Researching research
I found the lecture by Martin Hosken really helped me switch into a more investigative mindset, and armed me with some tools on navigating research, what outcomes to expect, and how to balance information I gather.
I knew I would be suited to choose a subject I had direct access to, or have seen in-person in the past.
I chose an object that has fascinated me and even prompted an excursion just to see it in person — the overstuffed walrus of the Horniman Museum.
Here are the key considerations I identified that will help guide my research on this particular topic.
The Horniman Walrus
In a ten-minute walk from the Forest Hill overground station, you’ll find a stately Victorian-era museum surrounded by lush gardens and filled with some unusual curios. However, there’s one particularly unique specimen on display at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in London.
Hunted in Canada’s Hudson Bay and arriving in England in 1886, the Horniman Walrus sits proudly upon his own fiberglass iceberg at the centre of a large exhibition hall. But what about this specimen deserves such a position of crowning glory? There’s something unusual and unnatural about our friend the walrus, which Boswell (2013) describes as a “time capsule of Victorian-era ideas about natural history”. This one-ton beast has been overstuffed. The wrinkles and folds of hide that we expect to see in walrus have disappeared, and his neck stands tall, protruding up and outward. “When Victorian taxidermists received a strange creature with heavy folds of grooved skin, they thought all those wrinkles needed to be smoothed out” (Meier, 2013).
I visited the “strangely sleek” (Boswell) Horniman Walrus on a trip to London back in 2016, making a special excursion after seeing him highlighted in a program about usual and odd museums in London.
However, seeing him in person was not as laughable or grotesque as I had been led to believe, and in the context of Horniman Natural History Gallery, he seems perfectly at home.
I love everything about this walrus. It’s over-stuffed, inaccurate, rough around all its edges, and tells a story from a time when travel, information sharing, cataloging and photography was rare or inaccurate. It’s a Canadian walrus, on a fake iceberg, in the middle of London.
While it’s perfectly reasonable to expect people who have never encountered a walrus before to be incapable of achieving an accurate representation, it’s also a lesson in failed communication. In an article by The Guardian’s Jim Carroll, he warns modern marketers to take note. “To put it crudely, if you want to stuff a walrus you need both people who know their walruses and people who know their taxidermy” (Carrol, 2016). Perhaps ‘stuffing a walrus’ could be the new turn-of-phrase to confirm teams are communicating effectively.
The Horniman walrus is seemingly beloved by all – but there are some voices calling for a deeper ethical reflection and even to question is he’s worthy of repatriation. Online socio-political journal Dilettante Army invites further exploration – “itʼs crucial to consider the ways in which objects, including those that were once alive, continue the colonial legacy of their forefathers” (Christian, 2016).
Isn’t that beauty of the Horniman Walrus? He sparks everything from a smirk or a giggle to lessons in communication to the greater questions of repatriation and ethics of museum collections. There is truly no more influential walrus than he.
1. Boswell, R., 2013. Stuffed walrus wowed Queen Victoria. Calgary Herald. Available at: https://www.pressreader.com/canada/calgary-herald/20130521/281741266947147.
2. Carroll, J., 2016. Marketers should learn the lessons of the stuffed Horniman WalrusJim. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/jun/15/marketers-lessons-stuffed-horniman-walrus [Accessed August 20, 2022].
3. Christian, K., 2018. A wrinkle in time: The horniman walrus and Colonial legacy. Dilettante Army. Available at: https://dilettantearmy.com/articles/a-wrinkle-in-time [Accessed August 20, 2022].
4. Meier, A., 2013. An overstuffed taxidermy walrus comes home. Atlas Obscura. Available at: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/horniman-museum-walrus-comes-home [Accessed August 20, 2022].
Lecture and Readings
What is my own method of research? It’s to investigate a subject, while being aware of my own bias, and exploring localized or greater context the subject relates to.
Key considerations when approaching research:
Method/Methodology
Sources: Primary/Secondary
CRAAP Test
One principle that stood out the most to me was on minimizing harm. While you may have good intentions, it’s easy to cause harm and break trust when conducting research or asking people to contribute to your project.
I think of my local Indigenous community. There has been many times when a government branch, organization, reporter, or researcher asks too much of these communities, when there is no relationship to build a foundation on. Why would these communities that have been harmed by people with good intentions before, trust that you wont do the same. If you are asking someone to re-tell a story that’s been told, you could be doing harm by re-traumatizing that person.
I think sometimes research can be so focused on achieving a goal, that they don’t consider that others will never feel the impact of that goal being reached.
When wading through this weeks reading (I say wading as it was very much out of my wheelhouse) I found the visual representation above really helped me organize my approach into an order.
This flow of organizing data I found interesting too, and got me thinking of ways to visualize research at each step.