Museum anthropology is a domain of scholarship and professional practice in the discipline of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

Characteristics

A distinctive characteristic of museum anthropology is that it cross-cuts anthropology's sub-fields (

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

cultural anthropology Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portma ...

linguistic anthropology Linguistic anthropology is the Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages and has grown over the past cen ...

biological anthropology Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...

) as these are understood in North American anthropology. All of these areas are sometimes pursued in museum contexts (usually on the basis of research work with systematic collections) and all can be (and are) explicated in museum-based exhibitions and public programs. Some museum anthropologists work full or part-time in museum contexts while others are anthropologists (employed in diverse settings) interested in studying museums as social institutions in cultural and historical context. These two sets of concerns—collections-based scholarship and the study of museums—provide the core around which the domain of museum anthropology has self-organized. One theme prominent in recent museum anthropology research concerns reconnecting older collections of ethnographic objects curated in museum contexts with the present-day source communities from which these objects were gathered. Another concern is the development of museums and cultural centers by indigenous peoples in their own home communities.

Other relationships

There is much traffic between museum anthropology and the related, overlapping, and neighboring domains of (general)

museum folklore Museum folklore is a domain of scholarship and professional practice within the field of folklore studies (folkloristics). Characteristics Some museum folklorists work full-time in museums of ethnography, ethnology, cultural history, or folk ar ...

material culture studies Material culture is the aspect of social reality grounded in the objects and architecture that surround people. It includes the usage, consumption, creation, and trade of objects as well as the behaviors, norms, and rituals that the objects creat ...

historical anthropology Historical anthropology is a historiographical movement which applies methodologies and objectives from social and cultural anthropology to the study of historical societies. Like most such movements, it is understood in different ways by differe ...

visual anthropology Visual anthropology is a subfield of social anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. More recently it has been used by historians of science an ...

, the anthropology of art, and the

history of anthropology History of anthropology in this article refers primarily to the 18th- and 19th-century precursors of modern anthropology. The term anthropology itself, innovated as a New Latin scientific word during the Renaissance, has always meant "the study ...

, as well as the

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

of non-western societies and the field of

museum studies Museology or museum studies is the study of museums. It explores the history of museums and their role in society, as well as the activities they engage in, including curating, preservation, public programming, and education. Terminology The w ...

Journals

The journals ''

Museum Anthropology Museum anthropology is a domain of scholarship and professional practice in the discipline of anthropology. Characteristics A distinctive characteristic of museum anthropology is that it cross-cuts anthropology's sub-fields (archaeology, cultural ...

'', ''Journal of Museum Ethnography'', '' Gradhiva'', and '' Museum Anthropology Review'' are closely identified with museum anthropology as a field.

Museum anthropology and ethnography

Drawing upon critiques of ethnographic representation in written genres, museum anthropologists have asked questions about the strategies used to represent histories and cultures in museum exhibitions and related forms of display (such as worlds fairs). Related is historical work in which museum anthropologists seek to better understand the contexts, histories and biographies that shaped both the field and the collections that contemporary curators steward. Such historical concerns in turn intersect with work addressing repatriation claims and broader cultural property issues as these relate to museums. Use of museum collections as a resource for research aimed at understanding ethnographic and culture historical questions in the lives of particular communities has long been the core motivation for collecting by anthropology museums. Such work has been central throughout the history of the field, but new developments in digital technologies (and the rise of the so-called

digital humanities Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or Information technology, digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanitie ...

) together with the transformations that have motivated the new research interests just mentioned have generated an intensification of such work. A general revitalization of material culture studies is a further factor conditioning the renewal of collections-based research in the present period. The fruits of this work include new digital archives and databases, as well as published studies focusing on particular groups, object forms, and collections.

United Kingdom and North America

Professional organizations central to the museum anthropology domain include the

Council for Museum Anthropology The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...

(a section of the American Anthropological Association) in the United States and the

Museum Ethnographers Group The Museum Ethnographers Group (MEG) is a United Kingdom-based collective for those working with and researching ethnographic collections in museums. It is registered as a charity in England and Wales (no. 1023150) and is recognised in the UK mu ...

in the United Kingdom.Making connections through world collections
Museum Ethnographers Group. Retrieved on 2011-05-30. In the United Kingdom and in North America, most universities that possess both anthropology degree programs and campus-based museums of anthropology will also offer specific training and coursework in museum anthropology. Specialized training for graduate students in collections-based research in museum anthropology (focusing on ethnographic rather than archaeological, biological, or linguistics collections) is provided in the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

's Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA), an initiative funded by the U.S.

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

Important persons

Prominent figures in the history of museum anthropology include: *

Augustus Pitt Rivers Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (14 April 18274 May 1900) was an English officer in the British Army, ethnologist, and archaeologist. He was noted for innovations in archaeological methodology, and in the museum display o ...

(1827–1900) *

Franz Boas Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...

(1858–1942) *

Lev Sternberg Lev (Chaim-Leib) Yakovlevich Sternberg (russian: Лев (Хаим-Лейб) Я́ковлевич Ште́рнберг) (, Zhitomir, Russian Empire – August 14, 1927, Dudergof, now Mozhaisky, Soviet Union) was a Russian and Soviet ethnographer ...

(1861–1927) *

Henry Balfour ::''See also Henry Balfour (MP for Fifeshire)'' Henry Balfour FRS FRAI (11 April 1863 – 9 February 1939) was a British archaeologist, and the first curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum. He was President of the Royal Anthropological Institu ...

(1863–1939) *

James W. VanStone James W. VanStone (October 3, 1925 – February 28, 2001) was an American cultural anthropologist specializing in the group of peoples then known as Eskimos (now Inuit, Iñupiat, and Yup'ik). He studied at the University of Pennsylvania and w ...

(1925–2001) *

William C. Sturtevant William Curtis Sturtevant (1926 Morristown, New Jersey – March 2, 2007) was an anthropologist and ethnologist. He is best known as the general editor of the 20-volume ''Handbook of North American Indians''. Renowned anthropologist Claude Lévi-S ...

(1926–2007) * Michael Ames (1933–2006)

References

External links

Council for Museum Anthropology Website

Museum Ethnographers Group Website

of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge University

Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution Website

Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History Website

Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology Website

Mathers Museum of World Cultures, Indiana University Website

Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia Website

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Website

Pitt Rivers Museum Website

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge Website

Museo Nacional de Antropología Website

musée du quai Branly Website
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