Thinking Allowed - 10/06/2009

Laurie Taylor discusses 'human zoos', the practice of putting colonial subjects on display to western audiences. He is joined by Charles Forsdick, co-editor of Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial Empires, and the cultural commentator Kate Berridge. There were 20-25,000 on display, in special villages, in circuses and in bars. Millions of spectators from New York to London, Tokyo to Warsaw visited at their feeding times, watched as they gave birth and came to ogle at their extraordinary physicality as they stood nude behind bars. These were the people of Africa, Aboriginals from Australia, Fijians, Zulus and even Laplanders, brought to the cradle of imperialism to tell a story of savagery and civilisation. Also Girl Racers, an ethnographic study of car modifiers in Aberdeen, and how the women involved in the youth cult intergrate themselves in a traditionally male pass time. Karen Lumsden from Aberdeen University tells Laurie about her research.