Zoos humanos, ethnic freaks y exhibiciones etnológicas (Human Zoos, ethnic freaks and ethnological exhibitions)

A decade ago, while I was doing doctoral research in Paris on the relationship between photography and anthropology, I came across a phenomenon that caught my attention from the very beginning: what some specialists had called human zoos. The general formula, according to the model of the exhibitions organised by the promoter Carl Hagenbeck in the Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris in the second half of the 19th century, was apparently simple. If we take a group of humans from an exotic society, bring them to Europe voluntarily or by force, and place them in a fenced-in enclosure recreating the natural environment in which they live as is done in wild animal zoos, we can get to know their appearance and customs first-hand without straying from the warmth of home or endangering our lives.