Exhibiting Peoples at Natural History Museum

Rumi and I went to the Natural History Museum the other day. It was my third or fourth time going there but I always find new and interesting things. The exhibitions were as fun as usual.

I did not remember it but this time I noticed there were “African peoples” “Asian peoples” sections. It sounded alarming to me — how can you exhibit “peoples” without objectifying people like animals? I suspiciously stepped into the section of “African peoples,” and it was actually a pleasant surprise. There was an obvious effort to avoid exhibiting African tribes like total others. The focus of the exhibits was consciously ‘material,’ at least to my observation. For example, the costumes and body paintings, while they tend to represent “savage”-ness in so many traditional museums, tries to minimize the exposure of human manikins as much as possible, and gives an impression that it is the exhibit of their “culture,” not the people themselves, that we are supposed to consume.

This is the most “human” look in this corner:

What fascinated me even more was this description of women’s lives in the Pokot tribes:

“Women who formerly were rivals begin to find a new unity [after marriage] and gossip incessantly about their husbands. This is not done out of spite but because gossip, and the men’s fear of ridicule, is the woman’s major means of protection against abuse. When women work at their chores in company, or drink beer together, they also formulate a body of opinion that by its very unity influences the behavior of men. Women have no formal authority in Pokot life but can exercise considerable power.”

Is this Foucauldian? or James Scott’s “Weapon of the Weak”? I was excited to read this explanation, and became all curious of the politics and scholarship going into the narratives exhibited in this museum behind the scene.

By the way, the “Asian peoples” room was not as exciting as the African one. I don’t know if it was because I was too tired by the time I got there.