his research was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation as part of the research award for Sharon Macdonald’s Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, and was carried out at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) at the Department for European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. I also received financial support from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the International Scholarship Program Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in the form of an ‘Aires culturelles’ scholarship, all of which I acknowledge gratefully.Without the support of those who let me participate in their museum life this work would not exist. I thank all of those at the Ethnological Museum Berlin who shared their everyday jokes, thoughts, and reflections with me, and in particular Paola Ivanov, without whom none of what follows would have been possible. My gratitude for being made welcome at the Museum extends to the Museum’s and the Humboldt Lab Dahlem’s entire staff, but in particular to Jonathan Fine, Ulrike Folie, Silvia Gaetti, Boris Gliesmann, Peter Junge, Viola König, Ute Marxreiter, Caroline Nüser, Hendryk Ortlieb, Romuald Tchibizo, Hans-Joachim Radosuboff, Eva Ritz, Verena Rodatus, Andrea Scholz, Andrea Schubert, Angelika Tunis, Agnes Wegner, Anja Zenner. Mathias Alubafi and Romuald Tchibozo were also working in the Museum at the time, and I want to thank them for their research and gen-erous contribution to Object Biographies. Concerning my work at the Royal Museum for Central Africa, I would like to thank in particular Christine Bluard, Hein Vanhee, Bart Deputter, and Brigitte Cornet for letting me participate in the crafting of the museum’s permanent exhibition. I thank those who agreed to do interviews with me for sharing their experience and thoughts with me.