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Article ID: CBB001201585

From “Dead Things” to Immutable, Combinable Mobiles: H.D. Skinner, the Otago Museum and University and the Governance of Māori Populations (2014)

History and Anthropology
Volume: 25
Pages: 208--226

DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2014.882839

Publication Date: 2014
Edition Details: Part of the special issue: “Anthropology, Collecting and Colonial Governmentalities”.
Language: English

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This paper draws on Callon's [2005. Why Virtualism Paves the Way to Political Impotence: A Reply to Daniel Miller's Critique of The Laws of the Markets. Economic Sociology: European Electronic Newsletter 6 (2): 3--20] concept of agencement, together with Latour's [1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press] concept of immutable combinable mobiles to illustrate how Henry Devenish Skinner, ethnologist and anthropology lecturer at the Otago Museum and University sought to form and shape M ori identity, history, culture and populations as subjects of liberal government. It does this through an exploration of Skinner's fieldwork and collecting practices. The paper suggests that forms of analysis mediated through the American History School, and the culture area concept were deployed during the emergence of anthropology as a discipline in New Zealand (between 1919 and 1940) to produce ethnographic authority that then acted as a point of connection between scientific networks and the colonial administrative field.

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Article Bennett, Tony; Dibley, Ben; Harrison, Rodney (2014) Introduction: Anthropology, Collecting and Colonial Governmentalities. History and Anthropology (p. 137). unapi

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