally, it highlights the challenges of fitting sensitive data as well as non-Western information into a predominantly Western framework. In doing so, the research reflects on the limitations of working with colonial archives through a data-driven approach, and urges for further critical engagement, especially focusing on the labour and land extraction that was perpetrated by the German state and its colonisers. It further highlights the emerging research opportunities that Wikidata could enable in recognising the nature of the labour, and the colonial conditions that shaped the kinds of work carried out during the GTE (1909–1913).