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of the Histories of Anthropology

Swiss scholar Jean Gabus (1908-1992) received an education in humanities and worked first as a journalist and explorer. After an expedition to Canada in 1938–1939, he wrote a dissertation on the Inuit, under the supervision of Wilhelm Schmidt. In 1945, he was appointed director of the Musée d’ethnographie of Neuchâtel (until 1978) and professor of geography and ethnography at the University of Neuchâtel (until 1974). He spent most of his career studying the nomad populations of Mauritania, Niger and Algeria, but his most important achievements were museological: he radically modernized the Neuchâtel museum and was an international renowned expert for museums for UNESCO from 1958 to the 1980s, popularizing the concept of objet-témoin.

Keywords: Museology/museography | Photography | Ethnographic photography | Anthropological expeditions and missions | Museum curator | 20th century | Switzerland | Mauritania | Niger | Algeria | Art | Ethnographic Artifact | Objectivity | Musée d’ethnographie de Neuchâtel | Ethnology Museum