Ethnographic Showcases, 1870-1930

“Who will not admire the advances of this century?” (Eça de Queirós, Civilização)

“…In 1878 was organized, simultaneously with the Paris Exhibition, a congress on literary property, presided over by Victor Hugo, which resulted in the creation, in 1881, of the Berne International Union for the protection of literary and artistic works. These congresses gave visibility to the world of science and stimulated the appearance of emerging sciences (Rasmussen, 1989: 23-44) such as statistics and anthropology (Benedict, 1983;Corbey, 1993).…”

Staging/caging 'otherness' in the postcolony: spectres of the human zoo

“…That the human zoos were a mass medium is indicated by the fact that hundreds of millions of Europeans and Americans visited the world fairs at which human zoos were a standard component of entertainment and exhibition. The human zoo enjoyed considerable scientific legitimation, not least because it was often the direct focus of scientific research such as language sampling or anthropometric research (Corbey 1993;Couttenier 2005). Finally, the extremely popular mass edutainment of the human zoo laid the basis for a hegemonic narrative of modernity which understood the wonders of technological progress, industrial production and mass consumption in terms of the rapidly developing nation-state and its imperial or colonial aspirations and projects (Blanchard, Bancel and Boëtsch et al 2008;Lemaire, Abbattista and Labanca et al 2011).…”

“…From this shift emerges a type of ethnographer who strongly resembles 'the artist as ethnographer', whom Foster seems to be looking for. In the second section, we revisit the heydays of colonial anthropology and examine a format of cultural representation variously known as 'human zoos' (Bancel, Blanchard, Boëtsch et al 2002), 'black villages' (Bergougniou, Clignet and David 2001) or 'human showcases' (Corbey 1993). 2 Anthropology's involvement in human zoos ranges from 1) offering elements of the conceptual framework (of 'social and cultural evolutionism') for its invention in the course of the 19 th century, over 2) legitimising its existence by recognising it as a site of scientific research (observations, language sampling), to, more recently, 3) becoming its analyst and often fierce critic.…”

The Pan-African Nation: Oil-Money and the Spectacle of Culture in Nigeria

“…Moreover, the epistemological division of labor, represented by the five working groups ranging from the arts to the sciences, echoed Western imperial themes of social evolution and progress. When speakers deviated from Festac's developmental agenda, the heroic narrative of Africa's ascent to modernity restored the official story (see Corbey 1993).…”