<p>We see from other contributions to this collection how issues of colonialism and decoloniality in different societies and regions of the world shape and reshape heritage meanings and the role that is played by differing levels of knowledge and authority—local, communal, institutional, legal, and national—in directing and redirecting perceptions of heritage. Many of the contributions share the backdrop of settler colonialism in the Americas and find solidarity at the intersection of heritage, land rights, and (dis)possession. In South Asia, it is external, or exogenous, colonialism; the exploitation of local people; and extraction of resources by an outside power for the wealth and privilege of the colonizers (Tuck and Yang, <span>2012</span>) that characterize society and heritage. Here we deal specifically with Sri Lanka, an island with a long, rich, and multifaceted history that has in the last half-century experienced a brutal civil war and now lives in an uneasy and unresolved peace.</p><p>Taking inspiration from conversations that emerged during the meeting in Geneva, we have here recorded a three-way conversation that developed its own trajectories as we explored our own places in the heritage-coloniality dynamic of Sri Lanka and then the places where we found the contentions of heritage-coloniality impinging on the state of the island and its communities today. It is interesting that our conversation also alighted on the perception of a new Chinese colonialism, unknowingly picking up threads from the contribution of Florence Graezer Bideau and Pascale Bugnon in this special section. To retain the spontaneity and authenticity of our conversation in December 2022, the text is largely unedited. For anyone familiar with Sri Lanka today, the conversation as an event is as valuable as what is being said, and we hope this opens doors to more cross-community conversations.</p><p>Hasini Haputhanthri: best known as a development professional and arts manager, Hasini collaborates with a global network of researchers and practitioners on peace-building, arts, and heritage management in Sri Lanka, South Africa, Lebanon, and many other places. Her current focus is on reinventing museums as sites of representation, innovative pedagogy, and civic engagement.</p><p>Gill Juleff: Gill has worked in Sri Lanka and South Asia for almost 40 years. Her primary research has been in the archaeology of iron- and steel-making, and her work on the first-millennium wind-powered furnaces of Samanalawewa put Sri Lanka on the international stage. More recently, Gill has developed interests in the historical and postwar archaeology of the Jaffna Peninsula.</p><p>Thamotharampillai Sanathanan: born in Jaffna, Sanathanan's art practice traces loss, memory, home, and the self. His work involves various disciplines, research, documentation, and oral history that explore complex issues related to Sri Lanka's civil war. His works such as <i>The Incomplete Thombu</i> (Shanaatha
{"title":"Heritage and decoloniality: Reflections from Sri Lanka—A conversation","authors":"Hasini Haputhanthri, Gill Juleff, Thamotharampillai Sanathanan","doi":"10.1111/aman.13949","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aman.13949","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We see from other contributions to this collection how issues of colonialism and decoloniality in different societies and regions of the world shape and reshape heritage meanings and the role that is played by differing levels of knowledge and authority—local, communal, institutional, legal, and national—in directing and redirecting perceptions of heritage. Many of the contributions share the backdrop of settler colonialism in the Americas and find solidarity at the intersection of heritage, land rights, and (dis)possession. In South Asia, it is external, or exogenous, colonialism; the exploitation of local people; and extraction of resources by an outside power for the wealth and privilege of the colonizers (Tuck and Yang, <span>2012</span>) that characterize society and heritage. Here we deal specifically with Sri Lanka, an island with a long, rich, and multifaceted history that has in the last half-century experienced a brutal civil war and now lives in an uneasy and unresolved peace.</p><p>Taking inspiration from conversations that emerged during the meeting in Geneva, we have here recorded a three-way conversation that developed its own trajectories as we explored our own places in the heritage-coloniality dynamic of Sri Lanka and then the places where we found the contentions of heritage-coloniality impinging on the state of the island and its communities today. It is interesting that our conversation also alighted on the perception of a new Chinese colonialism, unknowingly picking up threads from the contribution of Florence Graezer Bideau and Pascale Bugnon in this special section. To retain the spontaneity and authenticity of our conversation in December 2022, the text is largely unedited. For anyone familiar with Sri Lanka today, the conversation as an event is as valuable as what is being said, and we hope this opens doors to more cross-community conversations.</p><p>Hasini Haputhanthri: best known as a development professional and arts manager, Hasini collaborates with a global network of researchers and practitioners on peace-building, arts, and heritage management in Sri Lanka, South Africa, Lebanon, and many other places. Her current focus is on reinventing museums as sites of representation, innovative pedagogy, and civic engagement.</p><p>Gill Juleff: Gill has worked in Sri Lanka and South Asia for almost 40 years. Her primary research has been in the archaeology of iron- and steel-making, and her work on the first-millennium wind-powered furnaces of Samanalawewa put Sri Lanka on the international stage. More recently, Gill has developed interests in the historical and postwar archaeology of the Jaffna Peninsula.</p><p>Thamotharampillai Sanathanan: born in Jaffna, Sanathanan's art practice traces loss, memory, home, and the self. His work involves various disciplines, research, documentation, and oral history that explore complex issues related to Sri Lanka's civil war. His works such as <i>The Incomplete Thombu</i> (Shanaatha","PeriodicalId":7697,"journal":{"name":"American Anthropologist","volume":"126 2","pages":"349-354"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aman.13949","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140437610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The festive celebration known as FandangObon is made possible by workshops and satellite performances that artivistas (art activists) stage throughout the year in a variety of community venues. The event transforms the annual Japanese American Buddhist Obon ceremony honoring ancestors into an antiracist polycultural performance. Through improvisation and invention, colorfully adorned participants blend the dances, songs, and costumes of the Japanese bon odori circle with Mexican son jarocho fandango practices and West African ballet and egungun drum and dance circles. Each of the groups represented in FandangObon brings to the mix its own form of circle dancing, collective singing, and instrument playing, yet bon odori, fandango, and egungun do not fuse together seamlessly in these gatherings. Instead they coalesce as a conversation among equals in which each tradition remains faithful to itself in the process of making changes through engagement with others The concepts of amplification, counterpublics, and fugitive spaces of belonging serve in this article as central interpretive frames of a cultural critique of the historical and cultural conditions for the celebration's emergence, articulation, and implementation (Marcus and Fischer 1986).
{"title":"FandangObon: Amplification, counter-publics, and fugitive spaces of belonging in Los Angeles","authors":"George Lipsitz","doi":"10.1111/aman.13961","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aman.13961","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The festive celebration known as FandangObon is made possible by workshops and satellite performances that artivistas (art activists) stage throughout the year in a variety of community venues. The event transforms the annual Japanese American Buddhist Obon ceremony honoring ancestors into an antiracist polycultural performance. Through improvisation and invention, colorfully adorned participants blend the dances, songs, and costumes of the Japanese bon odori circle with Mexican son jarocho fandango practices and West African ballet and egungun drum and dance circles. Each of the groups represented in FandangObon brings to the mix its own form of circle dancing, collective singing, and instrument playing, yet bon odori, fandango, and egungun do not fuse together seamlessly in these gatherings. Instead they coalesce as a conversation among equals in which each tradition remains faithful to itself in the process of making changes through engagement with others The concepts of amplification, counterpublics, and fugitive spaces of belonging serve in this article as central interpretive frames of a cultural critique of the historical and cultural conditions for the celebration's emergence, articulation, and implementation (Marcus and Fischer 1986).</p>","PeriodicalId":7697,"journal":{"name":"American Anthropologist","volume":"126 2","pages":"260-270"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140435930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Heritage is power. To realize the potential of heritage in decolonization, it is necessary to first decolonize and broaden the concept of heritage to enable meaningful, action-based connections between past, present, and future that further anticolonial efforts.</p><p>Heritage is powerful because it is used as a way to define and identify. It is about who we as humans think we are, based upon where we believe we have come from and where we intend to go. It is what is maintained from the past, by the present, for the next generation to inherit (in-heritage): from objects, buildings, land, resources, status, power, values, ontologies, epistemologies, axiologies, environments, and ecosystems. Current conceptions of heritage are imbued with human agency, as a “discursive construction” (Smith, <span>2006</span>, 13) with “material consequences” (Harvey, <span>2008</span>, 19) that is “constituted and constructed (and at the same time, constitutive and constructing)” (Wu and Hou, <span>2015</span>, 39). As such, heritage has the potential for reworlding and refuturing (Haraway, <span>2016</span>; Harrison, <span>2020</span>; Holtorf and Högberg, <span>2020</span>; Onciul, <span>2015</span>; Smith, <span>2006, 2022</span>; Tlostanova, <span>2022</span>). It can highlight the brief duration in planetary or species time of colonialism and capitalism, while illustrating its failing prospects—evidenced by increasing global inequalities and the accelerating inhabitability of the Earth. This future-orientated power places heritage at the center of efforts to enact and affirm Indigenous rights and address colonial legacies and responsibilities in the ancestral territories now collectively known as Canada.</p><p>In 2015, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission report announced “Calls to Action” to address Canada's difficult heritage. In response, the province of British Columbia became the first in Canada to enshrine the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into law in November 2019 through the Declaration Act. This established UNDRIP as the foundational framework for reconciliation in British Columbia, placing Indigenous cultural heritage rights at the center, via Articles 11, 12, 13, and 31.</p><p>Moving these calls to action into practice is not straightforward. In British Columbia, there are over 200 distinct First Nations recognized by the government, and many unrecognized, with over 30 different First Nations languages and around 60 dialects spoken in the province. This means that efforts to decolonize heritage must work with local Indigenous community priorities, cultural protocols, languages, and governance structures. Nations are prioritizing different aspects of reclaiming culture, stewarding heritage, and affirming their rights at different times depending upon their local circumstances. For example, some Nations are prioritizing building Big Houses to support the renewal of previously banned cultural pr
{"title":"Heritages of (de)colonialism: Reflections from the Pacific Northwest Coast, Canada","authors":"Bryony Onciul","doi":"10.1111/aman.13957","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aman.13957","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Heritage is power. To realize the potential of heritage in decolonization, it is necessary to first decolonize and broaden the concept of heritage to enable meaningful, action-based connections between past, present, and future that further anticolonial efforts.</p><p>Heritage is powerful because it is used as a way to define and identify. It is about who we as humans think we are, based upon where we believe we have come from and where we intend to go. It is what is maintained from the past, by the present, for the next generation to inherit (in-heritage): from objects, buildings, land, resources, status, power, values, ontologies, epistemologies, axiologies, environments, and ecosystems. Current conceptions of heritage are imbued with human agency, as a “discursive construction” (Smith, <span>2006</span>, 13) with “material consequences” (Harvey, <span>2008</span>, 19) that is “constituted and constructed (and at the same time, constitutive and constructing)” (Wu and Hou, <span>2015</span>, 39). As such, heritage has the potential for reworlding and refuturing (Haraway, <span>2016</span>; Harrison, <span>2020</span>; Holtorf and Högberg, <span>2020</span>; Onciul, <span>2015</span>; Smith, <span>2006, 2022</span>; Tlostanova, <span>2022</span>). It can highlight the brief duration in planetary or species time of colonialism and capitalism, while illustrating its failing prospects—evidenced by increasing global inequalities and the accelerating inhabitability of the Earth. This future-orientated power places heritage at the center of efforts to enact and affirm Indigenous rights and address colonial legacies and responsibilities in the ancestral territories now collectively known as Canada.</p><p>In 2015, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission report announced “Calls to Action” to address Canada's difficult heritage. In response, the province of British Columbia became the first in Canada to enshrine the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into law in November 2019 through the Declaration Act. This established UNDRIP as the foundational framework for reconciliation in British Columbia, placing Indigenous cultural heritage rights at the center, via Articles 11, 12, 13, and 31.</p><p>Moving these calls to action into practice is not straightforward. In British Columbia, there are over 200 distinct First Nations recognized by the government, and many unrecognized, with over 30 different First Nations languages and around 60 dialects spoken in the province. This means that efforts to decolonize heritage must work with local Indigenous community priorities, cultural protocols, languages, and governance structures. Nations are prioritizing different aspects of reclaiming culture, stewarding heritage, and affirming their rights at different times depending upon their local circumstances. For example, some Nations are prioritizing building Big Houses to support the renewal of previously banned cultural pr","PeriodicalId":7697,"journal":{"name":"American Anthropologist","volume":"126 2","pages":"337-343"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aman.13957","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140442988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laughter is one of the “weapons of the weak,” a means of degrading those in a position of power. Seeing laughter as such, however, only offers a view into what the performance does to its target, by belittling it, without saying much about what it does to the performer within a given power relation. This article investigates the potential of mockery and laughter to become expressions of expertise when they establish the performer as a knowing subject in relation to their target. Based on fieldwork conducted at a public clinic in Duque de Caxias, Brazil, this article analyzes how locally resident staff, through their extended work and dwelling in a neighborhood where shootings are frequent, mocked their superiors who did not know how to appropriately assess and react to the sound of shooting. By establishing the performer as the knowing subject in relation to those being mocked, laughter in this setting had the potential to unsettle classed hierarchies of knowledge.
{"title":"Mockery amid shooting: Laughter as an expression of expertise at a public clinic in Greater Rio de Janeiro, Brazil","authors":"Pedro Silva Rocha Lima","doi":"10.1111/aman.13967","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aman.13967","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Laughter is one of the “weapons of the weak,” a means of degrading those in a position of power. Seeing laughter as such, however, only offers a view into what the performance does to its target, by belittling it, without saying much about what it does to the performer within a given power relation. This article investigates the potential of mockery and laughter to become expressions of expertise when they establish the performer as a knowing subject in relation to their target. Based on fieldwork conducted at a public clinic in Duque de Caxias, Brazil, this article analyzes how locally resident staff, through their extended work and dwelling in a neighborhood where shootings are frequent, mocked their superiors who did not know how to appropriately assess and react to the sound of shooting. By establishing the performer as the knowing subject in relation to those being mocked, laughter in this setting had the potential to unsettle classed hierarchies of knowledge.</p>","PeriodicalId":7697,"journal":{"name":"American Anthropologist","volume":"126 2","pages":"216-226"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140442200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Webber Ndoro was the director general of International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), an international organization based in Rome, from 2017 to 2023. Before joining ICCROM in January 2018, Webber Ndoro was the director of the African World Heritage Fund, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also associate professor at the University of Cape Town. He worked at the University of Zimbabwe as a senior lecturer in heritage management and conservation. He has worked on several heritage management projects in Africa and also worked at Great Zimbabwe as the site manager. His most recent books and edited collections include <i>Great Zimbabwe: Your Monument Our Shrine</i>, <i>Cultural Heritage and the Law: Protecting Immovable Heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa</i>, <i>The Archaeological Heritage of Africa</i>, and <i>Managing Heritage in Africa: Who Cares?</i> The interview took place on April 19, 2023.</p><p><b>Peter Bille Larsen (PL)</b>: You were a great participant in our earlier exchanges, so we really wanted to make sure that we benefit from your insights and reflections for this conversation looking at decoloniality and heritage. You have a long career in the heritage field, and currently work as the director general of ICCROM, a global heritage institution advising governments. Could you share with us some insights about how you have experienced coloniality in the heritage field over the years?</p><p><b>Webber Ndoro (WN)</b>: Well, I think we have to realize that the whole idea of heritage today comes from a Western perspective. This influences the way we think, the way we define heritage. Take the example of archaeological sites. This was a passion or an interest from Western scholars, probably other scientists as well, but they were looking at it from their perspective. So, when you then go to places like Africa, you have to realize that they are looking for certain things, and that defines what heritage is. For example, if you think of Stone Age material, most Africans may not necessarily look at it as heritage, but from an archaeological, scientific point of view, they will define it as heritage. And then you also have to think in terms of how colonization happened. It was, if you like, a civilizing mission in some ways, Therefore the people had to be told what's good for them, what is science, what is heritage, how you define it.</p><p>So now I think the challenge is with the development of science itself, trying to accommodate other interpretations, other perspectives. Now, how do we incorporate that? And how do we make sure that the heritage reflects the world in some way? I think another good example is the whole concept of World Heritage. If you think of it, again looking at Africa, you will find that probably 60 percent to 70 percent of sites are either archaeological sites or colonial buildings. It's not that it's deliberate, but this is how these things were defined. And the
{"title":"“Heritage is about today, it's not about what happened in the past”: A conversation with Webber Ndoro, Director General of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property","authors":"Webber Ndoro, Peter Bille Larsen","doi":"10.1111/aman.13955","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aman.13955","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Webber Ndoro was the director general of International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), an international organization based in Rome, from 2017 to 2023. Before joining ICCROM in January 2018, Webber Ndoro was the director of the African World Heritage Fund, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is also associate professor at the University of Cape Town. He worked at the University of Zimbabwe as a senior lecturer in heritage management and conservation. He has worked on several heritage management projects in Africa and also worked at Great Zimbabwe as the site manager. His most recent books and edited collections include <i>Great Zimbabwe: Your Monument Our Shrine</i>, <i>Cultural Heritage and the Law: Protecting Immovable Heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa</i>, <i>The Archaeological Heritage of Africa</i>, and <i>Managing Heritage in Africa: Who Cares?</i> The interview took place on April 19, 2023.</p><p><b>Peter Bille Larsen (PL)</b>: You were a great participant in our earlier exchanges, so we really wanted to make sure that we benefit from your insights and reflections for this conversation looking at decoloniality and heritage. You have a long career in the heritage field, and currently work as the director general of ICCROM, a global heritage institution advising governments. Could you share with us some insights about how you have experienced coloniality in the heritage field over the years?</p><p><b>Webber Ndoro (WN)</b>: Well, I think we have to realize that the whole idea of heritage today comes from a Western perspective. This influences the way we think, the way we define heritage. Take the example of archaeological sites. This was a passion or an interest from Western scholars, probably other scientists as well, but they were looking at it from their perspective. So, when you then go to places like Africa, you have to realize that they are looking for certain things, and that defines what heritage is. For example, if you think of Stone Age material, most Africans may not necessarily look at it as heritage, but from an archaeological, scientific point of view, they will define it as heritage. And then you also have to think in terms of how colonization happened. It was, if you like, a civilizing mission in some ways, Therefore the people had to be told what's good for them, what is science, what is heritage, how you define it.</p><p>So now I think the challenge is with the development of science itself, trying to accommodate other interpretations, other perspectives. Now, how do we incorporate that? And how do we make sure that the heritage reflects the world in some way? I think another good example is the whole concept of World Heritage. If you think of it, again looking at Africa, you will find that probably 60 percent to 70 percent of sites are either archaeological sites or colonial buildings. It's not that it's deliberate, but this is how these things were defined. And the","PeriodicalId":7697,"journal":{"name":"American Anthropologist","volume":"126 2","pages":"362-364"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aman.13955","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139959293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Carine Ayélé Durand holds a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge, UK (2010). Over the past 20 years, she has worked in various capacities as a curator and researcher in the field of cultural heritage in France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Spain. She has curated several public exhibitions on contemporary indigenous arts and political movements. Carine was chief curator at the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva (MEG) from 2015 to 2022 and has been director since July 2022. The interview was conducted in Geneva on March 22, 2023.</p><p><b>Peter Bille Larsen (PL)</b>: You have recently become the director of the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva, an institution dating back to 1901, with more than 75,000 objects and a recent strategic emphasis on decolonization. Could you share with us the main highlights of your approach, activities, and opportunities that come with a decolonial perspective?</p><p><b>Carine Ayélé Durand (CD)</b>: I will start from one word, or two words. In French, we call it <i>co-construction</i>. Ιt's like building together or being assembled: the way that we see decoloniality is putting together as many perspectives as possible on a subject, on an issue. So putting together would be, for example, in the case of an exhibition: the descendants of who made the objects that we take care of in the museum, and then adding their perspective to our perspectives as professionals, or art historians, or anthropologists. Then there is another layer of co-construction with the audience, with the public, too. It's a huge assemblage, I would say, assembling people and things together, things from the past and things from the present, and from this trying to get a broader perspective on historical facts and on what we do and how we shape the museum today and for the future. Co-creating is basically about enabling dialogues and then creating together the museum of today and tomorrow possibly. These are the main key steps, I would say.</p><p>We do it through three distinct perspectives. The first is being around the collections, doing provenance research on the way all the items came to be in the museum. It is about trying to follow the biography of things: How did they get there? What happened when they were collected? What was the historical time? When did it happen? Trying to put all these dots together. For example, a very conflictual example, we do have items coming from Namibia from 1905. Instead of just labeling 1905 objects coming from Namibia, from a person coming here from that region, we now stop and ask, “Ok, wait a minute, what happened in 1905 in Namibia?” There was a genocide happening at the time, so it is about trying to bring this information forward and doing as much as possible. It is not always possible, but as much as possible, with our partners in the very countries we talk about. So this is the first, concretely, looking at the history of the collections and how these objects came here. The second i
{"title":"Decolonializing a museum of ethnography? A conversation with Carine Ayélé Durand, director of the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva","authors":"Carine Ayélé Durand, Peter Bille Larsen","doi":"10.1111/aman.13954","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aman.13954","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Carine Ayélé Durand holds a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge, UK (2010). Over the past 20 years, she has worked in various capacities as a curator and researcher in the field of cultural heritage in France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Spain. She has curated several public exhibitions on contemporary indigenous arts and political movements. Carine was chief curator at the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva (MEG) from 2015 to 2022 and has been director since July 2022. The interview was conducted in Geneva on March 22, 2023.</p><p><b>Peter Bille Larsen (PL)</b>: You have recently become the director of the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva, an institution dating back to 1901, with more than 75,000 objects and a recent strategic emphasis on decolonization. Could you share with us the main highlights of your approach, activities, and opportunities that come with a decolonial perspective?</p><p><b>Carine Ayélé Durand (CD)</b>: I will start from one word, or two words. In French, we call it <i>co-construction</i>. Ιt's like building together or being assembled: the way that we see decoloniality is putting together as many perspectives as possible on a subject, on an issue. So putting together would be, for example, in the case of an exhibition: the descendants of who made the objects that we take care of in the museum, and then adding their perspective to our perspectives as professionals, or art historians, or anthropologists. Then there is another layer of co-construction with the audience, with the public, too. It's a huge assemblage, I would say, assembling people and things together, things from the past and things from the present, and from this trying to get a broader perspective on historical facts and on what we do and how we shape the museum today and for the future. Co-creating is basically about enabling dialogues and then creating together the museum of today and tomorrow possibly. These are the main key steps, I would say.</p><p>We do it through three distinct perspectives. The first is being around the collections, doing provenance research on the way all the items came to be in the museum. It is about trying to follow the biography of things: How did they get there? What happened when they were collected? What was the historical time? When did it happen? Trying to put all these dots together. For example, a very conflictual example, we do have items coming from Namibia from 1905. Instead of just labeling 1905 objects coming from Namibia, from a person coming here from that region, we now stop and ask, “Ok, wait a minute, what happened in 1905 in Namibia?” There was a genocide happening at the time, so it is about trying to bring this information forward and doing as much as possible. It is not always possible, but as much as possible, with our partners in the very countries we talk about. So this is the first, concretely, looking at the history of the collections and how these objects came here. The second i","PeriodicalId":7697,"journal":{"name":"American Anthropologist","volume":"126 2","pages":"355-357"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aman.13954","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139959372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Brennen Ferguson is a citizen of the Tuscarora Nation—one of the six nations comprising the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. He sits on the Council of Chiefs and Clan Mothers in Tuscarora on behalf of the Turtle Clan family. He is also a member of the Haudenosaunee External Relations Committee (HERC). The HERC is mandated by the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee. Part of the mandate is to maintain and develop international relations with nation-states as well as with other Indigenous Nations. The interview took place on April 18, 2023</p><p><b>Peter Larsen (PL)</b>: You've recently been involved in a process of restitution with the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva. Could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us a bit of your experience with that restitution.</p><p><b>Brennen Ferguson (BF)</b>: My name is Brennen Ferguson, and I'm from the Tuscarora Nation—one of the six nations as part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. I also sit on the Council of Chiefs and Clan Mothers here in Tuscarora. That is the governing structure of our territory. So back in July 2022, I was part of a delegation of the Haudenosaunee to the United Nations. It was myself, Kenneth Deer, Carissa John, and there were a couple of others. We had an Indigenous Peoples Caucus meeting hosted by the MEG—the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva—and after the meeting, Carine (the museum's director) invited us all to view the permanent exhibit. It's a very impressive museum, and we came across a section that had Haudenosaunee items. We saw some moccasins, some bags, and then down toward the interior of the exhibit, in the glass cases, we saw one or two of our sacred items. We have different words for them, but we just refer to them as a medicine mask, and they're usually accompanied by a turtle rattle. They kind of work together. So, we recognized it right away, of course, and it's kind of troubling to see these things. It's nothing new. There are still hundreds of them in museums here in the United States, even. We've gotten hundreds of them back. There's still more out there. But it was kind of shocking to see one all the way over in Switzerland. So, then Carine invited us for lunch afterward, just Kenneth and me. And at lunch I brought it up. I said, you know, “I saw one of our sacred items in your display case,” and I described it. She said, “Yes, yes, we've had that for a while.” And I just asked that they take it off of public display for now. And she said, “Of course, no problem.” So, I think while we were still eating lunch, she sent somebody down there to take it out. And then it was still kind of nagging on my mind, like, “What's going to happen now?” So, then I just asked, “What would we have to do to get it returned to us?” And the response was, “I don't know. We've never really done anything like that before,” she said. “You could send a letter and see what happens.” So that's what we did. We went back, came back home. We brought it to the committee, and the recommendation was t
{"title":"“It comes down to dealing with people”: A conversation with Brennen Ferguson, Haudenosaunee Confederacy","authors":"Brennen Ferguson, Peter Bille Larsen","doi":"10.1111/aman.13953","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aman.13953","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Brennen Ferguson is a citizen of the Tuscarora Nation—one of the six nations comprising the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. He sits on the Council of Chiefs and Clan Mothers in Tuscarora on behalf of the Turtle Clan family. He is also a member of the Haudenosaunee External Relations Committee (HERC). The HERC is mandated by the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee. Part of the mandate is to maintain and develop international relations with nation-states as well as with other Indigenous Nations. The interview took place on April 18, 2023</p><p><b>Peter Larsen (PL)</b>: You've recently been involved in a process of restitution with the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva. Could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us a bit of your experience with that restitution.</p><p><b>Brennen Ferguson (BF)</b>: My name is Brennen Ferguson, and I'm from the Tuscarora Nation—one of the six nations as part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. I also sit on the Council of Chiefs and Clan Mothers here in Tuscarora. That is the governing structure of our territory. So back in July 2022, I was part of a delegation of the Haudenosaunee to the United Nations. It was myself, Kenneth Deer, Carissa John, and there were a couple of others. We had an Indigenous Peoples Caucus meeting hosted by the MEG—the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva—and after the meeting, Carine (the museum's director) invited us all to view the permanent exhibit. It's a very impressive museum, and we came across a section that had Haudenosaunee items. We saw some moccasins, some bags, and then down toward the interior of the exhibit, in the glass cases, we saw one or two of our sacred items. We have different words for them, but we just refer to them as a medicine mask, and they're usually accompanied by a turtle rattle. They kind of work together. So, we recognized it right away, of course, and it's kind of troubling to see these things. It's nothing new. There are still hundreds of them in museums here in the United States, even. We've gotten hundreds of them back. There's still more out there. But it was kind of shocking to see one all the way over in Switzerland. So, then Carine invited us for lunch afterward, just Kenneth and me. And at lunch I brought it up. I said, you know, “I saw one of our sacred items in your display case,” and I described it. She said, “Yes, yes, we've had that for a while.” And I just asked that they take it off of public display for now. And she said, “Of course, no problem.” So, I think while we were still eating lunch, she sent somebody down there to take it out. And then it was still kind of nagging on my mind, like, “What's going to happen now?” So, then I just asked, “What would we have to do to get it returned to us?” And the response was, “I don't know. We've never really done anything like that before,” she said. “You could send a letter and see what happens.” So that's what we did. We went back, came back home. We brought it to the committee, and the recommendation was t","PeriodicalId":7697,"journal":{"name":"American Anthropologist","volume":"126 2","pages":"358-361"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aman.13953","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139959054","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contemporary art, Amerindian rock art heritage, and decolonization in the Guadeloupean archipelago","authors":"Leila Baracchini, Julien Monney","doi":"10.1111/aman.13952","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aman.13952","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7697,"journal":{"name":"American Anthropologist","volume":"126 2","pages":"317-320"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139959987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Cultural heritage law and processes, it is widely known, authorize certain forms of identity that are more often than not aligned with a national project (Lowenthal, <span>1998</span>). What happens, however, when the national project turns away from being one of harmony and continuity with the past (as is still the case in many countries, most notably China, as Bideau and Bugnon show in this collection), and becomes about a break with—or at least renegotiation of—the past? What happens when, in the same breath, heritage becomes part of a project that is not just about recognition but also contains within it at least some elements of redistribution? Can we stretch the limits of the authorizing forces around heritage (Smith, <span>2006</span>) so that they operate in a register that can deliver on decolonial possibilities and promises? A recent example in Brazil speaks to these questions and suggests that there is potential, albeit limited, for decoloniality through heritage.</p><p>In 2018, the Brazilian Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of legislation that grants land rights to Afro-descendants in Brazil. These populations, known as <i>quilombolas</i>, who live in <i>quilombos</i>, are entitled to their lands partly as a measure of reparation against their historical and ongoing oppression, rooted in slavery. Their land rights are grounded in legal mechanisms that protect cultural heritage in the Brazilian Constitution. I use this context to explore the uneasy relationships between heritage, the law, and racial capitalism. I argue that the authorizing register of legal discourse is, by and large, unable to live up to the aspirations of heritage as a decolonial tool, but it can still be somewhat promising strategically for historically oppressed groups.</p><p>Brazil was the last country to abolish the enslavement of African people in the Americas. When it finally did, in 1888, it chose not to compensate former slave owners for the loss of their “property” (as was somewhat common at the time in other countries), nor to compensate formerly enslaved people for what we today would call the expropriation of their labor and bodies (Robinson, <span>2021</span>). To avoid the former, the Brazilian government burned all the archives recording titles over enslaved persons. This action had significant impacts on the latter, and heritage processes and forms have since sought to correct that gap.</p><p>Specifically, 100 years after the abolition of slavery, in 1988, the Brazilian state adopted a new Constitution to mark the end of over two decades of military dictatorship. This constitution was the first to recognize multiculturalism and even acknowledge the existence of Afro-descendants in the country as a separate segment of the population with specific rights claims. Up until then, Brazil had been stuck in the myth of racial democracy, which suggests that it is a harmonious society where no racism exists, because all the distinctive ethnic group
{"title":"The legal limits of decolonizing heritage: Emancipation, the nation-state, and racial capitalism in Brazil","authors":"Lucas Lixinski","doi":"10.1111/aman.13956","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aman.13956","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Cultural heritage law and processes, it is widely known, authorize certain forms of identity that are more often than not aligned with a national project (Lowenthal, <span>1998</span>). What happens, however, when the national project turns away from being one of harmony and continuity with the past (as is still the case in many countries, most notably China, as Bideau and Bugnon show in this collection), and becomes about a break with—or at least renegotiation of—the past? What happens when, in the same breath, heritage becomes part of a project that is not just about recognition but also contains within it at least some elements of redistribution? Can we stretch the limits of the authorizing forces around heritage (Smith, <span>2006</span>) so that they operate in a register that can deliver on decolonial possibilities and promises? A recent example in Brazil speaks to these questions and suggests that there is potential, albeit limited, for decoloniality through heritage.</p><p>In 2018, the Brazilian Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of legislation that grants land rights to Afro-descendants in Brazil. These populations, known as <i>quilombolas</i>, who live in <i>quilombos</i>, are entitled to their lands partly as a measure of reparation against their historical and ongoing oppression, rooted in slavery. Their land rights are grounded in legal mechanisms that protect cultural heritage in the Brazilian Constitution. I use this context to explore the uneasy relationships between heritage, the law, and racial capitalism. I argue that the authorizing register of legal discourse is, by and large, unable to live up to the aspirations of heritage as a decolonial tool, but it can still be somewhat promising strategically for historically oppressed groups.</p><p>Brazil was the last country to abolish the enslavement of African people in the Americas. When it finally did, in 1888, it chose not to compensate former slave owners for the loss of their “property” (as was somewhat common at the time in other countries), nor to compensate formerly enslaved people for what we today would call the expropriation of their labor and bodies (Robinson, <span>2021</span>). To avoid the former, the Brazilian government burned all the archives recording titles over enslaved persons. This action had significant impacts on the latter, and heritage processes and forms have since sought to correct that gap.</p><p>Specifically, 100 years after the abolition of slavery, in 1988, the Brazilian state adopted a new Constitution to mark the end of over two decades of military dictatorship. This constitution was the first to recognize multiculturalism and even acknowledge the existence of Afro-descendants in the country as a separate segment of the population with specific rights claims. Up until then, Brazil had been stuck in the myth of racial democracy, which suggests that it is a harmonious society where no racism exists, because all the distinctive ethnic group","PeriodicalId":7697,"journal":{"name":"American Anthropologist","volume":"126 2","pages":"333-336"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aman.13956","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139960116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heritage as new social engineering in China: (De)colonial avenues","authors":"Florence Graezer Bideau, Pascale Bugnon","doi":"10.1111/aman.13950","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aman.13950","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7697,"journal":{"name":"American Anthropologist","volume":"126 2","pages":"344-348"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139960371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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