Our World

What is a ‘World Cultures’ collection and why does Rotherham have one?

Like many local museums, Rotherham has a small historic collection of ‘Ethnographic’ or ‘World Cultures’ objects, some of which came into the museum more than 100 years ago.

Chinese carved figure

Victorian scholars were fascinated by myths, legends and objects relating to non-European cultures. Ethnographic objects were lent or donated to museum displays as educational pieces, to enable working people and children to experience the material culture of other parts of the world they were not able to travel to themselves.

Rotherham’s collection includes items such as jewellery, sculpture, hunting tools and weapons, boat paddles, and domestic objects. These originally came from Asia, the Americas, Africa, Oceania, Northern Europe and the Pacific.

How did these objects come to be in Rotherham?

These objects were traded, or collected by missionaries, or simply bought as tourist souvenirs and later donated to the museum. Unfortunately, many of the documents providing specific details of how these items came to be in the collection have been lost over time and it is my job, among other things, to explore the histories of these objects and how they came to be in Rotherham’s collection.

Wooden spoon, Scandinavia

Many of the reasons for early museum collecting seem very outdated and inappropriate to us nowadays. They often reflect a colonial perspective and a lack of understanding of the cultures from where the objects came. In some cases, the acquisition of objects from overseas cultures was not ethical. These are the issues that museum staff in general have to be aware of when researching historic collections. Many museums are currently re-examining their collection histories and the ethics surrounding the acquisition of objects.

Nose ring, India

What is the relevance of this collection to people in Rotherham today?

While we will be researching the ethics of the development of our own historic World Cultures collection, this project is also focused on the present and the future of the collection. We want to re-interpret the idea of ‘World Cultures’ to reflect local people and give local communities the opportunity to choose new, relevant, personally meaningful objects for the museum’s collections. This new community-based World Cultures collection will reflect our shared commonalities – ‘Our World’ as the project title expresses it – but will also celebrate the vibrant cultural heritage of different voices in the community.

Painted sandals, India

How can people get involved?

Using objects from the historic World Cultures collection as a focus, the museum is working in partnership with REMA (Rotherham Ethnic Minority Alliance) and local communities to update the idea of how a World Cultures collection – or indeed, a local community heritage collection – can be developed to truly reflect the rich cultural traditions of the people of Rotherham.

In future blogs we will be exploring a range of objects from the historic collection and hearing from others working on the ‘Our World’ project.

If you wish to find out more about the project and how you can get involved, please contact our Project Engagement Officer, Sonia Khan: Sonia.Khan@rotherham.gov.uk

Some useful words

Acquisition – an object that is officially accepted into a museum’s collection, and / or the process for this

Collection – general term for the objects that belong to a museum; this can be sub-divided into more specific areas such as fine art, people’s history, archaeology, World Cultures, etc.

Colonial – relating to the past history of Empire or the political control of one country by another

Culture – the ideas, customs, traditions, language, artistic creativity and social behaviour of a particular group of people or society

Ethnographic – refers to the scientific study and description of particular groups of people and their culture and traditions

Material culture – objects or physical things created by people

Missionary – a person who promotes religion, usually Christianity, in a foreign country

Object – the general term used by museums to refer to items in their collection

Oceania – a name for the geographical area of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, including Australia and New Zealand

The Americas – a name for the geographical landmass that includes North and South America, Canada and Greenland