Collaboration has become a cornerstone of contemporary museum practice. In the United States, the... more Collaboration has become a cornerstone of contemporary museum practice. In the United States, the anthropological literature on collaboration and museums has tended to be dominated by discussions on collaboration between museums and Indigenous communities in the course of implementing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. To date, little has been written on how collaboration is enacted among museums. This thesis explores the relationships among four museums in Denver, Colorado. By exploring how collaboration is defined, what a collaboration between museums looks like, and identifying the benefits and challenges of inter-museum collaboration, this study attempts to provide another valuable perspective on collaboration. This research found that inter-museum collaboration benefits the museums involved by enhancing institutional visibility and access to resources in the form of financial support, cultural knowledge and larger social networks. It also helps enrich the social and cultural wellbeing of targeted communities. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My family were important throughout this entire process by keeping me levelheaded, providing constant support, sending care packages of coffee and chocolate, and listening to me ramble until I eventually answered my own questions. Thank you for being my rock, my support system, and my guide. I would like to thank Museo de las Americas for their openness and willingness to work with me and contribute to my research. To those at Museo who agreed to be interviewed, thanks for taking the time, for the kindness, the insight, and continued interest in my progress. For my contributors at the Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, thank you for agreeing to participate and taking the time to work with me. Thank you to the Department of Anthropology and the faculty that worked hard to give us what we needed to succeed and for giving advice when needed. I would also like to thank my thesis committee, Dr.
There is little to no research on the folklore of the Basques, and what little that has been done... more There is little to no research on the folklore of the Basques, and what little that has been done is outdated. The Basques are a people that have long intrigued anthropologists, linguists, geneticists, and folklorists. Previous research has attempted to find an origin of the Basque language, and has acknowledged the genetic uniqueness of the Basques and attempted to discover why. The folklore of the Basques was collected almost a century ago and there are no contemporary collections of current Basque folklore. I have attempted to solve this problem by contributing to the literature on the folklore of the Basques. To do this, I interviewed nine women in the Basque community in Idaho about the folklore that is still celebrated today. I found that festivals, religious beliefs, music, stories (family stories, songs, improvised poetry called bertsolaritza, and dance), and the Basque language are the instruments of contemporary folklore of the Boise Basques. This paper introduces the term...
Uploads
Papers by Leah Zavaleta