Talk:Human zoo

message: It would be good this article to contain some photos depicting human zoos and the species presented there. 
:Well, Homo sapiens is certainly one of them.  —  Rickyrab | Talk 16:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are plenty of images now. The species is pretty clear, no? —mako๛ 22:00, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: photo

message: Please, can anyone add the foloowing text (removed from zoo) to this article? That would be great!
Human beings were sometimes displayed in cages along with non-human animals, supposedly to illustrate the differences between people of European and non-European origin. During the 19th century, zoos with human exhibits existed in Hamburg, Antwerp, Barcelona, London, Milan, New York, and Warsaw, with 200,000 to 300,000 visitors reportedly attending each exhibition.
In September 1906, William Hornaday, director of the Bronx Zoo in New York — with the agreement of Madison Grant, head of the New York Zoological Society — had Ota Benga, a Congolese pygmy, displayed in a cage with the chimpanzees, then with an orangutan named Dohong, and a parrot. The exhibit was intended as an example of the "missing link" between the orangutan and white man. It triggered protests from the city's clergymen, but the public reportedly flocked to see it.Bradford, Phillips Verner and Blume, Harvey. Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo.  St. Martins Press, 1992.
Human beings were displayed in cages during the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition, and as late as 1958 in a "Congolese village" display at Expo '58 in Brussels.Blanchard, Pascal; Bancel, Nicolas; and Lemaire, Sandrine. "From human zoos to colonial apotheoses: the era of exhibiting the Other", Africultures.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zoofan1975 (talk • contribs) 17:09, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Addition

message: I disagree with the proposal to merge this with 'colonial exhibitions.'  A human zoo is simply a sub-category of a colonial exhibition which covers a wide range of topics (i.e. such as architecture, botany, etc).  It would be better to simply link the two as related 'see also' articles.  → R Young {yakłtalk} 05:57, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge with colonial exhibitions?

message: * Support--Jahsonic 16:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to move this page from Human Zoo to Human zoo 

message: I feel their should be a clarification avout the London Human Zoo, this is in no way racist and is very diffrent from the human zoos of the past
: Agreed. I came here following a link on the London Zoo page which mentioned a human exhibit in 2005 but didn't really explain anything about what it involved, other than eight people on display. I seriously doubt it was the same as the older human zoo's but there is really nothing said in either article to suggest otherwise. Some clarification by someone who knows more about the subject would be very helpful. Danikat (talk) 13:03, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Modern Human Zoos

message: According to books of zoo history, "human zoos" were completely different from horrors in wiki article. They closely resembled tours of folkloristic dancers of today. 
Native people arrived on voluntary paid contracts which included transporting them from and to their country of origin. Some groups arrived many times and provisions of contracts were, apparently, quite just. 
Native displays were simply part of zoos' role as provider of information about the distant countries, together with geologic and botanical displays, restorations of exotic architecture etc. It was before time of color photography, TV or accesible tourism to these places.
I did not found information that they were more 'racist' than general attitudes of XIX century. They seemed rather informative, at times when average European citizen knew almost nothing about Africa or South America.  
One of these sources is very, very wrong!
True, this article is very leftist and POV.  In a 'zoo,' a person is caged and cannot escape.  This would apply to those sent on exhibitions in the slavery era but not post-slavery.  There should be a 'qualifier' in the article and a POV label. The real issue is that it is hard to come up with a better term that everyone can agree on. → R Young {yakłtalk} 05:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Huge mis-information !?

message: I'm going to nominate this page for a NPOV check. Especially the last section reads more like a critical argument than an encyclopedia. Not that I disagree with the argument, Human Zoos were / are clearly racist, but critical analysis isn't what Wikipedia is for. MikeDockery 07:54, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would agree 2A00:23C8:B706:2B01:655E:F140:E203:C196 (talk) 12:42, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV-check 

message: "Apparently, the critical intent of Joseph Beuys 1974 performance in New York, "I Like America and America Likes Me", hasn't yet touched the organizators' minds."
This was the last line of the article. Clearly not encyclopedic. MikeDockery 08:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  moved a line here 

message: "Human zoo" is not a term in regular English and it never has been.  We really need another title, probably something with "ethnological";  what about ethnological village?--Pharos 09:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Ethnological village" is a totally non-existent term (and gets into certain distinctions between ethnology and anthropology that are complicated in the 19th century). "Human zoo" has at least been used in some scholarly contexts. If we need a different title it should be one based  on an unambiguous description, i.e. "The display of humans in zoos" or something like that. --Fastfission 13:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Ethnological village" is a bit artificial I admit (though there are a few   direct references).  The proposal is constructed on the basis that these were historically almost always described as "ethnological" and often as "villages".--Pharos 14:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: An Amazon search also show "ethnological village" being used in 21 books (and no references for "human zoo" being used in the sense described here).  Not bad for a "totally non-existent term".  We should be going for a historically-grounded English name here.--Pharos 14:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you refer to the references at the end of the article, you will see that the scholars whom have attracted attention to this used the term "human zoo". Mainly, the Monde diplomatique article in which they exposed to the general public parts of their research (elsewhere published, including the quoted book), refers to "Human Zoo", and has been used as source by other scholars. It should certainly not be merged with Colonial exhibitions, because if they're were human zoos in Colonial exhibitions, Colonial exhibition weren't only human zoos. "Ethnological village" was the term adopted at the time, and seems to me as POV as what "Human Zoo" might sound to some ears. It isn't any more scholarly (since, if you got the meaning of the article, human zoos are precisely at the intersection between popular culture & scholarly knowledge), but misleads someone in thinking these were only pure scientific (ethnological) experiences. Far away from the truth... As far as I know, the few scholars whom are working on this right now refers to it as "Human Zoo". Lapaz 14:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flawed title 

message: I just wanted to address what is clearly an NPOV segment of this rather interesting article.
:The concept of the human zoo has not completely disappeared. A "Congolese village" was displayed at the Brussels 1958 World's Fair [7]. An "African Village" was opened in Augsburg's zoo in Germany in July 2005 [8]. According to a June 1994 article by Le Monde diplomatique, a human zoo was present in the village of Huang-Haen in Burma, visited by most tourist agencies [9]. In August 2005, the London Zoo also displayed human beings wearing fig leaves (though in this case, the humans volunteered) [10]. At Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States, a recreation of a Wampanoag village can be found adjacent to the reconstructed Plimoth Colony, staffed by Native Americans in traditional garb. [11]
This paragraph reads as though all of these 'zoo' residents were forced to be there.  Clearly even in the earliest onset of 1958, slavery had well and truly been abolished and it was highly improbable that the residents were forced to live there.  Further, given the tone of the entire article addressing 'human zoo's not as an archaeic sociological oddity of behavioural science, that being collecting and / or displaying anything and everything even fellow human beings (which still goes on today in many ways), it further takes these events of willing participants into the same negative light, which I find to be incorrect.
The concept of a human zoo is relatively exciting, as far as voluntary participation goes; we see elements of it in 'reality tv' being the most common and contemporary example and it is still fully in force today on a grander scale.  We need only look at the exhibitionists of the internet in cam sites out there to further illustrate that human nature enjoys being watched and watching others, especially in their natural habitat.
I believe that the section in question should neutrally and accurately represent this.  Human zoo's may have been attached with human rights issues and carried out some abominable practises, but so do all animal zoo's in the same unnatural captive way; why we as an animal species are exclusive to such civility is a question I shall not pose here, however one that I will is why is it neccesary to focus only on the negative aspect of this issue? Jachin 10:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The legacy of 'human zoo's -- NPOV

message: The bit about Chang and Eng doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the article. They weren't displayed "in their native state"--they were displayed as a freak show, like a bearded lady or the Elephant Man. I hesitate to edit this article, however, since there's obviously already some contention about subject matter. IrisWings 07:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conjoined twins 

message: Month-long voluntary, non-racist enclosure.
:Not quite the same thing as the subject of the article. Rintrah 14:17, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human Zoo in Australia 

message: Call me cynical, but I believe the main reason human zoos stopped being popular was simply because television documentaries made them obsolete, giving a better way to give insight into "exotic" peoples lives. Should there be a mention of the birth of such documentaries? —Pengo 06:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human zoos replaced by tv documentaries? 

message: The very name (together with misplaced text) suggests that folk shows mistreated and insulted people.  Except a few isolated and perhaps not connected incidents, not. These were usually etnographic shows. There is no mention that 19.-20. cent. zoos presented all kind of subjects which European would find unknown, not just animals: minerals, plants, bone diisplays, people and buildings. Equally, one can blame Natural History Museum or Discovery Channel for racism.
Hagenbeck Zoo included (and still includes) magnificent replicas of non-European buildings: Egyptian temples, Oriental palaces and Japanese gardens. This should throw into pieces the moronic idea that non-European cultures were presented as inferior, uncivilized, animal-like...
Maybe most sensible way to sort this mess is dividing article into "folk shows" and "humans in zoos" which would present freak shows and suchlike, and few examples from fiction (e.g. Star Trek or Vonnegut). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.152.84.114 (talk) 15:55, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Divide into folk show and humans in zoo? 

message: I wonder if there is any evidence of Nazis running human zoos or of such zoos being in Nazi Germany. Given the Nazis' ideology, which encouraged racist practices and policies, including genocide, one would not be too surprised to hear that the Nazis ran or encouraged human zoos housing blacks, Jews, Arabs, Chinese, etc. If such zoos are known to have existed - and I don't know if any such zoos existed - they might make a pertinent contribution to this article.  —  Rickyrab | Talk 16:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well in fact they were prohibited for political reasons. Nazis critizised the British colonial system and as such tried to gain sympathy of indigenious populations.--Dojarca (talk) 10:06, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Nazis and Human Zoos

message: The Chinese Minority Park in Beijing might be considered a Human Zoo as it has minorities who spend their days in special themed enclosures and they do stereotypical behavior such as traditional dances and songs. However the minorities are not forced to be in the park.
This is got to be a joke.  Dancing and song now classify as stereotypes?  Maybe there shouldn't be any cultural exchange at all, that way, no one can complain you are making fun of them!  
I am deleting this.
PS:  This sentence also have no source, not even from a blog.
24.89.245.62 03:32, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Traditional dances and songs as stereotypical behaviors 

message: As it says here, I can give many other reasons to explain why this article exposes a completely missed approach. Even though a "human zoo" is a possible concept (in human zoos we could observe from a static descriptive analytic exposition, different human beings in a controlled environment); actually, most of the cases explained here are closer to "human exhibitions" or "culture exhibitions", a different approach which is quite far from slavery, racism and animalization of human beings (ideas which the title, clearly and without enough base -source 15 is out, source 16 is a blog, source 17 is out...-, tries to infere to the reader, violating WP:NPOV) and closely related on the first stages of internazionalization and globalization; and culture and ethnic mixing. This article clearly brings a ridiculous segmented point of view (yeah man, I am already quite concerned about slavery, racism, inculture, and colonialism; you don't need to invent the History to underline it) and, for changing it, we could start retitling the article from Human zoo to Ethnic exhibitions. 
Anyway, thank you for contributing to Wikipedia. Best regards. 79.154.25.201 (talk) 15:38, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article breaks NOPV 

message: I've been searching of late for what I recall was a segment on the 1980's Ripley's Believe It or Not! show about a zoo that hired a comic actor to portray a "Human" in an exhibit lasting several days if not weeks. If memory serves, he was display ape-like behavior and body language doing routine tasks and acted like a chimp while typing at a computer in an "office" (Think of those CareerBuilder chimp ads.) and the stunt was a big hit for the zoo. I'm pretty sure the segment was indeed from Ripley's and not That's Incredible or Real People, or some other show, but couldn't find a bit of info on-line about this, like who the actor was. (If he hadn't been a white guy in a business suit the performance would have been understandably decried as a racist horror, but instead, having been done right, it looked hilarious.) Anyone have more info?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.194.107.214 (talk) 21:06, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  1980's [[Ripley's Believe It or Not! (TV series)|Ripley's Believe It or Not!]] Segment 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion 

message: In the article's current state it suddenly refers to "Hornaday" but it isn't explained who s/he is.  Later on it refers to a zoo director Hornaday.  If this is the same person it should be described who the person is at the first mention of Hornaday. 1dragon (talk) 11:41, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hornaday 

message: There are many examples here of people beign exhibited in human zoos, but no attempt to delineate between when people chose to partake and when they were forced to - two rather different situations. Someone who says 'yes, I'll dance around in traditional dress for gawping crowds for a few pennies' is in a rather different situation to someone dragged from home and forced to do the same under threat of physical punishment. LastDodo (talk) 10:29, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voluntary vs involuntary 

message: "The latter featured nude women performing in western attire"
Am I missing something here? Flapdragon (talk) 13:12, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Appears to have been removed. —mako๛ 22:02, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clothed nudes? 

message: This may be the worst article I've ever encountered on Wikipedia.  It reads like a middle school book report, with extensive use of scare quotes, poor grammar, and no attempt at to keep a neutral POV at all.  It's almost like the article was written to make an argument, rather than relay information.  Honestly it should just be started over from scratch.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.116.224.53 (talk) 20:21, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  This whole article is a mess 

message: I removed this sentence since it doesn't make sense:
:Animal zoos provide many controversies spanning to the modern day, as human expositions diminished in prominence in the 20th century.
—mako๛ 22:00, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed sentence from lead