Museum anthropology

Museum anthropology is a domain of scholarship and professional practice in the discipline of anthropology.

Characteristics

A distinctive characteristic of museum anthropology is that it cross-cuts anthropology's sub-fields (archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, biological anthropology) as these are understood in North American anthropology. All of these areas are sometimes pursued in museum contexts (usually on the basis of research work with systematic collections) and all can be (and are) explicated in museum-based exhibitions and public programs. Some museum anthropologists work full or part-time in museum contexts while others are anthropologists (employed in diverse settings) interested in studying museums as social institutions in cultural and historical context. These two sets of concerns—collections-based scholarship and the study of museums—provide the core around which the domain of museum anthropology has self-organized.

One theme prominent in recent museum anthropology research concerns reconnecting older collections of ethnographic objects curated in museum contexts with the present-day source communities from which these objects were gathered.[1][2] Another concern is the development of museums and cultural centers by indigenous peoples in their own home communities.[3][4][5]

Other relationships

There is much traffic between museum anthropology and the related, overlapping, and neighboring domains of (general) archaeology, museum folklore, material culture studies, historical anthropology, visual anthropology, the anthropology of art, and the history of anthropology, as well as the art history of non-western societies and the field of museum studies.

Journals

The journals Museum Anthropology, Journal of Museum Ethnography, Gradhiva, and Museum Anthropology Review are closely identified with museum anthropology as a field.[6][7][8][9]

Museum anthropology and ethnography

Drawing upon critiques of ethnographic representation in written genres, museum anthropologists have asked questions about the strategies used to represent histories and cultures in museum exhibitions and related forms of display (such as worlds fairs).[10][11] Related is historical work in which museum anthropologists seek to better understand the contexts, histories and biographies that shaped both the field and the collections that contemporary curators steward.[12][13][14] Such historical concerns in turn intersect with work addressing repatriation claims and broader cultural property issues as these relate to museums.[15][16]

Use of museum collections as a resource for research aimed at understanding ethnographic and culture historical questions in the lives of particular communities has long been the core motivation for collecting by anthropology museums. Such work has been central throughout the history of the field, but new developments in digital technologies (and the rise of the so-called digital humanities) together with the transformations that have motivated the new research interests just mentioned have generated an intensification of such work. A general revitalization of material culture studies is a further factor conditioning the renewal of collections-based research in the present period. The fruits of this work include new digital archives and databases, as well as published studies focusing on particular groups, object forms, and collections.[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]

United Kingdom and North America

Professional organizations central to the museum anthropology domain include the Council for Museum Anthropology (a section of the American Anthropological Association) in the United States and the Museum Ethnographers Group in the United Kingdom.[7][25]

In the United Kingdom and in North America, most universities that possess both anthropology degree programs and campus-based museums of anthropology will also offer specific training and coursework in museum anthropology. Specialized training for graduate students in collections-based research in museum anthropology (focusing on ethnographic rather than archaeological, biological, or linguistics collections) is provided in the Smithsonian Institution's Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA), an initiative funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.[26]

Important persons

Prominent figures in the history of museum anthropology include:

Leading senior scholars in the field today include Nancy Parezo, Candace S. Greene, Catherine S. Fowler, Daniel C. Swan, Robin Boast, Laura Peers, Sally Price, Ruth B. Phillips, Anita Herle, Joshua A. Bell, Haidy Geismar, James Clifford, Jason Baird Jackson, and Alex W. Barker.

For a list of key institutions in the field of Museum Anthropology, see: List of Museums with Major Collections in Ethnography and Anthropology.

References

  1. ↑ Laura L. Peers and Alison K. Brown, eds. (2003) Museums and Source Communities: A Routledge Reader. (London: Routledge).
  2. ↑ Alison K. Brown and Laura L. Peers (2006) Pictures Bring Us Messages: Photographs and Histories from the Kainai Nation. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
  3. ↑ Patricia Pierce Erikson with Helma Ward and Kirk Wachendorf (2002) Voices of a Thousand People: The Makah Cultural and Research Center. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press).
  4. ↑ Gwyneira Isaac (2007) Mediating Knowledges: Origins of a Zuni Tribal Museum. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press).
  5. ↑ Kimberly Christen (2007) Following the Nyinkka: Relations of Respect and Obligations to Act in the Collaborative Work of Aboriginal Cultural Centers. Museum Anthropology 30(2):101–124.
  6. ↑ Museum Anthropology. Wiley.com. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  7. 1 2 Making connections through world collections. Museum Ethnographers Group. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  8. ↑ Gradhiva. Gradhiva.revues.org. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  9. ↑ Museum Anthropology Review (an open access journal). Scholarworks.iu.edu. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  10. ↑ Richard Handler and Eric Gable (1997) The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg. (Durham: Duke University Press).
  11. ↑ Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998) Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. (Berkeley: University of California Press).
  12. ↑ Amiria Henare (2005) Museums, Anthropology and Imperial Exchange. (New York: Cambridge University Press).
  13. ↑ Shepard Krech III, ed. (1999) Collecting Native America, 1870–1960. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press).
  14. ↑ Ira Jacknis (2002) The Storage Box of Tradition: Kwakiutl Art, Anthropologists, and Museums, 1881–1981. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press).
  15. ↑ Kathleen S. Fine-Dare (2002) Grave injustice: The American Indian Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA. (Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press).
  16. ↑ Michael F. Brown (2003) Who Owns Native Culture? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
  17. ↑ The Chaco Research Archive. Chacoarchive.org. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  18. ↑ The Reciprocal Research Network. Overview. Moa.ubc.ca. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  19. ↑ Plateau Peoples' Web Portal. Libarts.wsu.edu. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  20. ↑ About GRASAC. Grasac.org. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  21. ↑ Ann Fienup-Riordan (2006) Yup'ik Elders at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin: Fieldwork Turned on its Head. (Seattle: University of Washington Press).
  22. ↑ William L. Merrill, Marian Kaulaity Hansson, Candace S. Greene and Frederick J. Reuss (1997) A Guide to the Kiowa Collections at the Smithsonian Institution. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press).
  23. ↑ Daniel C. Swan (1999) Peyote Religious Art: Symbols of Faith and Belief. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi).
  24. ↑ Aldona Jonaitis and Aaron Glass (2010) The Totem Pole: An Intercultural History. (Seattle: University of Washington Press).
  25. ↑ The Council for Museum Anthropology. Museumanthropology.org (2009-07-02). Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
  26. ↑ Smithsonian Institution Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology. Anthropology.si.edu. Retrieved on 2011-05-30.
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