Performing science amongst the filing cabinets. Women, anthropology and museums in Belgium (1930–1970)

ABSTRACT

I trace the scientific trajectory and identity of Olga Boone (1903–1992), the first female scientist working in the Belgian Congo Museum's ethnography section. Uncovering Boone's relatively unknown and remarkably diverse research in ‘ethnic’ geography, musicology and bibliography, and her fieldwork in Congo, serves as a point of entry into a less well-known period in and ‘unofficial’ history of Belgian twentieth-century anthropology. It also provides a window into museums as gendered spaces, particularly aspects of (in)visibility and materiality in collections and archives.

Abbreviations: AA: African abstracts; BCM: Belgian Congo Museum; ESA: Ethnographic survey of Africa; IAI: International African Institute; IRCB: Institut Royal Colonial Belge; IRSAC: Institut de Recherche Scientifique en Afrique Centrale; MFA-AA: Ministry of Foreign Affairs – African archives; OB: Olga Boone; RMCA(A): Royal Museum for Central Africa (archives)

KEYWORDS:

• Women anthropologists
• museums
• Belgium
• Congo

Acknowledgements

My research has benefitted enormously from the invaluable advice and support of Maarten Couttenier, so generously sharing his expertise and time with me. I thank the anonymous reviewers, Patricia Van Schuylenbergh, Hannelore Vandenbergen and Cathy Wickham for their helpful comments on this paper. I also thank Tom Morren, Anne Welschen, An Cardoen, Siska Genbrugge, Lucienne di Mauro, Katrien Van den Audenaerde and Brigitte Osselaer for their help in searching the RMCA’s collections, archives and libraries. Not in the least I am grateful to Guido Gryseels, general director of the RMCA, and Patricia Van Schuylenbergh, head of the History and Politics unit, for making this research project possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Eline Sciot http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4778-1708

Notes

1 In the museum was only one scientific position in the ethnography section until Boone's appointment.

2 RMCAA, AA.2-D.15, Annual reports 1950–1969.

3 Van Geluwe was the second woman scholar in the museum's history, and later the first woman to become head of department (in the 1980s).

4 Ministerial Decree, October 31, 1928, RMCAA, AA.2-P.1, OB.

5 Bulletin du Cercle des Géographes Liégeois, 1929–30.

6 Halkin to Maes, March 9, 1930, Ministry of Foreign Affairs – African Archives (MFA-AA), D61, Joseph Maes, 3863, 159 Divers.

7 Boone to Van Overbergh, July 29, 1930, MFA, Diplomatic Archives, Minaf 156, OB file.

8 Petit to Boone, December 24, [1936], RMCAA, Ethnography, ‘Dossier personnel OB’.

9 Schouteden to the Minister of Colonies, July 1, 1938; Boone to Schouteden, September 6, 1939; De Jonghe to Schouteden, November 7, 1939, RMCAA, AA.2-S.1. These discussions were repeated yearly between 1938 and 1943.

10 [Olga Boone], manuscript of Les peuplades … [s.d.], RMCAA, Ethnography.

11 Schouteden to the Minister of Colonies, August 23, 1945. RMCAA, AA.2-P.1, OB.

12 Olbrechts to Gerdt Kutscher, August 7, 1954, RMCAA, AA.2-S.1.

13 Boone to De Jonghe, November 23, 1946, RMCAA, Ethnography, ‘Dossier personnel OB’.

14 De Jonghe to the Minister of Colonies, May 17, 1947, RMCAA, AA.2-P.1, OB.

15 The IRCB sponsoring turned off, ‘officially’ due to conflicts of interest with the newly founded IRSAC, which led the museum to pay the expedition (under IRSAC's patronage). The Minister of Colonies to Olbrechts, May 1, 1947 and Olbrechts to the Minister of Colonies, March 3, 1948, RMCAA, AA.2-P.1, OB.

16 Maurice Bequaert, geologist Jacques Lepersonne, zoologist and palaeontologist Edmond Dartevelle and ichthyologist Max Poll were appointed and promoted to curator (a title scientists obtained after a fixed amount of years as attaché) around the same time as Boone in 1949.

17 Minute of the Commission de surveillance, October 5, 1949, RMCAA, AA.2-RIII. I thank Maarten Couttenier for this reference.

18 Photo album and maps in RMCAA, Ethnography; interviews in Schouteden-Wéry (1950a, 1950b).

19 Boone might have been inspired by the IAI's ESA, also targeting inaccessible information in government archives. An ESA concept note (similar to the version published in Africa (“Notes and News”, 1945) has written comments by Boone, s.d., RMCAA, Ethnography, Olga Boone papers.

20 A detailed travel schedule, announcing the dates of Boone's arrival, was distributed from the general governor to all the local territories. Jungers to the provincial governor of Léopoldville, October 27, 1948, MFA-AA, AIMO GG, 1859, 9946, ‘Mission Melle Boone’.

21 RMCAA, Ethnography, Olga Boone papers (field notes) and ‘Dossier personnel OB’ (correspondence).

22 Boone, Annual report 1945, RMCAA, Ethnography, ‘Jaarverslagen 1932–1968’.

23 Olbrechts to Desmond Clark, November 16, 1950, RMCAA, AA.2-S.1.

24 Vansina also noted a divergence of fieldwork styles among his IRSAC colleagues (1996, 32).

25 Boone to Olbrechts, January 31, 1951, RMCAA, AA.2-P.1, OB.

26 Olbrechts to the Minister of Colonies, March 2, 1951, RMCAA, AA.2-P.1, OB.

27 Boone to Dekeukeleire, December 12, 1949, RMCAA, Ethnography, ‘Dossier personnel OB’. Although the collaboration with Dekeukeleire, and possibly also Vanden Bossche turned off, it is highly unlikely that Boone made the (contrary to the initial plan, mute) films herself. Olbrechts to Vanden Bossche, June 20, 1951, RMCAA, AA.2-P.1, OB.

28 ‘Ethnographic file Olga Boone’, RMCAA, DA.74.3. RMCA collections: FC 2013.39 (films) and EP.0.0.2243–2331 (photographs). For a basic inventory of the films, see Vangroenweghe (1988, 117–18, 288–89).

29 Both Maes (Couttenier 2005, 247–301) and Maesen were charged with collecting expeditions shortly after their appointment.

30 Olbrechts to Tonnoir, May 4, 1951, RMCAA, AA.2-P.1, OB.

31 RMCAA, AA.2-D.2.1951.29.

32 Boone appears in the collection databases, a key tool in daily museum management today and online accessible to the public – as opposed to archival collections.

33 E.g. in 1952 for the IAI (“Meeting of the Executive Council … ” 1952, 264); in 1954 at the Colloques de Wégimont (correspondence between Boone and Paul Collaer, August 1954, Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, Mus. Ms. 3972/267-269) and at the Comité belge du film ethnographique (Letter by Henry Lavachéry, March 17, 1954, RMCAA, AA.2-P.1, OB.)

34 Boone co-copy-edited three monographs on the region or the dances (Iyandza-Lopoloko 1961; Tonnoir 1970; Van Everbroeck 1974), Cahen to Lopokolo, September 23, 1959, RMCAA, AA.2-D.6; Annual report 1970, p. 79, RMCAA, AA.2-D.15, and Boone to Van Everbroeck (draft), February 5, 1973, RMCAA, Ethnography, Maesen papers, Correspondence OB.

35 Boone to Olbrechts, January 31, 1951, RMCAA, AA.2-P.1, OB.

36 Boone, Annual reports 1953 to 1958, RMCAA, AA.2-D.15.

37 Boone to Daryll Forde, April 15, 1952, RMCAA, AA.02, O.1.4.

38 Boone to Vansina (draft), March 20, 1953, RMCAA, Ethnography, Olga Boone papers.

39 RMCAA, Ethnography, Olga Boone papers. Furthermore, the drafts were not sorted in the correspondence folders, but ‘illogically’ (hidden?) in between her field notes.

40 Boone, Annual report 1952, RMCAA, AA.2-D.15.

41 Boone to Vansina (draft), October 21, 1968, RMCAA, Ethnography, Albert Maesen papers, Correspondence OB.

42 It was to be published in the museum's journal Africa-Tervuren. Boone, typoscript Carte ethnique de la république démocratique du Congo, du Rwanda et du Burundi, October 30, 1970, RMCAA, Ethnography, Olga Boone papers. Unfortunately the map is lacking.

43 Boone to de Léon Saint-Moulin, November 26, 1971, RMCAA, Ethnography, Albert Maesen papers, Correspondence OB.

44 Annual report 1973, p. 63, RMCAA, AA.2-D.15.

45 Consulted journals include: Kongo-Overzee, Congo, Congo-Tervuren, Zaïre, Anthropos, Aequatoria, Bulletin des juridictions indigènes et du droit coutumier congolais, Voix du Congolais, Africa, Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie.

46 These included: annual and political reports, population figures, ethnographic studies, and most importantly, rapports d’enquête, studies by local administrators in view of creating administrative territories (circonscriptions: chefferies or secteurs). Whenever possible, Boone obtained a copy for the Tervuren archives.

47 MFA, AA, GG, 12426, Sec/D.8, Voyages recommandées, Recommandation Mademoiselle Boone.

48 The notes are copied almost exactly into the 1973 volume (277). Boone visited 15 mission posts during her journey. Her (fragmentary) field notes also show traces of contact with Scheut fathers Prosper Denolf in Loambo and Gustaaf Vancoillie in Thsibala, RMCAA, Ethnography, ‘Olga Boone papers’, fieldnotebook [1948–49]. Boone (1961, xvi) mentions furthermore fathers Bogaerts from the Masuika mission and Claerhout from the Kansenia mission.

49 de Saint-Moulin to Boone, November 16, 1971 and Tonnoir to Boone, October 3, 1972, RMCAA, Ethnography, Albert Maesen papers, Correspondence OB.

50 The maps have a long history. Already shortly after the publication of Les peuplades in 1935, substantial lacunas prompted the idea of a revision (written email communication by Jan Vansina to the author, August 4, 2016).

51 Unsurprisingly, Legros and Keim referred to the so-called ‘Olga Boone collection’ as only ‘related to the southern half of the Belgian Congo’ (1996, 405).

52 For a bibliography of Boone’s most important publications, see Sciot (2017).

53 Press clipping from L’Indépendance belge, December 29, 1936, RMCAA, Ethnography, ‘Dossier personnel OB’.

54 The monographies ethnographiques. Olbrechts to the Minister of Colonies, August, 8, 1952, RMCAA, AA.02-O.1.4.

55 Boone to Cahen, August 31, 1964, RMCAA, AA.2-P.1, OB.

56 In 1967 up to 174 persons and 750 unique visits on year basis, RMCAA, AA.2-D.15, Annual report 1965–69, p. 87.

57 Lui in French can mean both him and her.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Belgian Federal Science Policy Office and the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Federal Scientific Institution.