Entangled entitlements and Shuar tsantsa (shrunken heads)

The chapter discusses the reasons for, and public reactions to, the taking off display of 120 human remains in the Summer of 2020 at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. One side of “Treatment of Dead Enemies” case-displays included a supposedly “iconic” display of the Shuar shrunken heads or tsantsa,...

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Main Author: Van Broekhoven, LNK
Other Authors: Biers, T
Format: Book section
Language:English
Published: Routledge 2023
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author Van Broekhoven, LNK
author2 Biers, T
author_facet Biers, T
Van Broekhoven, LNK
author_sort Van Broekhoven, LNK
collection OXFORD
description The chapter discusses the reasons for, and public reactions to, the taking off display of 120 human remains in the Summer of 2020 at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. One side of “Treatment of Dead Enemies” case-displays included a supposedly “iconic” display of the Shuar shrunken heads or tsantsa, that anecdotally was the Museum's number one attraction. The removal caused both public outcry and wide-felt relief. Newly installed interpretation replaced the original case display, to allow visitors to consider the problematic past academic practices of physical anthropology, its relationship to race science and how those are linked to racist ideas about superiority and inferiority that shape our present today. The chapter discusses what tsantsa are, why they ended up in the European imagination and tries to understand some of the reactions of press and public to the changes.
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spelling oxford-uuid:987a160f-4049-4dee-97b8-6e6ef407fb402023-10-24T12:22:10ZEntangled entitlements and Shuar tsantsa (shrunken heads)Book sectionhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_1843uuid:987a160f-4049-4dee-97b8-6e6ef407fb40EnglishSymplectic ElementsRoutledge2023Van Broekhoven, LNKBiers, TStringer Clary, KThe chapter discusses the reasons for, and public reactions to, the taking off display of 120 human remains in the Summer of 2020 at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. One side of “Treatment of Dead Enemies” case-displays included a supposedly “iconic” display of the Shuar shrunken heads or tsantsa, that anecdotally was the Museum's number one attraction. The removal caused both public outcry and wide-felt relief. Newly installed interpretation replaced the original case display, to allow visitors to consider the problematic past academic practices of physical anthropology, its relationship to race science and how those are linked to racist ideas about superiority and inferiority that shape our present today. The chapter discusses what tsantsa are, why they ended up in the European imagination and tries to understand some of the reactions of press and public to the changes.
spellingShingle Van Broekhoven, LNK
Entangled entitlements and Shuar tsantsa (shrunken heads)
title Entangled entitlements and Shuar tsantsa (shrunken heads)
title_full Entangled entitlements and Shuar tsantsa (shrunken heads)
title_fullStr Entangled entitlements and Shuar tsantsa (shrunken heads)
title_full_unstemmed Entangled entitlements and Shuar tsantsa (shrunken heads)
title_short Entangled entitlements and Shuar tsantsa (shrunken heads)
title_sort entangled entitlements and shuar tsantsa shrunken heads
work_keys_str_mv AT vanbroekhovenlnk entangledentitlementsandshuartsantsashrunkenheads