Entangled Knowledges: Kaartdijin, Science and History in the Robert Neill collection
Resource type
Abstract
Creator (person)
Abstract
Taking a multidisciplinary cross-museum collection as its starting point the Entangled Knowledges project aims to highlight Menang Nyungar knowledge embedded in a historic collection of fishes, mammals and artefacts held at National Museums Scotland and a portfolio of sketches of fishes held by the Natural History Museum, London, by returning this knowledge to the Menang community in Western Australia.
This collection was brought together by Assistant Commissary Robert Neill in Kinjarling (Albany) in the 1840s, where he worked and lived amongst Menang fishermen and women. Neill carefully recorded Menang fish taxonomies, fish habits and habitats and Menang cultural associations with fishes. These collections were dispersed across museums in Edinburgh and London, becoming isolated from each other and disconnected from the community whose knowledge the collection captures. Once in these museums, the dominance of western scientific knowledge, development of disciplinary silos and museum documentation practices increased this disconnection, reducing museums’ understanding of the Menang cultural significance. Today Menang people are reconnecting to the collection and the records of their ancestral knowledge that it holds. This 20-minute presentation will draw on the work of the project to date to explore how working in a cross-sector, collaborative and Indigenous-governed team can enrich and re-frame the understanding of this collection in the Museum/s today.
Funder
| Funder name | Awards |
Australian Research Council | |
Event title
Museum Ethnographers Group Conference 2023
Publisher
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge
Rights statement
In Copyright