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stalkerbunny(Note: crossposting failed yesterday.)
Today my museology class was visiting The Ethnographic Museum to discuss repatriation questions.*
There were four people working at the museum who gave short presentations on the subject to us first, then we walked around in the museum and later had a discussion. Now, one of the speakers kind of... made me a bit uncomfortable from the start because he spoke in this loud, sort of barky way and kept hitting his fist against the podium. But I dismissed it as irrelevant.
And then in the discussion the subject of (often unethically acquired) human remains and racial biology came up, and suddenly this aforementioned guy started foaming at the mouth over how the study of skull forms and using them to identify origins of people etc has "nothing to do with racism!" Um, WHAT?
So, I haven't been studying museology for long, and have even less expertise in biology or archaeology, but, while he might have been sort of right in that studying bones =/= racism, that was not even remotely what was discussed in the first place.
Which several people pointed out once they managed to get a word in edgewise to his rant about how it's unfair to paint an entire field of science as racist (whatever that was actually supposed to be in his mind, osteology?). The discussion was indeed about scientific racism in times when it was considered a valid science (ick). And THAT was most definitely deeply connected to to racist ideology.
Furthermore, another older male intendant then chimed in to say something about how earlier Swedish scientists who developed the field just observed differences neutrally without the classifying to lower and higher "races" later connected to the theories...
Aaaand I'm kind of wondering who he had in mind? I do know that Anders Retzius (1796-1860) believed in the theory of different races of humans and developed an effective way to measure skulls, and his son Gustaf Retzius is named by wikipedia as "one of the fathers of the pseudoscientific race theory, "scientific racism", and one of those who tried to glorify the "Nordic race" as the highest race of mankind." So what was that again about the Swedish scientists not being racists?
Ok, so from what I've understood from the various texts we've read, the racist ideas got progressively worse in the course of 1900s... but I also doubt the idea of so called levels of development wasn't there from the beginning along with categorization (in the vein of Darwinism etc).
Also, later on we were discussing a case where a remains of Australian Aborigines that were "collected" by Eric Mjöberg, a seemingly all around unpleasant character, were returned to be buried in 2004. In the course of the return, the group coming to escort the bones held a purifying smoke ritual at the museum. Which That guy then decided to use as startiong point for grumbling about how museums are being pulled into the world of ritual and how that could undermine the scientific standpoint they should perhaps uphold.
Well, possibly, but on the other hand it could also be argued that it can be worthwhile to show different interpretations of museum objects without defining one as "lesser". Especially considering the (still continuing?) history of wrongs and condescending attitudes towards minority groups/cultures done in the name of science, by museums among other actors.
Which, the Ethnographic Museum (imo) actually has good examples of, for example I noted the way they've displayed a number of nkisi (African ritual statue) with each shown with a different possible way to interpret it (As an object with power, from a religion history pov, art object...etc). And none of them is explicitly classified as the one accurate interpretation.
So, while it seems the Ethnographic Museum as an institution has some admirable goals I'm... kind of side-eyeing these people they employ.
*This is a Swedish museum presenting world cultures, which approaches repatriation (returning objects to their country/people of origin) on a case to case basis. Unlike say, the British Museum, who have a policy of never giving back anything, presumably because if they started giving back thing acquired in a more or less immoral way they'd have nothing left. Ok, to be fair it's not necessarily that simple.
Today my museology class was visiting The Ethnographic Museum to discuss repatriation questions.*
There were four people working at the museum who gave short presentations on the subject to us first, then we walked around in the museum and later had a discussion. Now, one of the speakers kind of... made me a bit uncomfortable from the start because he spoke in this loud, sort of barky way and kept hitting his fist against the podium. But I dismissed it as irrelevant.
And then in the discussion the subject of (often unethically acquired) human remains and racial biology came up, and suddenly this aforementioned guy started foaming at the mouth over how the study of skull forms and using them to identify origins of people etc has "nothing to do with racism!" Um, WHAT?
So, I haven't been studying museology for long, and have even less expertise in biology or archaeology, but, while he might have been sort of right in that studying bones =/= racism, that was not even remotely what was discussed in the first place.
Which several people pointed out once they managed to get a word in edgewise to his rant about how it's unfair to paint an entire field of science as racist (whatever that was actually supposed to be in his mind, osteology?). The discussion was indeed about scientific racism in times when it was considered a valid science (ick). And THAT was most definitely deeply connected to to racist ideology.
Furthermore, another older male intendant then chimed in to say something about how earlier Swedish scientists who developed the field just observed differences neutrally without the classifying to lower and higher "races" later connected to the theories...
Aaaand I'm kind of wondering who he had in mind? I do know that Anders Retzius (1796-1860) believed in the theory of different races of humans and developed an effective way to measure skulls, and his son Gustaf Retzius is named by wikipedia as "one of the fathers of the pseudoscientific race theory, "scientific racism", and one of those who tried to glorify the "Nordic race" as the highest race of mankind." So what was that again about the Swedish scientists not being racists?
Ok, so from what I've understood from the various texts we've read, the racist ideas got progressively worse in the course of 1900s... but I also doubt the idea of so called levels of development wasn't there from the beginning along with categorization (in the vein of Darwinism etc).
Also, later on we were discussing a case where a remains of Australian Aborigines that were "collected" by Eric Mjöberg, a seemingly all around unpleasant character, were returned to be buried in 2004. In the course of the return, the group coming to escort the bones held a purifying smoke ritual at the museum. Which That guy then decided to use as startiong point for grumbling about how museums are being pulled into the world of ritual and how that could undermine the scientific standpoint they should perhaps uphold.
Well, possibly, but on the other hand it could also be argued that it can be worthwhile to show different interpretations of museum objects without defining one as "lesser". Especially considering the (still continuing?) history of wrongs and condescending attitudes towards minority groups/cultures done in the name of science, by museums among other actors.
Which, the Ethnographic Museum (imo) actually has good examples of, for example I noted the way they've displayed a number of nkisi (African ritual statue) with each shown with a different possible way to interpret it (As an object with power, from a religion history pov, art object...etc). And none of them is explicitly classified as the one accurate interpretation.
So, while it seems the Ethnographic Museum as an institution has some admirable goals I'm... kind of side-eyeing these people they employ.
*This is a Swedish museum presenting world cultures, which approaches repatriation (returning objects to their country/people of origin) on a case to case basis. Unlike say, the British Museum, who have a policy of never giving back anything, presumably because if they started giving back thing acquired in a more or less immoral way they'd have nothing left. Ok, to be fair it's not necessarily that simple.
