Museum Anthropology: Continued Conversations in the Field

The Public Historian, 2006

The opening of the NMAI is surely a cause for excitement and celebration. It is an impressive building which stands as the culmination of years of negotiation, fundraising, and lobbying. It also promises to be a major center for research and education about the whole of Native America, a place where scholars, the general public, and Native people themselves can interact on a host of levels. But as it stands now, that great promise remains largely unfulfilled. Instead, all the hard work that created the NMAI has resulted in a contradiction wrapped around a neologism. The experience at the National Museum of the American Indian is sometimes confusing, sometimes incoherent, and ultimately disappointing. The contradiction, simply put, is this: how to build a museum to display cultures which have a deep ambivalence about the notion of being displayed? Many Native Americans have rejected outright the notion that Native American cultures can or should be displayed in museums at all. Museums, after all, are simply part of the cultural apparatus of expansion and colonization. And Native Americans have reason to be suspicious of the museum enterprise at all levels. Native American artifacts have many times been looted and stolen, and 69

Museum Management and Curatorship, 2013

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Curator: The Museum Journal, 2000

A survey of museums in the United States sought to identify evidence of broad impact on the organisational culture and practices of museums in their relatioships with indiginous peoples as a result of the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act 1990 (NAGPRA). NAGPRA establishes a process for the repatriation of human remains and other specified items held in museum collections to Native Americans who can prove they are lineal descendants or members of tribes which are culturally afliliated with identified items covered by the legislation. Effective repatriation programs are characterised by: a genuine belief in the primary rights of indigenous people in the management of their cultural material presently held in museum collections; a commitment to greater collaboration between the museum and indigenous people in the management of scientific research and public programs pertaining to items of indigenous cultural heritage; practices which are indicative of an organisational culture which acts in ways which go beyond the minimum requirements of the legislation. Our research shows that museums are engaging in consultation with indigenous people in the management of collections of indigenous cultural heritage, and that this engagement is influencing conservation strategies. Museums espouse goals which promote external consultation, the involvement of indigenous people in their activities, respect for the cultural goals of indigenous people and a a mmitment to increasing public awareness of indigenous cultural heritage and social issues. However, only in the areas where NAGPRA has mandated it should happen-collections of human remains and secrethacred material-is there evidence of communication and consultation, commitment of resources and sharing of authority with indigenous people consistent with the outcomes intended under NAGPRA.

The struggle for Indigenous rights to self-determination has included the recognition that Indigenous peoples are stakeholders in the treatment of their cultural heritage within museums. Large public museums tasked with representing Indigenous heritage tend to support the principle of working with communities to create exhibits, but studies on specific practices are lacking. I address this problem by asking: “What does ethical collaborative practice look like in the context of museum exhibit creation?” My research falls under three themes: 1) the history of collaborative practice; 2) collaborative processes; and 3) exhibit design. I show that patterns of increased collaboration were influenced by larger trends in Indigenous rights movements, and introduce the term “Indigenous museology” to frame engagement between Indigenous peoples and museums. I have defined Indigenous museology as museum work done “with, by, and for” Indigenous peoples, whereby they are recognized as primary stakeholders in museological practices. This dissertation presents a broad overview of the development of Indigenous museology over time, while focusing on exhibit creation as a key practice. My fieldwork consisted of a multi-site ethnographic study at four large, public museums: the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii; the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories; the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in Denver, Colorado; and the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, British Columbia. By exploring how these museums have engaged Indigenous peoples in exhibit creation, I found a variety of independent adoptions of similar principles. My results show that museums adopt a range of methods to engage communities, and that a “one-size-fits-all” practice for collaboration is impractical. Several patterns emerged that illustrate models for good practice. A preferred approach is to engage Indigenous peoples from the outset of projects. Even better is the involvement of Indigenous peoples as staff museum members working on interpretation. Techniques for effective design include storytelling, mobilizing “Native voice,” and programming that includes Indigenous peoples. Strong institutional mission and vision statements are also important. These ways of working are significant trends in museum practice. Finally, research on Indigenous museology illustrates how ethical, collaborative practices manifest and can be further developed within museums.

“Suggestions for a Post-Museum” (Conversation between Nanette Snoep, Margareta von Oswald, and Jonas Tinius, in: Across Anthropology. Troubling Colonial Legacies, Museums, and the Curatorial. Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 324-335.

2014

Over the last 40 years museums have become important sites to understand the politics and poetics of heritage management, display, and knowledge production. The books under consider- ation here all help demonstrate how museums as relational entities—containing dynamic relations between persons and things, as well as generating them—are emergent processes. Each work helps demonstrate why museums in their many guises remain critical terrains for the negotiation of identity, history, and culture in the push for more collaborative accounts of our world and the circulation and display of things. Discussion and Review of: Bodinger de Uriarte, John. 2007. Casino and Museum: Representing Mashantucket Pequot Identity. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press. Carpenter, Edmund. 2005. Two Essays: Chief & Greed. North Andover: Persimmon Press. Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Chip, Stephen E. Nash, and Steven R. Holen. 2010. Crossroads of Culture: Anthropology Collections at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Boulder: University of Colorado. Price, Sally. 2007. Paris Primitive: Jacques Chirac’s Museum on the Quai Branly. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Silverman, Helaine, ed. 2006. Archaeological Site Museums in Latin America. Gainsville: University Press of Florida.