Museum Anthropology最新文献

This paper explores the status of Indigenous ethnographic collections from Siberia—objects, photographic, and other heritage records—that were moved outside Russia to museums in the United States (North America). The collections now held at seven American museums are treated here as “twice removed,” that is, both geographically and intellectually, from their original homelands. This study is a response to the growing interest in the status of Siberian collections by museum and heritage professionals, and primarily by Siberian diaspora experts and cultural activists. Such collections are now viewed as a new resource that can help sustain heritage preservation in both home and diaspora communities and advance transnational collaboration. Sharing knowledge about Siberian ethnographic collections in Western museums is a rapidly growing activity aimed at co-creating knowledge with Indigenous experts and at building ways to reconnect the collections, via online access and other means, with home communities and other audiences when international connections, broken since 2022, resume.

On Friday September 27, 2024, The Metropolitan Museum of Art held an exhibition event entitled “Celebration and Resistance: Mexican Prints at the Vanguard,” a 1 h public program which accompanied the museum's temporary exhibition–Mexican Prints at the Vanguard (September 12, 2024–January 5, 2025). The goal of the event was to explore the tradition of printmaking in Mexico and its use in the spread of political ideology before, during, and after the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). While the event provided significant sociohistorical background on many of the exhibited artworks, discourse at the event lacked in-depth discussion of Indigeneity as well as how political ideologies spread by print mediums relate to and impact Indigenous peoples and communities within Mexico. However, the event proved to be an effective advertising strategy for other upcoming Hispanic Heritage Month events at The Met, and an excellent example of bilingual Spanish-English public programming.

What happens when sacred Indigenous objects held in international museums have no clear path home? This paper explores the challenges of repatriating poorly documented Aboriginal secret-sacred objects—known as tywerrenge—to central Australia. Despite limited provenance, these objects remain spiritually potent to Aboriginal custodians. Drawing on a multi-year, Indigenous-led project by AIATSIS, Deakin University, and senior central Australian men, the study consulted over 110 ceremonial leaders across nine language groups. All supported the return of tywerrenge, emphasizing spiritual connection over Western legal frameworks of ownership. Leaders called for repatriation to restore ancestral presence to land and community, not just to return physical items. The project culminated in a regional gathering where leaders advocated for a dedicated museum facility in central Australia, governed through adapted ceremonial protocols. The study demonstrates how Indigenous-led models can reshape global museum practice and promote culturally informed systems of care for sacred objects.

I didn't expect to meet Kanchendzonga in a plastic storage container in a British Museum study room. This is the chief mountain deity for my community in the Sikkim Himalayas; we live in his shadow in the valleys of Sikkim, and interact with him through daily rituals. My first response was to engage in a ritual apology that he had been left for so long. My next was to consider how this ritual apology may be extended into an act of ritual care that traces the provenance of this mask as a way to renew relationships between Kanchendzonga and the people of Sikkim, far from the British Museum, as an alternative to the extractive environmental practices underway in the Himalayas. This article contributes to discussions about Indigenous engagement and provenance histories in museum collections, and affirms the importance of ritual care as a form of rematriation.

This commentary introduces the reader to the Siberian audio collection of the Hungarian ethnologist and researcher of shamanism Vilmos Diószegi (1923–1972). Diószegi conducted four research expeditions to southern Siberia and northern Mongolia, in 1957, 1958, 1960, and 1964, to study the shamanic traditions of Indigenous populations in these regions. During these expeditions, he recorded shamanic narratives and collected materials on shamanic practices from former shamans. The primary sources for this research are the audio recordings preserved in the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest, Diószegi's first workplace, along with other secondary materials, including written documents and ethnographic artifacts. The Museum of Ethnography digitized the audio materials and posted them on the museum's website in 2023 to commemorate the centenary of Diószegi's birth. The materials are of interest to representatives of Indigenous peoples of Siberia, as well as to anthropologists, folklorists, and linguists studying Siberian culture and languages.