Hair Samples as Ancestors and Futures of Community-Led Collection Care

During the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, samples of hair were taken from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by researchers, both amateur and academic. These ‘hair samples’ were traded across Australia and internationally for the purpose of marking and measuring race across a range of research disciplines. Many of these ‘samples’ are still held in research and collecting institutions globally. Simultaneously, there is a lack of visibility in relation to their histories and their significance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as well as to the legislative and ethical ‘grey area’ of hair that enables continued institutional retention and potential use in research. In the settler-colonial project of Australia, the sampling of hair materialised racial fictions of hair hierarchy, driven by global imperial and colonial agendas. ‘Hair samples’ became a research commodity, acquired under a settler-colonial-induced state of duress and entered into a colonial knowledge economy. Institutionally held Ancestors’ hair, in the form of ‘hair samples’, are intrinsically intertwined with traumatic histories of invasive and racist research conducted upon Indigenous peoples. The production of knowledge through hair sampling is argued by this research to be neither neutral nor without consequence for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This research asserts Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s Right to Know about both the histories and the current locations of Ancestors’ hair, as well as their right to self-determination regarding the use of, access to and care for institutionally held Ancestors’ hair. Driving this study is the imperative for First Nations voices to lead the decision-making on the future of collection care. Through conversations with a participant group led predominantly by First Nations experts who work in or with the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector, this dissertation identifies the priorities of Indigenous self-determination, care and truth-telling which need to be implemented in regards to the histories of hair sampling and Ancestors’ hair held in institutional collections.

Author dc:creator

• Booker, Lauren E. J.

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
• © 2023 Lauren E. J. Booker
• au.edu.uts.lib/nph

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/177802

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.lib.uts.edu.au:10453/177802