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ABSTRACT
The zoo is in many respects a place of remembrance. In zoos, one is reminded of one's own childhood, outstanding human and animal figures, various human cultures past and present, the genetic heritage of natural evolution and the origins of humans. Zoo animals, therefore, cannot be readily associated with wildlife in its natural setting alone. Indeed, zoos are not only about animals, as they purport to be; they are also metaphorical places and about memory. Memories are always socially conditioned and never innocent; the same holds for zoos. I ask whether zoos without colonialist and imperialist undertones are even conceivable today and if human communities could be involved in zoo management to a larger extent.
KEYWORDS
Animals, archaeology, heritage, local communities, memory, metaphors, zoo
As a child I regularly visited the Zoologischer Garten Berlin (Berlin Zoo) with my brother, my parents and grandparents. My mother found an old photo that shows us in front of the elephant house and may have been taken around 1974 (Figure 1). I still remember my favourite animals: the mongoose in the brand-new nocturnal animal house and the reindeer, which I never left out at any visit. Sometimes we got up early and went for the Sunday morning concert at the zoo - an event that was a firm institution among the Berliners of my grandparents' generation (Klös et al. 1994: 322, 403). Today, those memories make me sad. My Berlin grandparents died long ago. Almost twenty years after our visits to the Berlin zoo ended, I went back a few years ago. The mongoose and the reindeer are still in their original places, but the once celebrated nocturnal animal house suddenly seems tiny and not quite as fascinating. Since I visited from Sweden, even the reindeer had lost their glow of the exotic north, still alive in my memories. However, the zoo for me remains a place that is associated with strong childhood memories. I no doubt share with many others this nostalgic sentiment which wells up when I think of my childhood visits to the zoo.
Naturally, zoos today are not primarily intended as realms of memory for their adult visitors; they are more strongly focused on the present. All visitors want to see wild animals...