{"id":19,"date":"2021-01-25T20:35:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T20:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/indigenousaustralia\/?page_id=19"},"modified":"2021-03-11T21:23:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T21:23:30","slug":"british-museum","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/indigenousaustralia\/museum-research\/british-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"British Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Anthropology and Collecting in Australia<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Professor Baldwin Spencer is credited for being the “father of Australian anthropology.” Together with Francis James Gillen, they traveled throughout Australia studying Indigenous Australians (1). He was originally trained as an evolutionary biologist (Darwinism) which still influenced his beliefs. Even though he was thought to be an advocate for Aboriginals, he still saw them as “dehumanized ‘survivals’ from an early stage of social development.” (2) His racist beliefs and problematic approaches to Anthropology have resulted in many items being attributed to him personally instead of the Aboriginal people\/ groups who created them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partially because of this issue, Baldwin Spencer is one of the most effective search terms we used. Searching his name yields ninety search results in the British Museum’s online collection. This means he has more objects attributed to him personally than any ethnic group in Australia. Of course, this is in part due to the breadth of his research, but considering he did not produce any of these objects it is a significant dynamic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sixty-five items appear when the terms “Baldwin Spencer” and “Northern Territory (Australia)” are used in the “Person\/Organization” and “Place” filters, respectively. These are the items listed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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