Publications (with links)
All comments are welcome!
with Paul Taku Bisong
and Jason Dunlop
Mammalian type material from Cameroon in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.
Zoosystematics and Evolution 99(2): 503-517. https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.99.110878
2023
Historical data, combined with current data on species distribution, are a valuable resource for tracking changes in biodiversity and can potentially be applied to developing models in conservation biology and designing and assessing conservation strategies. Historical data supporting current knowledge on the natural history of the African continent are primarily held in Western museums. The Zoologisches Museum Berlin (ZMB), which is today part of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MfN), is the primary source of reference for zoological collections from former German colonial territories including Cameroon. Here, we document for the first time a catalogue of the type material in the mammal collection of the MfN from the point of view of a geographical region. The type collection includes 91 type specimens identified in the catalogues as originating from German ‘Kamerun’ and which correspond to 31 described species, of which 12 are currently accepted (valid) species names. Of the 31 described species, 21 are represented by holotypes, three para-holotype series, one para-lectotype series and six syntype series. We hope that this first analysis of zoological objects, based on geographical location, will lead to similar research on other geographical locations of collection. This could provide more information on the provenance of collections and on colonial collecting practices, as well as contribute to the accessibility of collections in Western museums.
2022
The naturalist’s field is often taken as a romanticized place of awe and wonder or a side activity to scientific work. This special issue seeks to establish the field as neither the origin nor the end of knowledge production. By situating nature, we seek to escape a romanticized conception of fieldwork and argue that the field is not a simple backdrop to knowledge production, nor one step in an idealized scientific protocol. Rather, the field is a space co-produced from entangled interactions between society and environment. Paying specific attention to field practices of collecting opens a critical view of narratives of idealized hardship of exploration in distant terrains. By reconnecting the history of natural history to the contingencies and agencies of fieldwork, we contribute to the contextualization of the production of knowledge about nature. Working towards better political and social definitions and delineations of the field is essential to addressing these gaps in the narrative, particularly in the long nineteenth century when nationalist, imperial and colonial rationales infused field practices.
The question of the field is also that of the conditions of amassing collections. At a time of environmental crisis, when museums and collections are set up as protective temples of biodiversity, it seems crucial to question the conditions of the making of their collections and to place them in their contexts and histories. Bringing to light the political and social implications of collecting and collections, we argue, encourages serious reflection on the non-neutrality of museums and collections.
Nineteenth-century zoological collections consisted of large series of animals, which had been trapped, uprooted, hunted, killed, put into containers, dried, and preserved. From distant far-flung outposts overseas, colonial collections were shipped to central metropolitan institutions where they were claimed as a crucial part of the understanding of global biodiversity. Knowledge about nature was reliant on such scientific specimens and, therefore, dependent on fieldwork, which comprised much more than the act itself of sampling nature. Collecting from the field is a matter of access to places, materials, tools, and people with the know-how to find, capture, and interpret nature and, often, to prepare animals as specimens. Although different layers of labor, expertise, and knowledge lie behind zoological collections, much of it was produced and negotiated outside museums’ walls.
Using the historical documentation of zoological collections in the Museu Nacional de Lisboa in the second half of the nineteenth century as a case study, this paper highlights the role of colonial suppliers as mediators for the museum’s agenda while adjusting to local circumstances and maintaining their own personal goals. Studies of historical provenance have clarified not only how zoological specimens were gathered and collated but also how their geographical origin was used as a mechanism of centralization of authority.
Inscriptions in China ink cover the top front of nine skulls in the Mammals Collection of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. They provide information on the classification of the animals according to taxonomic systematics, and on the provenance of the specimen.
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Inscriptions such as these thus offer insights into the colonial context of acquisition. They provide us with information that goes beyond taxonomical classification. In order to reconstruct the travels of these skulls before they arrived in Berlin, we need to cross-reference the information in the objects and catalogues with other historical sources of the colonial archive, as well as with other material sources.
Displaying wild animals as colonial appropriation:
The German-Colonial Hunting Exhibition
"material" for the Animals as Objects website
2022
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According to the catalogue, ethnographic collections were added to the hunting exhibition in order to convey to the visitors the most “atmospheric image possible”of the whole of the German colonial territories. In this way, big game hunting was visually associated with natural resources and the expanding colonial market, and this exhibition suggested a connection between hunting campaigns, colonial crafts, and economical gain.
Expert at a Distance.
Barbosa du Bocage and the Production of Scientific Knowledge on Africa
The career of José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823‒1907) as director of the Zoological Section of the Museu Nacional de Lisboa (National Museum of Lisbon) followed by the presidency of the Society of Geography of Lisbon is presented in this paper as an example of transfer of expertise between scientific fields, specifically from zoology to geography. Additionally, it explores the connection between scientific credit and political recognition, in the sense of the conflation of Bocage’s taxonomical and zoogeographical work with the colonial agenda of his time. Although Bocage himself never visited Africa, he was part of a generation of Africanists who were members of the Portuguese elite dedicated to African matters and considered exemplary custodians of the political and diplomatic Portuguese international position regarding its African territories.
Museu Nacional de Lisboa, como centro e como periferia
(in portuguese)
Brief analysis on the tension existing in the Zoological Section of the Museu de Lisboa derived from its 'double' position, in the European periphery and as the centre of the Portuguese empire.
The zoological collections dedicated to African fauna during the last half of the 19th century were central to the definition of the Lisbon museum within the European network of museums, naturalists, and scientific production.
The zoological collections of the Museu de Lisboa and Barbosa du Bocage’s networks of scientific correspondence and exchange (1858-1898)
To discover, collect and send home to Europe natural objects and images of the new world was a comprehensive task held by many naturalists whether with an academic, military or religious background. Nevertheless, the understanding of the knowledge held in all the thousands of specimens being brought to European collections and exchanged between European societies, academies and universities was now being completed inside the collections storage rooms.
In 1858, the royal zoological collections hosted in Lisbon became part of the Polytechnic School (1837-1911) to be of assistance to the classes in Zoology. The previous «Museu de Lisboa» at the Royal Academy of Sciences was now to be organized following proper scientific and up-to-date knowledge. José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823-1907), as the head professor in Zoology, became in 1859 the Director and first organizer of the “Zoological Section of the Museum of Lisbon”.
In this preliminary study I analyse the correspondence of Barbosa du Bocage to his foreign peers aiming to contribute for a clearer picture of the importance of the network established between private collections, universities and museums in the construction of new knowledge in the study of nature at the second half of the nineteenth century. Acknowledging that some influential naturalists were organizing knowledge about nature from inside the museum’s walls, I argue that the way the trade of specimens inside Europe was made is of major importance for the production of knowledge. Analysing the relationships established between these authors (their institutions and nations) and other professors, collectors, patrons, diplomats, naturalists and taxidermists may facilitate in the study of scientific knowledge production.
J. V. Barbosa du Bocage (1823-1907)
A construção de uma persona científica
MSc Thesis (in portuguese)
This dissertation follows the individual path of José Vicente Barbosa du
Bocage (1823-1907) and his connection to the scientific and political institutions of his time in a national and international level. Thanks to his work as naturalist and as director of the Zoological Section of the National Museum of Lisbon, his name was forever associated with the development of the Portuguese zoological collections. His major scientific works are dedicated to African taxonomy and his main legacy is the added credibility and international respect that the scientific work with African zoology in Portugal gained in his period.
The hypothesis followed in this dissertation is that it is the characteristics of the scientific persona he fashioned and others reshaped that allowed Barbosa du Bocage to be considered and respected socially both as competent in his scientific domain and in having the values and morals of action to perform a political role of relevance. Through the examination of examples of Bocage’s scientific
accomplishments, which reveal his agenda for the development and consolidation of the scientific discipline of Zoology, I hope to offer some insights into the construction of scientific knowledge of the late 19th century in Portugal.
Barbosa du Bocage was Minister of Navy and Overseas in 1883 and Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1883-86 and again in 1890. His diplomatic skills and political agenda helped strengthen the shared view on colonial administration of African affairs embodied in the famously known Rose-Coloured Map. Science produced on African natural life and Portuguese colonial politics are social fields implicated in one another. I aim to reveal the interaction between the role of naturalist in
Portuguese society in the eighteen hundreds and the political and symbolic capital accumulated by Bocage during his public life.