Sonia Tesfaye Abebe is a social researcher trained in socio-anthropological methods, working at the intersection of museum studies and postcolonial inquiry. Her work interrogates museum and art historical practices, with particular attention to African contexts, women’s histories, and the enduring structures of colonial epistemologies. Building on over a decade of experience in social research, including work with indigenous communities as well as engagement with post growth futures, she examines how alternative knowledge systems reshape understandings of heritage and memory. She is currently completing her thesis on artistic interventions that engage the Benin Bronzes at the Rautenstrauch Joest Museum.

Her current research interests focus on Rematriation as a relational and gendered practice of restoring knowledge, care, and custodianship to originating communities, particularly women as knowledge holders and cultural stewards. In this context, she mobilizes the concept of Matrimonies to foreground practices grounded in care, reciprocity, and continuity.

List of Publications:
• Nurturing Innovation: Weaving Containers with Care and Courage for Collective Change Post Growth Institute & Unearthodox (2025)
• Through the Walls of Silence: Building Sensory Narratives and Countering History in Cameron Rowland’s “Amt 451” in Frankfurt am Main Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) (2023)
• Echoes of History: Exploring the Significance of Restitution, Preservation, and the Enduring Legacies of Historical Artifacts through Performative Acts ResearchGate (2023)
• Reimagining Colonial Artifacts Through Performative Poetics ResearchGate (2023)
• Decolonizing Economics: African and Feminist Perspectives on Post-Growth Futures Post Growth Institute (2023)
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