Enslaved Remains: The “Slave Boy” Inscription and the Histories of Racialized Collections
This essay is an analytical reflection about the traces of slavery and colonization found in the histories produced for collections of human skulls by craniologists and phrenologists in the past. It considers how enslavement becomes epistemically and politically embedded in racialized human remains,...
Tallennettuna:
| Julkaisussa: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/artefact, |
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| Päätekijä: | |
| Aineistotyyppi: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Kieli: | Anglais |
| Julkaistu: |
Artefact
2023
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| Aiheet: | |
| Linkit: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Yhteenveto: | This essay is an analytical reflection about the traces of slavery and colonization found in the histories produced for collections of human skulls by craniologists and phrenologists in the past. It considers how enslavement becomes epistemically and politically embedded in racialized human remains, through the mediation of narrations and inscriptions on bone and paper. To this purpose, the article investigates an inscription of text – central to which is the term “slave boy” – on a skull mentioned in the private papers of a notorious nineteenth-century race scholar and skull collector, Joseph Barnard Davis. The analysis of this skull inscription and its associated documents also stimulate a reflection on how historiographical work may help us reveal and counter the legacies of these past processes today. |
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