From "wretched savages" to the world's "most beautiful" artefacts: British ethnographic collections from Western Australia

The British Museum holds c.1200 Aboriginal objects, photographs and postcards from Western Australia, collected by explorers, early colonists, police officers, colonial administrators, missionaries and activists for Aboriginal rights. The earliest date from 1821,
and are among the oldest ethnographic objects ever collected from Western Australia. Inspired by these holdings, the project will produce the first history of British ethnographic collecting in Western Australia. In 1688, William Dampier reported Aborigines in Western Australia to be 'the miserablest people in the world', yet by 1936, the British Museum described a donation of Western Australian spearheads as the 'most beautiful ... made by any natives in the world'. This project will explore how the making, distribution and exhibition of such objects helped shape ideas about value, place and identity in Western
Australia. The student will join a small team of researchers based at the British Museum and working on its Australian collections. S/he will also benefit from an international
collaboration with Australian researchers ('Collecting the West'), ahead of the 2020 reopening of the Western Australian Museum. This PhD project will provide a view of Western Australia from the former imperial metropole and create improved understanding of the significance and meaning of British collections in local, national and global arenas. There will be networking opportunities to work with colleagues and Aboriginal communities
in Western Australia as well as at the British Museum.