Overview
- The first in-depth history of scientific curiosity about the Australian Indigenous body
- Expands the understanding of the relations between exploration and collecting in spheres of European colonial ambition and metropolitan-based medico-scientific activities
- Reveals the ethical tensions and disruptive dangers of the scientific interest in Aboriginal remains and their treatment
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Pacific History (PASPH)
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Table of contents (14 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book draws on over twenty years’ investigation of scientific archives in Europe, Australia, and other former British settler colonies. It explains how and why skulls and other bodily structures of Indigenous Australians became the focus of scientific curiosity about the nature and origins of human diversity from the early years of colonisation in the late eighteenth century to Australia achieving nationhood at the turn of the twentieth century. The last thirty years have seen the world's indigenous peoples seek the return of their ancestors' bodily remains from museums and medical schools throughout the western world. Turnbull reveals how the remains of the continent's first inhabitants were collected during the long nineteenth century by the plundering of their traditional burial places. He also explores the question of whether museums also acquired the bones of men and women who were killed in Australian frontier regions by military, armed police and settlers.
Reviews
“Turnbull’s work is a rigorous and lively testimony to the significance of the history of science discipline for contemporary issues of indigeneity and postcoloniality. … Historians of science and collections, museum professionals, scientists, and activists concerned with repatriation will therefore find this book useful and valuable reading.” (Ricardo Roque, Isis, Vol. 111 (1), 2020)
“The strength of Turnbull’s book is the systematic way he works through the different processes of collecting. … Turnbull’s ground-breaking work reads as two separate books: one on the removal of the remains and the other on the return of remains. However, in both areas, Turnbull has made a significant contribution to both the study and practice.” (Gareth Knapman, History Australia, Vol. 16 (3), 2019)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Paul Turnbull is Professor of History and Digital Humanities at the University of Tasmania, Australia, and Honorary Professor in History at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is the author of numerous essays on Western biomedical interest in the indigenous peoples of Oceania and is co-editor of The Dead and Their Possessions: Repatriation in Principle, Policy and Practice (2004) and The Long Journey Home: the Meanings and Values of Repatriation (2010).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Science, Museums and Collecting the Indigenous Dead in Colonial Australia
Authors: Paul Turnbull
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Pacific History
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51874-9
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-51873-2Published: 11 January 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-84766-5Published: 04 June 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-51874-9Published: 29 November 2017
Series ISSN: 2947-924X
Series E-ISSN: 2947-9258
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 428
Number of Illustrations: 6 b/w illustrations
Topics: Australasian History, World History, Global and Transnational History, History of Science, Imperialism and Colonialism, Cultural History