Arctic Exploration and the Mobility of Phrenology: John Ross's Ethnographic Portraits of the Netsilingmiut

Abstract

ABSTRACT Analysing a set of ethnographic images and illustrations resulting from John Ross’s second voyage to find a Northwest Passage in 1829–1833, this article considers the ways in which Arctic exploration intersected with emergent scientific thinking about race and ethnicity in Britain. In particular, it examines how mobility impacted ideas of phrenology and scientific imaging in the context of the Arctic. As a practitioner of phrenology and member of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society, Ross’s expertise in this new mental science certainly travelled with him to the Arctic. As his field drawings and book illustrations testify, however, Ross’s knowledge was also affected by his immediate contact with the Inuit in Boothia Peninsula in Nunavut. Comparing Ross’s field drawings and illustrations in his two-volume Narrative and Appendix to their accompanying texts and to select ethnographic illustrations produced by his fellow Arctic explorers, this article uncovers the material and conceptual transformations Ross’s scientific visualisation of Inuit underwent during his physical movement between Britain and the Arctic.