Coleccionando el Pacifico: A Study of 18th and 19th Century Oceania Collections in Spanish Museums

本研究的重点是18和19世纪的世纪在西班牙博物馆举行的大洋洲人种学收藏。这些收藏品主要是通过大型科学考察，如马拉斯皮纳探险队（1789-1794），三次塔希提探险队（1772-1775）和太平洋科学委员会（1862-1869），以及西班牙传教士和殖民者在太平洋（菲律宾，马里亚纳群岛，加罗林群岛）的存在而收集的。西班牙博物馆估计有500件来自大洋洲的非凡物品。然而，由于西班牙在大洋洲的存在与美洲更激烈的殖民发展无关，这些藏品在很大程度上被西班牙和外国研究人员忽视，只被边缘化，不像英国，法国，德国或荷兰的类似藏品。这些物品大多数被保存在仓库中，因此不为广大西班牙公众所知。因此，这一主题为原创性研究提供了一个独特的机会，并将得到其他欧洲国家收藏品研究的帮助和补充。太平洋文物抵达西班牙后，被编入目录，有时是错误的，并分发给国家博物馆。后来，随着收藏和国家机构的重新设计，这些物品被重新分配，没有明确的模式，通常最终被储存起来。今天，收藏18和19世纪太平洋文物的主要西班牙博物馆是美洲博物馆、国家南极博物馆、海军博物馆（都在马德里）和埃赫西托博物馆（托莱多）。这个主题提供了一个独特的研究机会，因为西班牙收藏没有像英国、法国、荷兰或德国收藏那样被研究。我的项目将增加一个创新的，综合的和比较分析现有的文献。了解这些物品不仅需要识别藏品和相关文献，而且还需要了解它们被收集和分类的殖民背景和知识传统。因此，通过对这些收藏品进行原创性、比较性和系统性的研究，该项目将重点关注对象传记、太平洋上的西班牙帝国维斯其他欧洲帝国的案例、西班牙启蒙时代系统性收藏的知识根源，以及博物馆与原产地社区之间的互动。这个雄心勃勃的项目需要多学科的方法论，将人类学、历史学、博物馆学和艺术史的方法发挥作用。这个项目的重要性不仅在于它为收藏研究领域增添了新的研究成果，而且还将有助于三个相互关联的过程：将西班牙收藏品纳入太平洋研究的更广泛领域，为西班牙博物馆学的历史做出贡献，并将西班牙博物馆的藏品与原住民社区联系起来。

This study focuses on the 18th and 19th century ethnographic collections from Oceania held in Spanish museums. These collections were mostly assembled via large scientific expeditions such as the Malaspina Expedition (1789-1794), three Tahiti Expeditions (1772-1775), and the Comisión Cientifica del Pacifico (1862-1869), as well as via the Spanish missionary and colonial presence in the Pacific (Philippines, Marianas Islands, Caroline Islands). Spanish museums have an estimated 500 remarkable objects from Oceania. However, as the Spanish presence in Oceania was marginal to more intense colonial developments in America, these collections have been largely neglected and treated only tangentially by both Spanish and foreign researchers, unlike similar collections in the UK, France, Germany or The Netherlands. Most of these objects are kept in storage, and hence remain unknown to the wider Spanish public. Thus, this topic presents a unique opportunity for original research that will be assisted by, and complementary to, research done on collections in other European countries.On their arrival in Spain, Pacific objects were catalogued, at times wrongly, and distributed among state museums. Later, as collections and state institutions were refashioned, objects were redistributed with no clear pattern, usually ending up in storage. Today, the main Spanish museums that house 18th and 19th century material from the Pacific are Museo de América, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Museo Naval (all in Madrid), and Museo del Ejército (Toledo).This topic presents a unique research opportunity because Spanish collections have not been studied in the way that British, French, Dutch or German collections have been. My project will add an innovative, integrated and comparative analysis to existing literature. Understanding these objects not only entails the identification of the collections and related documentation, but also making sense of the colonial context and the intellectual traditions in which they were collected and classified. Thus, through an original, comparative and systematic study of these collections, the project will focus on object biographies, the case of the Spanish empire in the Pacific via-à-vis other European empires, the intellectual roots of Enlightenment-era systematic collecting in Spain, and the interaction between museums and communities of origin. Such an ambitious project requires a multidisciplinary methodological approach, bringing into play methods from Anthropology, History, Museology and Art History.This project is important not only because it adds fresh research to the field of collections studies, but it will also contribute to three interrelated processes: placing Spanish collections within the broader field of Pacific studies, contributing to the history of Museology in Spain, and connecting Spanish museum collections to communities of origin.