Entre nature et culture : l'insecte de collection

The collection of insects, be it exhibited in the amateur's living-room or stacked on the shelves of the Entomology Laboratory ofthe National Museum of Natural History, is one of those falsy banal objects which must be examinated from a distance. As a matter of fact, a collection does not only present a naturalist relevance but also an anthropological relevance. It does not amount to a simple gathering of small dried up corpses: it is also a System of signs, whose items ended up in this System by means ofa long chain of operations penetrated by multiple cultural elements.