Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections: The Crisis of Cultural Authority

Tiffany Jenkins

ISBN 10: 0415879604 / ISBN 13: 9780415879606

Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2010

About this Item

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Seller Inventory # B9780415879606

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections: The Crisis of Cultural Authority
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415879604
• ISBN 13: 9780415879606
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 453 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Since the late 1970s human remains in museum collections have been subject to claims and controversies, such as demands for repatriation by indigenous groups who suffered under colonization. These requests have been strongly contested by scientists who research the material and consider it unique evidence.

This book charts the influences at play on the contestation over human remains and examines the construction of this problem from a cultural perspective. It shows that claims on dead bodies are not confined to once colonized groups. A group of British Pagans, Honouring the Ancient Dead, formed to make claims on skeletons from the British Isles, and ancient human remains, bog bodies and Egyptian mummies, which have not been requested by any group, have become the focus of campaigns initiated by members of the profession, at times removed from display in the name of respect.

By drawing on empirical research including extensive interviews with the claims-making groups, ethnographic work, document, media, and policy analysis, Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections demonstrates that strong internal influences do in fact exist. The only book to examine the construction of contestation over human remains from a sociological perspective, it advances an emerging area of academic research, setting the terms of debate, synthesizing disparate ideas, and making sense of a broader cultural focus on dead bodies in the contemporary period.

About the Author

Dr Tiffany Jenkins is arts and society director of the London based think-tank, the Institute of Ideas. She is a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and a member of the Working Group on Cultural Property and Heritage Law. She writes and comments for the national media on cultural matters.