Museum Anthropology最新文献

In light of recent demands to diversify and decolonize museums, which have influenced curatorial practices the world over, this article examines how the botanical gardens of The Huntington in Southern California communicate colonial legacies of their plant collections to the visiting public. Building on previous fieldwork-based research on colonial legacies and curatorial practices, the article aims to shed light on an area of museum studies that has so far not been researched as thoroughly as other parts of the museum world. Through examples from the Borderlands exhibition at The Huntington, as well as signs recently added to the displays of the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, the article shows that—although colonial legacies and Eurocentric descriptions remain present in public presentations of plants—efforts are being made to address these legacies and to include Indigenous names and perspectives in the text panels and plant signs of botanical gardens.

This article is a review of the To Be Seen, To Be Heard: First Nations in Public Spaces, 1900–1965 Exhibition at the Museum of Anthropology, situated on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm—Musqueam traditional land at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. Co-curated by Maria Crosby and Karen Duffek.

The exhibition “On the Move: Reframing Nomadic Pastoralism” was the flagship exhibition organized by the National Museum of Qatar for the World Cup 2022 period. The exhibition aimed to contextualize the nomadic past of Qatar within a broader, global cultural frame, as well as to create an ethnographic exhibition that would be appealing to a variety of audiences. The challenges of such an ambitious project, however, were multiple: representing cultures that have been exoticized and “othered” by western societies for centuries comes with efforts to overcome deeply embedded stereotypes. These stereotypes are usually both external and internal; they are convenient and retaining them becomes part of multiple agendas. How is it then possible to confront these stereotypes and move beyond them? How is it possible to present the past not as a timeless situation of bliss, but as a historical process of continuous change? How it is possible to de-colonize representations of the self and others within the frame of a national museum and in collaboration with partner institutions having their own agendas and expertise? Who is to be included in this process and how? What is the role of the different stakeholders and what are the limits of their interventions? This paper presents reflection to the above questions and aims to encourage thought on the politics of representation and decolonization. Examples for specific exhibits and processes during the setting of this exhibition will be used to support the discussion and offer a comprehensive and reflective account of exhibition making in cultural heritage institutions in the Gulf.

This essay explores the concept of hoarding and of “de-hoarding,” in the context of archaeological collecting institutions. I utilize the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) as a framework for understanding differing concepts of the “value” of the ancestral human remains and cultural belongings that comprise many such collections in the United States. By prioritizing the repatriation of Native American ancestral remains and cultural belongings, as well as deferring to tribal nations and lineal descendants in their care and curation—both required by NAGPRA legislation—collecting institutions can begin to shift their mentality from adding to these “hoards” toward providing appropriate care to the collections in their possession.

This commentary is an extension of the roundtable at the 2023 joint meeting of AAA and CASCA on the topic of “colonial hoarding.” When looking at the diagnostic criteria for hoarding disorder described by the DSM-5, the similarities are uncanny. From the ways museums and similar institutions obtain and maintain cluttered collections to the reasons for keeping these items, it seems that these institutions exhibit signs of hoarding disorder. This essay provides an overview of this concept of “colonial hoarding,” and argues that a framework of hoarding allows for a reconceptualization of the relationship between institutions that maintain ethnographic collections and the peoples it dispossesses.

Contributing to current efforts to grapple with museums' colonial legacies, this article takes the question of evidence as an entry point to unlock the multi-layered make-up of African spiritual artifacts in missionary collections. Focussing on Dutch and German missionary collections of legbawo and dzokawo from the Ewe region in Ghana and Togo, we analyze how such artifacts were subjected to “practices of evidencing” by multiple parties over a span of 120 years. These collections enshrine coexisting, clashing ways of evidencing: multiple possibilities of knowing (about) the items, their trajectories, and their relations with humans and other-than-human beings. Next to analyzing the missionary and museal frames imposed on these artifacts, we investigate contemporary Ewe religious practitioners' ritual technologies of knowing about the presence, identities, and wishes of spirits as alternative modes of evidencing unseen presences. Pluralizing evidencing, we argue, offers opportunities for decolonial critique and rethinking established museum and research frameworks.