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Journal of the History of Collections Advance Access published online on October 20, 2007
Journal of the History of Collections, doi:10.1093/jhc/fhm020
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Anthropological landscaping

General Pitt Rivers, the Ashmolean, the University Museum and the shaping of an Oxford discipline

Frances Larson


  Abstract

This paper explores disciplinary formation as both a physical and an intellectual process. That is, how decisions regarding tangible entities – in this case, the Pitt Rivers collection and the building designed to house it in Oxford – have shaped the intellectual landscape of a university discipline. The negotiations surrounding General Pitt Rivers's donation to Oxford in the 1880s were driven forward by a group of Oxford scientists based in the University Museum who were intent on establishing a dedicated space for anthropology at the University. The collection might have been amalgamated with that of the Ashmolean, since its future was also the subject of active debate at the time, but Pitt Rivers and his scientific peers at Oxford succeeded in establishing the collection as a new ethnographic department within the University Museum. Their achievement had long-lasting implications for the University's collections, and for the future shape of Oxford anthropology as an academic discipline.

Correspondence: Address for correspondence Dr Frances Larson, Domkyrkoplan 1, 753 10 Uppsala, Sweden. larson.frances{at}gmail.com


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