Academic Anthropology and the Museum : : Back to the Future / / ed. by Mary Bouquet.

• MitwirkendeR: Ames, Michael M.,; Bouquet, Mary,; Cannizzo, Jeanne,; Dias, Nélia,; González, Roberto J.,; Macdonald, Sharon,; Nader, Laura,; Ou, C. Jay,; Porto, Nuno,; Saunders, Barbara,; Segalen, Martine,; Shelton, Anthony,; Venbrux, Eric,
• HerausgeberIn: Bouquet, Mary,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2001]; ©2001
• Year of Publication: 2001
• Language: English
• Series: New Directions in Anthropology ; 13
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (256 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Contributors -- Acknowledgements -- 1. Introduction: Academic anthropology and the Museum. Back to the Future -- Part 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 Umistà Centre, Alert Bay -- 3. Picturing the museum: photography and the work of mediation in the Third Portuguese Empire -- 4. On the pre-museum history of Baldwin Spencer’s collection of Tiwi artefacts -- Part II. Ethnographic museums and ethnographic museology ‘at home’ -- 5. Anthropology at home and in the museum: the case of the Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires in Paris -- 6. ‘Does anthropology need museums?’ Teaching ethnographic museology in Portugal, Thirty Years Later -- Part III. Science museums as an ethnographic challenge -- 7. Towards an ethnography of museums: science, technology and us -- 8. Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum, London. Knowing, making and using -- Part IV. Anthropologists as cultural producers -- 9. Unsettling the meaning: critical museology, art and anthropological discourse -- 10. Inside out: cultural production in the museum and the academy -- 11. The art of exhibition making as a problem of translation -- Part V. Looking ahead -- 12. Why post-millennial museums will need fuzzy guerrillas -- Bibliography -- Index