Human zoo

A group of Igorot displayed during the St. Louis World's Fair[1][2]
Natives of Tierra del Fuego, brought to the Paris World's Fair by the Maître in 1889

Human zoos, also known as ethnological expositions, were public displays of people, usually in a so-called "natural" or "primitive" state.[3] They were most prominent during the 19th and 20th centuries.[3] These displays sometimes emphasized the supposed inferiority of the exhibits' culture, and implied the superiority of "Western society", through tropes that purported marginalized groups as "savage".[4][5] They then developed into independent displays emphasizing the exhibits' inferiority to western culture and providing further justification for their subjugation.[6] Such displays featured in multiple colonial exhibitions and at temporary exhibitions in animal zoos.[7]

  1. ^ Zwick, Jim (4 March 1996). "Remembering St. Louis, 1904: A World on Display and Bontoc Eulogy". Syracuse University. Archived from the original on 10 June 2007. Retrieved 25 May 2007.
  2. ^ Love, Robertus (May 1904). "Filipino School at World's Fair". The School News and Practical Educator. Archived from the original on 27 October 2021. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  3. ^ a b "The True Story of the Mindanaoan Slave Whose Skin Was Displayed at Oxford". Esquiremag.ph. Archived from the original on 4 November 2017. Retrieved 7 August 2020.
  4. ^ Abbattista, Guido; Iannuzzi, Giulia (2016). "World Expositions as Time Machines: Two Views of the Visual Construction of Time between Anthropology and Futurama". World History Connected. 13 (3). Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
  5. ^ McLean, Ian (2009–2012). "Reinventing the Savage". Third Text. 26 (5): 599–613. doi:10.1080/09528822.2012.712769. ISSN 0952-8822. S2CID 143936550. Archived from the original on 7 April 2015. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  6. ^ Lewis, Barry; Jurmain, Robert; Kilgore, Lynn (2008). Cengage Advantage Books: Understanding Humans: An Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Archaeology. Cengage Learning. p. 172. ISBN 978-0495604747.
  7. ^ "Colonial Exhibitions, 'Völkerschauen' and the Display of the 'Other'". EGO (in German). Archived from the original on 15 November 2020. Retrieved 14 November 2020.