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Reversing the de- realization of natural and social phenomena: Ethical issues for museums in a multidisciplinary context
| Content Provider | Scilit |
|---|---|
| Copyright Year | 2016 |
| Abstract | From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Europe's cabinets of natural history collected and preserved all of nature's mineral and living resources together, and considered human beings part of their collections – not only in terms of their anatomy, but also including any of their technical and cultural achievements outside of the fine arts. While these cabinets gradually came to be called 'natural history museums' over the course of the eighteenth century, they continued to combine the study of nature and man. In addition to collecting and describing natural species, they also found themselves at the heart of research and collections concerning the origin of humankind, with the creation of the disciplines of archaeology and human palaeontology. At the same time, the natural history cabinets also participated in the great explorations that preceded and later accompanied European colonialism. They became enriched with a multitude of new species for scientific research and a wealth of evidence documenting the diversity of human societies. In addition to their nature-detailing collections, natural history museums preserved and promoted collections of prehistoric and ethnological artefacts for several centuries, and some even continue to do so today. Historically, the family of natural history museums was at the heart of the development of science in Europe and contributed, in the nineteenth century, to the understanding of the dynamic phenomena that have led to permanent changes in the living world and human societies, both of which had previously been perceived in Western thinking as unchanging for nearly 2000 years. An analysis of an increasingly extensive collection of objects gathered from every continent and every ocean contributed to the abandoning of creationist ideas and the emergence of the theoryof evolution. In Philosophie Zoologique (1809), Lamarck described how natural history museums and their collections had contributed to this new scientific concept. He wrote that the idea that plant and animal species do not evolve 'is refuted every day in the eyes' of those 'who have successfully consulted the great and rich collections of our museums' (Lamarck 1809: 54-55). While these museums contributed to the development of new disciplines such as palaeontology, anthropology, ethnology, and others, they also encouraged the division between the natural and human sciences. This division reflects both the specialization of the different disciplines and the long-standing ambiguity of the relationship between mankind and nature, in which man gradually came to see himself as separate from – and in part superior to – the natural world. The intensive specialization of scientific disciplines led to a new organization of collections, and was coupled with the development of most of the new disciplines that emerged both outside of museums and in competition with them. This was the case, for example, in the second half of the nineteenth century, when physiology emerged out of the natural sciences; and, later, when social anthropology grew out of the human sciences. In some cases, when certain museums were renovated, their existing collections were reorganized and divided. This was the case, for example, at the British Museum in London in the late nineteenth century, when natural history collections were placed in a location separate from the original museum, which meanwhile retained the collections related to the history of humanity and its artistic achievements. Collections generally became more specialized during the gathering and sorting phases. This is what happened in Paris, for example, after certain archaeological digs in the early nineteenth century. Among the objects brought back from Egypt, sarcophagi were kept at the Louvre, while dozens of human and animal mummies were sent to the National Museum of Natural History – with the scientific community's disciplinary approach, and increasing compartmentalization of research, having the effect of breaking up the cohesiveness of an entire collection. In the only exception to the extreme specialization of collections, some museum exhibitions (or displays) did pursue a multidisciplinary approach. However, it was not until the late twentieth century that some researchers began to move beyond related disciplines to combine the points of view of the human and natural sciences, generally in exhibitions on subjects such as the environment or the definition of humanity. Collections were sometimes classified more as a means to highlight a certain scientific discipline, rather than to provide an interconnecting analysis of the natural and cultural information they contain. In 1948, writing about the Musée de l'Homme, which he founded, Paul Rivet stated that such divisions hinder our understanding of mankind and humanity. |
| Related Links | https://api.taylorfrancis.com/content/chapters/edit/download?identifierName=doi&identifierValue=10.4324/9781315560151-15&type=chapterpdf |
| Ending Page | 92 |
| Page Count | 10 |
| Starting Page | 83 |
| DOI | 10.4324/9781315560151-15 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited |
| Publisher Date | 2016-07-07 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Book Name: Museums, Ethics and Cultural Heritage History and Philosophy of Science History Collected Natural History Collections Natural History Museums Multidisciplinary Scientific Discipline Nineteenth Century |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Chapter |
