Labelling Matters: The Cook Collection: Euphemisms and Omitted Contexts

The Cook collection on display at the Pitt Rivers Museum ©  Pitt Rivers Museum

 “Coloniality is what the narratives hide or disguise because it cannot be said explicitly” - Walter D. Mignolo

The advent of globalization came with a promise of happiness, innovation and scientific discovery for mankind. The price paid: a continuous and ever growing appropriation of resources, labour and mental subjection of those people falling outside this pledge. It is in the paradox of trying to realize a universalist vision of human progress through the abuse of part of humankind that the workings of coloniality are captured.

 

In pursuit of personal gain, colonial administrations actively obscured violent exploitation of peoples by presenting morally deplorable practices as aspects of a larger scheme of development. Uprooting political, economic, cultural and educational systems was justified as being part of a civilizing mission. Colonial rulers repeatedly advertised colonial missions as a responsibility and burden of white Europeans to bring civilization to mankind. It masked their true motives: economic profit and power.   

 

Masking motives, omitting contextual details and the subversion of truths are all mechanisms of coloniality that have evolved into standard practices now deeply rooted in Western practices and institutions. Euphemism became an important linguistic tool to veil injustices as well as to bend truths to fit the promise of progress. These euphemisms live forth in modern discourses and ought to be addressed in order to successfully eradicate the mechanisms and legacies of coloniality that run through society. 

 

The collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum are not immune to the workings of coloniality and have been shaped through an imperialist lens. To illustrate, the early colonial missions are consistently referred to as ‘voyages’ and ‘expeditions’ to emphasize this aspect of newness, endless possibility and scientific discovery that worked well upon the imaginations of Europeans. Such terminology obscures ulterior motives behind these missions.

 

Let us zoom into one such case of euphemism and omission. The Pitt Rivers Museum houses a vast collection of artefacts from Cook’s voyages to the Pacific between 1768 and 1775. It is right to state that these tours on the Endeavour, the Resolution and Adventure were in part motivated by scientific objectives. One of the main organisers, The Royal Society, an institute for the promotion of scientific research, co-organized these missions with the Admiralty, which at the time was a separate branch of the British government concerned with naval affairs. However, the Admiralty’s motives for involvement extended well beyond the promise of science. Recent studies place Cook’s Pacific ‘voyages’ in a different light, not describing Cook as one of Britain's greatest ‘explorers/adventurers’ but rather as a problematic figure who laid the roots for colonialism.

 

It has come to light that Cook, on orders of the Admiralty, deliberately reported false information and left out crucial discoveries in his records to keep strategic advantages over other imperial powers. It has recently been argued, on the basis of reports from both Cook himself and from people aboard the Endeavor, that Cook deliberately hid the existence of a strait separating modern day Australia from Tasmania, instead mapping what was then called Van Diemen’s Land as a peninsula. Additionally, it should be noted that nine indigenous people were killed during Cook’s first encounter with Maori who had lived in New Zealand (then Aotearoa) for centuries. It could thus be said that positive connotations underlying notions such as ‘expedition, explorer, and voyage’ are used euphemistically to obscure narratives of coloniality. Such terms conceivably fit the initial objective of universal progress, however, by placing these tours in its wider context it becomes evident that conflicts of interests underlie the so-called Cook voyages. Therefore, further contextualization is needed to fill narrative gaps and to settle on more adequate terminology.

Interpretation panel for the Cook display ©  Pitt Rivers Museum

 

The object labels addressing Cook’s travels to the Pacific overemphasize its scientific purposes whilst not mentioning the strive for influence in the area. The contextual details provided in the Cook displays mainly address his scientific observations, the flourishing of trade between voyagers and islanders and the friendly nature of these encounters. What comes to light is a narrative in line with the promise of progress. As seen above it is dangerous to assume a direct link between Cook’s voyages and universal progress. His scientific discoveries were soon used as tools of power causing power imbalances. 

 

In conclusion, it is not right to simply state that ‘expeditions’ and ‘explorations’ such as Cook’s voyages preceded the arrival of colonial powers. They were itself in part an expression of coloniality. Through euphemisms and by omitting contextual details in the museum’s object labels, colonial legacies remain intact and are reinforced. The Labelling Matters project is thus not limited to the identification of derogatory language use but also inquires into that which is not said explicitly. Paradoxically, it is perhaps within the embellishing narrative and the realm of silences that historical truth resides. 

By Jip Borm

Labelling Matters project Intern

Masters Student, University of Leiden

Labelling Matters: The Role of Language in the Ethics of Representation

 “In January 1897 a small party of British officials and traders on its way to Benin was ambushed. In retaliation a British military force attacked the city and the Oba was exiled. Members of the expedition brought thousands of objects back to Britain, including many of those shown here.” - Label from the Court Art of Benin Case, Lower Gallery, Pitt Rivers Museum

This label is illustrative of the colonial legacies rooted in the Pitt Rivers collections. Not only is this notion of ‘bringing back’ objects a euphemistic description of a large scale loot of artefacts, but by using a positive term such as ‘expedition’ it also obscures what was in fact a colonial mission. Such a label obscures the violent colonial context in which these objects were extracted. 

A variety of labels from the Pitt Rivers Museum illustrating the use of offensive terminology. Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum.

 
Institutions like the Pitt Rivers Museum are in the middle of a deconstructionist shift. The 19th century objective to bring cultures together for the purpose of the creation of a universalist epistemology is no longer considered a tangible project. It has come to light that the colonial context in which such appropriation of cultures took place has uprooted rather than established harmonies between cultures and their respective epistemologies.

The museum’s commitment to create an inclusive and welcoming space for all goes beyond the use of words, yet it is through language that one can start to build an adequate ethics of representation. It is within the realm of language that a course of action towards a morally equitable space for the preservation and production of knowledge is revealed.

 

In line with this, the Labelling Matters project seeks to revise the language used to describe objects as well as to re-conceptualize the prescriptive nature of its labels by rethinking what and how labels in the museum should relate to its readers. Such a self-reflexive project plays an important role in the process of decolonisation of the Pitt Rivers collections. Through identification of derogatory, Eurocentric, euphemistic and exclusionary language, a new vision towards fairer cultural exchanges is established. By reconsidering the power and function of language, new spaces for more pluriverse and inclusive narratives emerge.

The colonial model pushed ‘outside’ cultures through a process of one sided hermeneutical interpretation. Here, the ‘European’ served as the measure against which to compare and contrast others. As a result it rooted the Eurocentric idea that Western culture signifies something absolute, universal and is itself free of social differentiation. The legacy of this project is a set of misleading norms and axioms that are wrongly regarded as the universal principles that lead to human understanding. 

 

Such mechanisms of coloniality remain an obstacle to impartial dialogue between cultures. The current reactionary movement, of which the Labelling Matters project is constitutive, works to address and tackle such problematic legacies in order to establish fair dialogues and promote rich exchanges of knowledge amongst peoples. 

 

Although the museum has always been part of a process of change and revision, cases of inadequate representation remain multifold. To illustrate, these include instances of unjustifiable hierarchical rankings of cultures, misrepresentations of the ritual functions of objects and Eurocentric claims to interpretive agency. The study of such cases takes a pivotal role in this series of blog posts. 

 

Thus, the Labelling Matters project seeks to tackle the colonial foundations that stand in the way of the healthy relations and interactions between peoples that it wishes to create. The project envisages a rich field of interplay between cultures in which all peoples are regarded equally valid players in the production of knowledge. In this way the museum works towards new relevance in the contemporary world. It is through the formation of a pertinent ethics of representation that the museum wishes to create an inclusive space in which the plurality of narratives that make up human reality are rightfully valued. 

By Jip Borm

Labelling Matters project Intern

Masters Student, University of Leiden