Academic Anthropology and the Museum

The museum boom, with its accompanying objectification and politicization of culture, finds its counterpart in the growing interest by social scientists in material culture, much of which is to be found in museums. Not surprisingly, anthropologists in particular are turning their attention again to museums, after decades of neglect, during which fieldwork became the hallmark of modern anthropology - so much so that the "social" and the "material" parted company so radically as to produce a kind of knowledge gap between historical collections and the intellectuals who might have benefitted from working on these material representations of culture. Moreover it was forgotten that museums do not only present the "pastness" of things. A great deal of what goes on in contemporary museums is literally about planning the shape of the future: making culture materialize involves mixing things from the past, taking into account current visions, and knowing that the scenes constructed will shape the perspectives of future generations. However, the (re-)invention of museum anthropology presents a series of challenges for academic teaching and research, as well as for the work of cultural production in contemporary museums - issues that are explored in this volume.

ISBN 1571818251   Pages 256 ISBN13 9781571818256 (What's this?)   Volumes 001 Publisher Berghahn Books   Weight (grammes) 520 Imprint Berghahn Books   Published in Oxford Format Hardback   Series editor Waldren, Jacqueline, Waldren, Jacqueline, Waldren, Jacqueline Publication date 01 Nov 2001   Series title New Directions in Anthropology Non-book description xiv, 240 p. :   Height (mm) 230 Library of Congress GN35.A33 2   Width (mm) 159 DEWEY 069.01   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC21

		List of Figures
		Contributors
		Acknowledgements
1		Introduction: Academic anthropology and the Museum. Back to the Future by Mary Bouquet		1
Pt. I		Anthropological encounters with the post-colonial museum
2		The photological apparatus and the desiring machine. Unexpected congruences between the Koninklijk Museum, Tervuren and the Umista Centre, Alert Bay by Barbara Saunders		18
3		Picturing the museum: photography and the work of mediation in the Third Portuguese Empire by Nuno Porto		36
4		On the pre-museum history of Baldwin Spencer's collection of Tiwi artefacts by Eric Venbrux		55
Pt. II		Ethnographic museums and ethnographic museology 'at home'
5		Anthropology at home and in the museum: the case of the Musee National des Arts et Traditions Populaires in Paris by Martine Segalen		76
6		'Does anthropology need museums?' Teaching ethnographic museology in Portugal, Thirty Years Later by Nelia Dias		92
Pt. III		Science museums as an ethnographic challenge
7		Towards an ethnography of museums: science, technology and us by Roberto J. Gonzalez and Laura Nader and C. Jay Ou		106
8		Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum, London. Knowing, making and using by Sharon Macdonald		117
Pt. IV		Anthropologists as cultural producers
9		Unsettling the meaning: critical museology, art and anthropological discourse by Anthony Shelton		142
10		Inside out: cultural production in the museum and the academy by Jeanne Cannizzo		142
11		The art of exhibition making as a problem of translation by Mary Bouquet		177
Pt. V		Looking ahead
12		Why post-millennial museums will need fuzzy guerrillas by Michael M. Ames		200
		More...

"The book's central argument is well made." * Museum National "...focuses on anthropologists, but the consideration given to the relations between academic and museum worlds will be useful to any scholar with current affiliations or aspirations to engage with museum culture. In terms of the volume's original intent, as a work responding to the needs of those teaching and studying anthro-museology, it is an impressive accomplishment." * Anthropologica

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