“Slaves, once sold as chattel, can become gradually humanized, personified, and reenchanted by the investiture of humanity.” – Arjun Appadurai
Appadurai first introduced the idea that the distinctions between persons and things oscillate and undulate throughout various temporal spaces in 1986 in a collection of essays titled The Social Life of Things. This idea, mentioned in passing in my previous blog post, dissolves the perceived binaries between commodity and singularity; person or thing.
Take for instance, the ethnographic museum’s relationship with indigenous peoples. Over time, the social trajectory of these peoples has shifted from being ethnographic material to source communities, as we call them today.
However, this discourse is not on the question of whether indigenous persons and human remains should be objects of entertainment or education in a museum. That question has already been answered with a clear and resounding “NO.” This discourse is on whether animals should be objects of entertainment or education in a natural history museum. This question tries to look for a similar negative affirmation that society can work towards for a distant temporal future.
As a caveat: this argument is in no way attempting to reduce indigenous peoples to the cheap commodity level society currently attributes to animals. Rather, my argument attempts to raise animals to the level of singularity enjoyed by humans. Obviously and most importantly, colonial institutions needs to first engage every available mind and dollar to foster reconciliation with Inuit, First Nations, and Metis peoples living on the land our settler society today calls Canada.
Observing the Museum of Nature in Ottawa as a critical museum visitor, as described and theorized by Lindauer, I found myself repeatedly examining the relationship between human curator, human visitor, and animal body and comparing it to the relationships of recent past between white curator, white visitor, and minority body or image.
The taxidermied and live animal displays, or as the museum calls them, live specimens are presented and received as indisputable fact. There were no obvious counterpoint discussions that explained the supposed ‘welfare’ or ‘ideal treatment’ of the encased animals.
A director of content for the museum discussed the evolving relationship between human and nature as one of the key focal points to integrate into the visitor experience, in accordance to evolving museum theory and societal norms. Humans as nature, she said. Nature as value — and not the sense of economic value, but that nature in itself has value. From my perspective this statement was a stark contradiction of the blissfully ignorant museum displays.
Lindauer, Margaret. “The critical museum visitor.” New museum theory and practice: An introduction (2006): 201-225.
Jenn Leah Ko 