Museum of London, First Peoples

[sandyosullivan]

In the context of this research, I love the Museum of London - both at the Wall and at Docklands. The people who work there, their use of poetry in the ancient London area, even the odd excitement that the English have with being colonised by the Romans is beautifully contextualised in their museum spaces. Museum spaces that are about place, about

Comments

just some feedback

[anonymous]

Some amazing stuff. Seems the English are embracing their Englishness and acknowledging their own history and the impact of colonisation. Seems like the shoe is now on the other foot, so to speak.

Re: just some feedback

[sandyosullivan]

I wish they were... instead most of them are so embarrassed about it that they can't even bring themselves to consider their own cultural framework (with it appearing everywhere), but I suppose in a funny way that's what this project is about... a reversal of the gaze, supporting these folks in feeling like they can have culture. If there's an irony in that reversal, where an Aboriginal person provides a platform of permission for English museums to understand their right to identity, they are still quite fearful that it's going to be co-opted by the extreme right. I'm so sorry about that, it feels so rotten and it goes to the heart of why the English are included in a study on First Peoples. It was an Elder who said to me early on, even before this project began that I should consider the English (the British, though actually she said the English) because you can tell a lot about a culture's capacity to represent others by how it represents itself. The good news is that MoL is going some journey to really being able to manage

[bas_math_girl]

How weird is that that seeing the top picture manages to put in more into context for me? It's as if everything is always measured against the Romans here; but it is waved like an enormous flag to attract us.

[sandyosullivan]

No, you're right. I mean I think that is the context, and I don't mean to diminish it. I just wish they wouldn't say pre-history when they mean pre-Roman... but at the same time, they DO say that you've been there for almost half a million years (don't you feel like a break yet?! No wonder you started colonising elsewhere, you needed a holiday! (Just come without muskets next time!).

I think the Romans as context is another one of those embracing otherness over the home culture things, and it's really a shame, because the Britons (and, let's call the people before the Britons for the sake of this, also Britons) deserve it. The Britons and those that wandered over the land when it was still connected to Europe (that was 14000 BC working off memory, don't quote me) really did have an enormous contribution, and we now know that modern humans were in Britain for nearly as long as they were here... so... amazing!

[sandyosullivan]

And cos of MoL having the whole MoL Archaeology process, it does mean that if anywhere does discover older items, or care about them, we might end up with them telling that story. You know?

[bas_math_girl]

I can't help thinking people would care if they were more informed about the early Britons. I mean, the Ancient Egyptians and the Greeks are held quite fondly within our culture.
With the early Britons all we are shown are the stones at Stonehenge, and let's be honest here, they aren't that exciting when you go to visit them to make you stay an awful long time (okay, the cold wind that whips through you makes you head for the gift shop).
Funny that you said that we needed a holiday break from all that... :) We clearly wanted to pass on that holiday feeling to other cultures; plus a bit of sunshine.

[heintz57]

I love to see an old ruin especially from an empire that has disappeared from time. I find the last pic interesting because it is referring to the hunter/gather societies and the society of herders and farmers within the same time period.

Granted the hunter/gather societies probably have been around for "half a million years" but the herders and farmers are usually associated with the beginnings of agriculture approximately 10,000 years ago.

[sandyosullivan]

Quite right, they've conflated an enormous time period... I mean this is like saying I just had coffee with Shakespeare or Socrates, cos that's a tiny blip in time compared to this! It's because if you think EVERYTHING is pre-history, then you think all of it is blended. The same thing happens, interestingly, far more recently... with the Middle Ages... where often in European history, and in particular in British History, nothing really happens between 450 and 800. Except of course it did.

Mind you the notion that hunter/gatherers belonged to an earlier time than farmers, is just as ridiculous, because we were hunter/gatherers until 200 years ago (and some folks still were into this century) and we weren't backward or missing a step, it was a legitimate space, but again it becomes measured against Europeans... so... interesting!

[heintz57]

Coffee with Shakespeare and Socrates would be a bunch of fun and it would be an interesting conversation.

I do agree with you there are still some hunter/gather societies even today, in your home, as well as in Africa and a few other places within the world. But even those societies are starting to disappear within the context of globalization.

[sandyosullivan]

Yeah I guess my point is that it's not ancient, it's contemporary, and it's not disappearing, they just want to say that in America and in the West. It doesn't make it true. Thank gawd!