The live human exhibitions in the territory of Latvia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries between science, entertainment and homophobia

Project No.: 1.1.1.2/VIAA/3/19/516; ESS2020/350
Period: 1 May 2020 – 30 April 2023
Project costs: 133,805.88 EUR
Principal investigator: Dr.hist. Ilze Boldāne–Zeļenkova
Exploring the practice of staging exotic otherness in the Baltic Provinces of the Russian Empire, the project will assess the role of live exhibitions in shaping the knowledge, entertainment habits and perception of otherness in the local community, simultaneously enhancing the scientific capacity and project management competence of the post-doctoral researcher.
Historical sources (documents, press, posters, minutes of meetings of local scientific societies and publications) will be investigated, seeking answer questions on the following issues:
- dates and venues of exotic shows in the Baltic Provinces;
- interest in racial and evolutionary theory from local scientific societies and the press;
- the practice of forming the image of otherness in the local press;
- correlation between the presence of living exhibitions in the local cultural milieu and the intensity of discussion on race and evolution topics in local scientific societies and the media.
Mobility measures to Eastern and Central European countries and the USA, permitting the exchange of experience and acquisition of new knowledge, will make a significant contribution to reaching the project’s goals.
- Lauksaimniecības aizsākumi un apkārtējā vide
- Viking Age in Latvia: an interdisciplinary study
- The Live Human Exhibitions
- Rethinking Statelessness (1940–1953)
- Between surveillance and non-interference of state authorities
- Burial practices in the landscape
- Skills in synergy, crafts in context
- Rail Baltica
- Technology transfer in the processing of mineral resources in earlier times
- Archaeology, Authority & Community
- Development of Folk Dress
- Paleopathological and Molecular Genetic Studies
- The Impact of Burial Environmental Microbiome
- Interaction between the individual, the society and the state in process of the history of Latvia
- Subsistence strategies and the first demographic transition at the lake Lubāns wetland
- Rethinking Statelessness (1939–1945)
- Politicization of History
- Gender, Sex and Status in Iron Age Latvia
- People in a Dynamic Landscape
- War and Society in Latvia
- Social Transformations