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Life, Living and Lifelessness in Taxidermy

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Natural History Dioramas – Traditional Exhibits for Current Educational Themes

Abstract

This chapter extends and further develops a recent paper by two of the authors, Sanders and Hohenstein, by both drawing in a curatorial perspective (Meehitiya) and examining how taxidermy display techniques impact on their potential for learning conversations about death. Our belief that taxidermic displays represent potential research spaces for understanding the impact of family communication on children’s understandings of life and death underscores a guided reflection on the merits of such displays for demonstrating ways in which families discuss concepts of life, and death. Furthermore, we maintain that such studies might facilitate new interdisciplinary relationships between museum curators and researchers, thus contributing to wider debate on the place of natural history collections in modern society.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cultural Innovations Ltd., London, UK

    Luanne Meehitiya

  2. Göteborgs Universitet, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Dawn Sanders

  3. Department of Education and Professional Studies, King’s College London, London, UK

    Jill Hohenstein

Authors
  1. Luanne Meehitiya
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  2. Dawn Sanders
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  3. Jill Hohenstein
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luanne Meehitiya .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Annette Scheersoi

  2. University College London (UCL), Institute of Education, London, UK

    Sue Dale Tunnicliffe

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Meehitiya, L., Sanders, D., Hohenstein, J. (2019). Life, Living and Lifelessness in Taxidermy. In: Scheersoi, A., Tunnicliffe, S. (eds) Natural History Dioramas – Traditional Exhibits for Current Educational Themes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00208-4_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00208-4_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-00207-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-00208-4

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