Java Man and the politics of natural history
| Autor: | Caroline Drieënhuizen, Fenneke Sysling |
|---|---|
| Přispěvatelé: | RS-Research Program Value and Valuation of Culture (VVC-2021), Department of Cultural Studies |
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Cultural Studies
Linguistics and Language History Java Man biology natural history museums Anthropology media_common.quotation_subject Empire Biography Context (language use) SCIENCE Colonialism biology.organism_classification object biography Language and Linguistics INDONESIA Politics repatriation Traditional knowledge Social Sciences (miscellaneous) Repatriation media_common |
| Zdroj: | Drieënhuizen, C A & Sysling, F 2021, ' Java Man and the Politics of Natural History : An object biography ', Bijdragen tot de Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde, vol. 177, no. 2-3, pp. 290-311 . https://doi.org/10.1163/22134379-bja10012 Bijdragen tot de taal-, land-en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 177, 290-311. Brill Bijdragen tot de Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde, 177(2-3), 290-311. Brill Academic Publishers Bijdragen tot de taal-, land-en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia |
| ISSN: | 0006-2294 |
| DOI: | 10.1163/22134379-bja10012 |
| Popis: | Natural history museums have long escaped postcolonial or decolonial scrutiny; their specimens were and are usually presented as part of the natural world, containing only biological or geological information. However, their collections, like those of other museums, are rooted in colonial practices and thinking. In this article, we sketch a political and decolonial biography of ‘Java Man’, the fossilized remains of a Homo erectus specimen, housed in Naturalis, the Natural History Museum, in the Netherlands. We describe the context of Dutch colonialism and the role of indigenous knowledge and activity in the discovery of Java Man. We also follow Java Man to the Netherlands, where it became a contested specimen and part of a discussion about repatriation. This article argues that the fossils of Java Man and their meanings are products of ‘creolized’ knowledge systems produced by Empire and sites of competing national and disciplinary histories and identities. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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