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From the holdings of the Imaginary Archive for Colonial Science and Ethnography, Berlin
Archive reference: Rk/Mar-1924–28
Edited by: Institute for Ethnography and Remembrance, 2025
Status: Partial reconstruction from scattered journals and estate fragments

Status: Partial reconstruction from scattered journals and estate fragments
 

 I. Dr Heinrich Renk: 
“Preliminary Observations on the Geocultural Structures of the Maratongo Delta”

 Journal of Colonial Geography and Ethnology, Vol. 12 (1927), pp. 201–213. 

“The delta, it seems to me, is not merely the object of observation – it observes in return.”

In his 1927 report, Dr Heinrich Renk describes for the first time the so-called system of fluid 
cartography. His writing strikes a tone at once introspective and poetic – a mode of expression 
that found little space within the scientific publication practices of the time.
Already in the year of its appearance, internal memoranda circulated within the Institutes for 
Colonial Research describing Renk’s approach as “methodologically unorthodox” and “of limited 
administrative utility.”

Excerpt (p. 209):
“The lines we draw – upon maps as in thought – are as brittle as the river’s own sandbanks.”
(Marginal note in pencil, presumably by Dr Otto Wehmer: “Absurd relativism. A map is not a metaphor.”)



II. Dr Otto Wehmer: “On the Questionable Methods of Dr Heinrich Renk in the Maratongo Delta”

Journal of Colonial Geography and Ethnology, Vol. 12 (1928), pp. 51–57.

“If every waterway is ‘open to interpretation’, how then can any reliable order be established?”

In this sharply worded rejoinder, the Leipzig geographer Dr Otto Wehmer attacks his colleague Renk 
head-on. The text is regarded as a prime example of the defensive mindset of late colonial science: 
objectivity equated with authority, and doubt interpreted as a moral failing.
Wehmer’s article was received “favourably” by the scientific advisory board and cited repeatedly 
in administrative circles.

Excerpt (p. 54):
“Renk embodies a dangerous tendency of our time: the turning inward, the questioning of one’s own 
right to knowledge. Should this doubt persist, the entire edifice of colonial knowledge will collapse 
beneath the weight of its own conscience.”

(Typewritten note on the archive copy: “This sentence was omitted in the English translation 
(Colonial Review, 1929).”)



III. Dr Heinrich Renk: “Response to the Critique of Dr Wehmer”

Journal of Colonial Geography and Ethnology, Vol. 13 (1928), pp. 233–237.

“I owe science honesty, not obedience.”
Renk replies with remarkable composure. His rejoinder appears only once in print – thereafter his 
name gradually disappears from the colonial yearbooks.
A correspondence with the ethnologist Elise Marquart, documented in 1934, suggests that his “attitude 
had become unwelcome within the Institute.”
Whether he truly withdrew from public life in the 1940s remains uncertain.

Excerpt (p. 235):
“If science is deemed valuable only when it grants power, it will inevitably become an instrument 
of domination. I fear we have too long believed that knowledge and control are one and the same.”

(Marginal remark in blue ink, presumably by Marquart: “He is right. But no one will dare to print it.”)


Postscript (Editorial Comment, 2025)
Renk’s writings are now seen as early—if unintended—testimonies to an emerging self-critique within 
colonial modes of knowledge. Between his lines, one senses the struggle of a scholar who still believes 
in science, yet begins to discern its violence.
Wehmer’s response, in turn, is not mere hostility but symptomatic: the reflex of an age that regarded 
any pause for reflection as perilous.


Editorial Note:
Fragments of the original articles are preserved within the imaginary collection 
“Renk Estate / Map-Delta / Map VIII.”
Last known reference: Camp Maratongo, Notebook IV, Map 6a, “Maps Without North” 
(unpublished).