UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Encounters with the colonial: Dr Ernest Warren, science, and new representations of nature at the Natal Museum (1903-1913)

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openalex:w2135454215

Authors

Shirley Brooks

Reported year

2005

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:13:25.983657+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:13:25.983657+00:00

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Institutions reported by the source

University of KwaZulu-Natal

Documentary abstract — original language

Dr Ernest Warren, a British-trained zoologist, became Director of the Natal Government Museum in 1903. While Warren's identity as a progressive scientist was shaped in the metropolitan context, it was in the Natal Colony-later, the South African province of Natal-that he made his career. In doing so, Warren forged new physical and administrative connections between the museum and the newly conquered territory of Zululand with its game reserves, connections that were not without difficulty and ambivalence. After tracing Warren's intellectual pedigree, the cultural politics of museum display in the Natal Museum mammal halls are examined, together with the aesthetics of wildness, in terms of which Warren attempted to introduce to the colony new representations of nature. A further theme is the relationship between hunting and museum collecting, as well as the everyday social practices involved in building up a museum in a colonial context such as this one. Warren's long 'encounter with the Colonial' was in many respects a bruising one. The fact that he made less impact in the cause of nature preservation in Natal than he had hoped, is explained in terms of his increasing bureaucratic isolation and the political ecology-in particular with regard to the cattle disease, nagana-of Zululand, the region with which Warren was most concerned. To cite this article: Brooks, S. 2005. Encounters with the colonial: Dr Ernest Warren, science, and new representations of nature at the Natal Museum (1903-1913). Southern African Humanities 17 : 1-31.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W2135454215

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Natural entities mentioned

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Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• Document · https://journals.co.za/content/nmsa_sah/17/1/EJC84755
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W2135454215

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Detected scholarly publication

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