Dividing the spoils: Perspectives on military collections and the British empire (Studies in Imperialism, 177)

At a time of heightened international interest in the colonial dimensions of museum collections, __Dividing the Spoils__ provides new perspectives on the motivations and circumstances whereby collections were appropriated and acquired during colonial military service. Combining approaches from the fields of material anthropology, imperial and military history, this book argues for a deeper examination of these collections within a range of intercultural histories that include alliance, diplomacy, curiosity and enquiry, as well as expropriation and cultural hegemony. As museums across Europe reckon with the post-colonial legacies of their collections, __Dividing the Spoils__ explores how the amassing of objects was understood and governed in British military culture, and considers how objects functioned in museum collections thereafter, suggesting new avenues for sustained investigation in a controversial, contested field. Front matter 1 Contents 6 List of figures 8 List of contributors 12 Preface 16 Acknowledgements 19 List of abbreviations 20 Introduction: dividing the spoils 22 Part I: Ideologies of empire and governance 38 Spoils of war: custom and practice 40 The agency of objects: a contrasting choreography of flags, military booty and skulls from late nineteenth-century Africa 60 Collecting and the trophy 81 Part II: Military collecting cultures 104 Soldiering archaeology: Pitt Rivers and collecting ‘Primitive Warfare’ 106 The officers’ mess: an anthropology and history of the military interior 127 Seeing Tibet through soldiers’ eyes: photograph albums in regimental museums 149 A regimental culture of collecting 183 Part III: The afterlives of military collections 206 Military histories of ‘Summer Palace’ objects from China in military museums in the United Kingdom1 208 Indigenising folk art: eighteenth-century powder horns in British military collections 226 Community consultation and the shaping of the National Army Museum’s Insight gallery 250 Mementoes of power and conquest: Sikh jewellery in the collection of National Museums Scotland 268 Afterword: material reckonings withmilitary histories 290 Archival Sources 305 Bibliography 308 Index 335 At a time of heightened international interest in the colonial dimensions of museum collections, Dividing the Spoils provides new perspectives on the motivations and circumstances whereby collections were appropriated and acquired during colonial military service. Combining approaches from the fields of material anthropology, imperial and military history, this book argues for a deeper examination of these collections within a range of intercultural histories that include alliance, diplomacy, curiosity and enquiry, as well as expropriation and cultural hegemony. 0As museums across Europe reckon with the post-colonial legacies of their collections, Dividing the Spoils explores how the amassing of objects was understood and governed in British military culture, and considers how objects functioned in museum collections thereafter, suggesting new avenues for sustained investigation in a controversial, contested field