The mission of the Council for Museum Anthropology (CMA) is to foster the development of anthropology in the context of museums and related institutions.  

We are an all-volunteer ​membership section of the ​American Anthropological Association ​that serves scholars, practitioners, and students across the fields of anthropology, museology, cultural heritage, folklore, social studies of science, art history, history, and many more.  

What we do: 

We engage with anthropological collections, diverse institutions and communities, and museum-related issues on multiple platforms, including CMA’s journal, ​Museum Anthropology​, a regular column in​ ​Anthropology News​, ​social media platforms​, a biennial conference, mentorship programming, as well as seminars and special publications. 

CMA and the journal also maintain the ​Museum Anthropology Blog​, which highlights breaking news in museum anthropology. The CMA supports and maintains a community dedicated to the advancement of the field. 

Exploring museums as sites for fieldwork, anthropological research and representation, we:  

● Support the development of closer links between museum scholars and museum practitioners;  

● Promote the importance of ​collections, archives, and ​cultural heritage sites;  

● Work to enhance anthropology student training to integrate museum research and practice; 

● Draw attention to museums’ historical and present-day roles as key sites for anthropology as a discipline.  

We recognize that museums are often contested spaces for communities who have been represented in and by them. We support and advocate for:  

● Increased diversity in disciplinary training and institutional hiring; 

● Community partnerships;  

● Environmental sustainability; 

● The use of curatorial practices of collection and display to pursue and disseminate anthropological research beyond museum walls.