Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses amateur and professional practices in museums in the early twentieth century, focusing on Harry Beasley’s private collection of Pacific artefacts. It suggests that Lévi-Strauss’ distinction between bricoleur and engineer is "good to think" in relation to collection-making.

Paper long abstract:

In “The Savage Mind”, Claude Lévi-Strauss compares the science of the concrete (put into practice by the bricoleur) and the science of the abstract (undertaken by the engineer) to reveal how different thought processes can lead to equally valid results.

In the light of Lévi-Strauss' theory, amateur collectors seem to echo the endeavours of the bricoleur, while museum professionals would tend towards the more scientific and rationalised thought processes of the engineer. But was this so at the beginning of the 20th century?

Using Harry Beasley’s private collection of Pacific artefacts formed between 1895 and 1939 as an example, this paper attempts to show that Lévi-Strauss distinction between bricoleur and engineer is "good to think" in relation to collection-making: does the distinction between amateur and professional rely on a contrast between concrete and abstract, between bricolage and science?

Although Lévi-Strauss theory is anchored in a structuralist framework, it is not its structural component that is here highlighted, but the thought processes underlying the activity of collecting, and its relationship to bricolage, science and art. Levi-Strauss’ works allow us to get a glimpse at the nature of collectors (amateurs and professionals), oscillating between bricoleurs, artists and scientists by creating complex constructed artefacts.