Commissioned research and / versus / or free fundamental basic research? Reflecting implications of dualistic and bipolar concepts

In the ivory tower, nothing is too small or obscure: When individual topics are not only permitted but required, scholarship morphs into personal self-realization. In general, open-ended explorations in the humanities feature a freedom from purpose; the pursuit of knowledge needs no justification. The political will behind provenance research, however, frames its inquiries as commissioned research, since the issues seem limited, in contrast to comprehensive fundamental research. Consequently, as epistemic practice, the focus on ownership changes is devaluated. This paper explores the extent to which provenance research—along with its examination of cultural heritage-based constructions of (collective) identity— can perform self-empowerment by claiming a heuristic dimension of its own: By empirically demonstrating how knowledge—as well as its conscious suppression—touches upon essential questions of human existence, a multivectorial transdisciplinary positioning takes shape.