The Indigenous English: Modernity, Ancestry, and Museums

It is said that anthropology has focused on, and helped define, the Other. Who or what is Other depends also on our notion of Self. It would often be thought that the English helped embody a Self, central to anthropology, who then defined the Other. A recent project has explored the English collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (there are more objects from England than any other country in the world in the Pitt Rivers). In this lecture, Chris Gosden will discuss issues of indigeneity, ancestry and Englishness through various elements of the Pitt Rivers’ collections, including magic objects, craft and agricultural items and archaeological material. He will explore issues of self-identification and collection and end with a reflection on the self and otherness in the contemporary world.