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Museum Anthropology Futures: Conference Ethnographers' Report

The CMA conference ethnographers (Haley Bryant, Emily Cain, and Lillia McEnaney) have prepared a summary report of the inaugural Council for Museum Anthropology conference, Museum Anthropology Futures, as a thank you to all who participated and made the conference a success, and to keep the conversation going. Many thanks to them for their hard work.

You can access and download the report here.

 Please let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions.

2017 CMA Awards: August 31st Deadline

The Council for Museum Anthropology (CMA) recognizes innovative and influential contributions to the field of museum anthropology with the following awards.
  • Michael M. Ames Award for Innovative Museum Anthropology
  • Lifetime Achievement/Distinguished Service Award
  • Student Travel Awards ($500 toward AAA Meeting travel)
Apply or Nominate now! Applications and nominations are due August 31st. 
All CMA award applications and nominations must be submitted via email to all three members of the Awards Committee:
Full descriptions of each award are below. Awards are presented at our annual CMA meeting and CMA Reception. For more on our awards and to see past recipients, check out our website.
Michael M. Ames Award
The CMA Michael M. Ames Prize for Innovative Museum Anthropology is awarded to individuals for innovative work in museum anthropology. Examples include: outstanding single or multi-authored books or published catalogues; temporary or permanent exhibits; repatriation projects; collaborations with descendant communities; educational or outreach projects; multimedia works, and other endeavors. Individuals can be nominated by any member of CMA (self-nominations are not permitted).
Nomination packets must include a cover letter and evidence of the work under consideration (e.g., photographs, catalogues, links to websites, etc.), and supporting materials (e.g., letters of support, media coverage, etc.). All material must be submitted as digital data (Word documents, pdf files and/or jpg files). The nomination packet should not exceed 5 pages.
Evaluation Criteria: 1) Creativity: Is the project a unique and creative exploration of museum anthropology’s central themes, tensions, and histories? 2) Timeliness: Does the project say something important about museum anthropology’s current predicaments and unknown future? 3) Depth: In what ways does the project penetrate into the complexity of material culture and the study of it through novel methods and theories? 4) Impact: Does the project have the potential to make broad and lasting impacts in museum anthropology?
Ames Award recipients will be presented with a gift from CMA and a certificate of the award.
Lifetime Achievement/Distinguished Service Award
The CMA Board recently instituted a new Lifetime Achievement/Distinguished Service Award to recognize CMA members whose careers demonstrate extraordinary achievements that have advanced museum anthropology. These achievements might include: collection works, community collaborations, exhibitions, publications, public programming and outreach, teaching, policy development, etc. While many anthropologists distinguish themselves through their works, this award is meant to single out those who, over the course of their careers, have truly helped to define and or reshape the field of anthropology in and of museums. Nominees are expected to have spent at least 20 years working in the field of museum anthropology.
Nomination packets must include a two-page letter of recommendation in support of the nominee and any additional supporting materials deemed relevant by the nominator (e.g., nominee’s C.V., other supporting letters). The letter should provide a contextual summary of the nominee’s signature accomplishments, and it should demonstrate the nominee’s qualifications. The nomination packet should not exceed 5 pages.
Evaluation Criteria: 1) Impact: How has the nominee’s work transformed and or contributed to the discipline of museum anthropology (e.g., theory, methodology, influence); 2) Service: How has the nominee provided service to specific museums (e.g., collections, exhibits, public outreach); 3) Mentoring: How has the nominee influenced and inspired the careers of students and colleagues (e.g., mentorship, curriculum development, innovative teaching).
Lifetime Award recipients will be presented with a gift from CMA and a certificate of the award.
CMA Student Travel Award
The CMA Student Travel Awards are designed to support graduate student travel to the annual AAA meeting to present papers and/or posters. Students and recent graduate degree recipients (those who have defended within the year of the award) are eligible to apply. Each year, CMA will award two prizes of $500 each.
Application packets (maximum 5 pages) must include a brief letter indicating the applicant’s student status and explaining how this project reflects the student’s graduate work; a copy of the abstract for the proposed paper or poster (and for the session in which they will be presenting, if known); and a letter of endorsement from an academic advisor at the student’s most recent institution of study.
Evaluation Criteria: 1) Creativity: Is the paper or poster a unique and novel contribution to museum anthropology 2) Commitment: Does the student demonstrate a commitment to the field of museum anthropology 3) Impact: Does the paper or poster have the potential
to develop into a work that could more broadly impact the field of museum anthropology.
Student Travel Award recipients will be presented with a check for $500 and a certificate of the award.

Apply or Nominate Now! Applications and Nominations for CMA Awards due August 31st

The Council for Museum Anthropology (CMA), a section of the American Anthropological Association, recognizes innovative and influential contributions to the field of museum anthropology.

There are three categories of awards:
Michael M. Ames Award
Lifetime Achievement Award
Student Travel Awards

This Year’s Awards
All CMA award applications and nominations must be submitted as digital data (Word documents, pdf files and/or jpg files), sent via email to arrive on or before the deadline.

Email all three members of the Awards Committee:
Gwendolyn Saul (Chair)
W. Warner Wood
Karl Hoerig

Award winners will be notified so they have sufficient time to make travel arrangements. Winners will be formally recognized at the CMA Annual Meeting and CMA Reception during the AAA Annual Meeting, and will also be highlighted in the CMA column in Anthropology News.

Michael M. Ames Award
The CMA Michael M. Ames Prize for Innovative Museum Anthropology is awarded to individuals for innovative work in museum anthropology. Examples include: outstanding single or multi-authored books or published catalogues; temporary or permanent exhibits; repatriation projects; collaborations with descendant communities; educational or outreach projects; multimedia works, and other endeavours. Individuals can be nominated by any member of CMA (self-nominations are not permitted).

Nomination packets must include a cover letter and evidence of the work under consideration (e.g., photographs, catalogues, links to websites, etc.), and supporting materials (e.g., letters of support, media coverage, etc.). All material must be submitted as digital data (Word documents, pdf files and/or jpg files). The nomination packet should not exceed 5 pages.

Evaluation Criteria: 1) Creativity: Is the project a unique and creative exploration of museum anthropology’s central themes, tensions, and histories? 2) Timeliness: Does the project say something important about museum anthropology’s current predicaments and unknown future? 3) Depth: In what ways does the project penetrate into the complexity of material culture and the study of it through novel methods and theories? 4) Impact: Does the project have the potential to make broad and lasting impacts in museum anthropology?

Ames Award recipients will be presented with a gift from CMA and a certificate of the award.

Lifetime Achievement/Distinguished Service Award
The CMA Board recently instituted a new Lifetime Achievement/Distinguished Service Award to recognize CMA members whose careers demonstrate extraordinary achievements that have advanced museum anthropology. These achievements might include: collections work, community collaborations, exhibitions, publications, public programming and outreach, teaching, policy development, etc. While many anthropologists distinguish themselves through their works, this award is meant to single out those who, over the course of their careers, have truly helped to define and or reshape the field of anthropology in and of museums. Nominees are expected to have spent at least 20 years working in the field of museum anthropology.

Nomination packets must include: a two-page letter of recommendation in support of the nominee; and any additional supporting materials deemed relevant by the nominator (e.g., nominee’s c.v., other supporting letters). The letter should provide a contextual summary of the nominee’s signature accomplishments, and it should demonstrate the nominee’s qualifications. The nomination packet should not exceed 5 pages.

Evaluation Criteria: 1) Impact: How has the nominee’s work transformed and or contributed to the discipline of museum anthropology (e.g., theory, methodology, influence); 2) Service: How has the nominee provided service to specific museums (e.g., collections, exhibits, public outreach); 3) Mentoring: How has the nominee influenced and inspired the careers of students and colleagues (e.g., mentorship, curriculum development, innovative teaching)?

Lifetime Award recipients will be presented with a gift from CMA and a certificate of the award.

CMA Student Travel Award
The CMA Student Travel Awards are designed to support graduate student travel to the annual AAA meeting to present papers and/or posters. Students and recent graduate degree recipients (those who have defended within the year of the award) are eligible to apply. Each year, CMA will award two prizes of $500 each.

Application packets (maximum 5 pages) must include: a brief letter indicating the applicant’s student status and explaining how this project reflects the student’s graduate work; a copy of the abstract for the proposed paper or poster (and for the session in which they will be presenting, if known); and a letter of endorsement from an academic advisor at the student’s most recent institution of study.

Evaluation Criteria: 1) Creativity: Is the paper or poster a unique and novel contribution to museum anthropology? 2) Commitment: Does the student demonstrate a commitment to the field of museum anthropology 3) Impact: Does the paper or poster have the potential
to develop into a work that could more broadly impact the field of museum anthropology?

Student Travel Award recipients will be presented with a check for $500 and a certificate of the award.

Museum Anthropology Futures, Day 3: Conference Ethnography Report

Written by Haley Bryant, Emily Cain, and Lillia McEnaney

Today, Saturday, was the third and final day of the Inaugural CMA Conference. In the previous two days of the conference, we primarily explored the over-arching themes of collaborative practices, pedagogies, and student perspectives. Today marked a turn away from these ideas and placed an distinctive focus on what Dr. Wayne Modest called today’s “anxious” politics.

Like others, today’s activities started with opening remarks. But, today’s comments were given by us, the conference ethnographers. We urged the organizers, participants, and attendees, as well as faculty, practitioners, and students, to think about what the future of museum anthropology means. What do we want future scholars to remember about how museum anthropologists responded to today’s political climate? We also noticed that the conference was consistently focused on ideas, practices, and methodologies, but had not yet proposed any active ways we can make a difference. So, we ended our provocation by prompting a call to action: brainstorm and come up with a way to enact one tangible change in your  home institution.

From there, Heather Igloliorte (Assistant Professor of Art History, Concordia University), Linda Grussani (Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation), and John Moses (Six Nations Delaware Band) participated in a roundtable that presented the “Curatorial Legacy of the Expo ‘67 Indians of Canada Pavilion and the Future of Indigenous Museum Practice.” The roundtable was extraordinarily provocative, and engaged audience members from all corners of the field. Their discussion became a grounding theme for the discussions happening throughout the day.

The conference then split into two additional roundtables. The first of which, “Specimen, Object, Data: Transforming Collections Across Disciplines,” lead by Adrian Van Allen, Joshua Bell, Robert Leopold, Chris Patrello, and Hannah Turner, examined technology from an anthropological perspective, as well as the new role that technology holds in connecting collections to communities. Concurrently, Margaret Bruchac (Abenaki), Stephanie Mach (Navajo), Diana Marsh, and Lise Puyo held a roundtable that focused on “The Challenges of Re-discovering and Re-presenting Hidden Indigenous Collections.” This panel highlighted the methodological challenges in studying ‘hidden collections,’ and used the case studies of the indigenous collections at the American Philosophical Society and the University of Pennsylvania Museum, among others.

The afternoon continued with marked difference from the previous sessions -- a roundtable entitled “Slow Museology for Difficult Histories: Relationship Advice for Scholars, Activists, Educations, and Curators Looking for Commitment,” presented by Erica Lehrer, Tal Adler, Nora Landkammer, Sylvia Forni, and Karine Duhamel. These presentations largely examined the state of European museum method and theory within the context of difficult or contested histories. Presenters also discussed alternative ways to foster long-term collaboration through artists’ residences and museum programming.

Conference participants were then split up to four separate breakout sessions. Christy DeLair and Emily Stokes-Rees lead a session that asked “How can museums be more responsive to current events? Creating a Tool-kit.” Their session aimed to workshop tangible ways that museums and museum anthropologists can work against the current political climate, and promote active problem solving. Next, Solen Roth, Matt Edling, Hannah Turner, Gabby Resch, and Adam Matello presented a discussion entitled “New technologies, better relationships? People, objects, and 3D museology.” In a broad discussion of community-based relationships and the recent trend towards 3D museum practice, they critically asked, “When do these technologies engender new relations, and when do they reinforce -- or weaken -- existing ones?” Next, Susan Rowley lead a discussion on using collections in teaching, titled “Engaging Students and Activating Collections,” which was the second panel of its kind in this conference. Lastly, the museum ethnographers, Haley Bryant, Emily Cain, and Lillia McEnaney, lead a discussion on the future of the Museum Anthropology Conference, and asked participants for suggestions for future events and for a critical reflection on their experience at Museum Anthropology Futures.

Museum Anthropology Futures came to a close with remarks from the conference organizers, Joshua Bell, Erica Lehrer, John Lukavic, and Jennifer Shannon. Many conference presenters, participants, and organizers noted that they felt a heightened sense of a museum anthropology community, and all expressed hope for a future conference.

The conference ethnographers wish to thank all Museum Anthropology Futures attendees for an enriching conference experience, and extend special thanks to Josh, Erica, John, and Jen for their continuous support and guidance throughout this ever-evolving process.

Remember to stay tuned for more blog posts,  Anthropology News articles, and additional post-conference information. Lastly, if you participated in the conference in any capacity, please email us and let us know what you think!

Haley Bryant: haleye.bryant@gmail.com
Emily Cain: cain.emily.r@gmail.com
Lillia McEnaney: mcenaneylillia@gmail.com


Museum Anthropology Futures, Day 1: Conference Ethnography Report

Written by Haley Bryant and Emily Cain 

We, the conference ethnographers, are here to report on what we've seen, heard, and experienced during Day 1 of the inaugural CMA conference! The program today offered a broad range of presentations focusing on student and emerging professional experiences, in addition to panels led by established professionals and academics.

Participants in Erica Lehrer’s 10 day critical museology workshop, which concluded yesterday, presented their posters and talked with conference attendees about their experiences. The posters will be available for viewing through Saturday, though their creators may not be present. There are also two fascinating exhibits on view in the pop-up gallery for the duration of the conference. “Dead or Alive: Animal Bodies in the Museum” by Jacob LeGallais explores the intersection of nature and culture, focusing specifically on the presentation of animal bodies within museum spaces. He was on hand to discuss his interest and background in museum education, and how he hopes to push the boundaries of common conceptions of museums and museum objects through innovative educational approaches, including fine arts. “Museum as Platform for a Speculative Experience: A Lesson of a Cree Walking Stick,” by Ika Peraic, is a multimedia experience examining the concept of design as a speculative medium to reflect upon its engagement with cultural difference and to explore the performative dimensions of Indigenous cultural heritage via a review of a Cree walking stick. Also on view is the ongoing collaborative mural guided by artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (Haida).

Molly Kamph, a recent graduate of George Washington University’s anthropology Master’s program, led a roundtable discussion focused on student perspectives of the field. The participants discussed their academic and professional journeys and discussed their visions for the future of museum anthropology. Discussions of mentorship, how to choose the right graduate program, and career building were particularly enlightening. Students and emerging professionals also had the opportunity to attend a career advising workshop lead by Joshua Bell and John Lukavic. Topics of discussion included maintaining a healthy work-life balance, the best ways to network with professionals and academics, and what type of experience is best for various career goals.

The Curatorial Dreaming workshop led by Shelley Butler offered a space to explore the limits and possibilities of curation within museum anthropology. In addition, there were four closed or limited sessions in which participants shared papers in progress. This was an opportunity for established professionals to elicit feedback on their work from their peers in a more private setting. 

The evening concluded with a tour around the neighborhood for “Libation Anthropology”, a chance for attendees to continue conversations in a more casual atmosphere. We are looking forward to tomorrow’s conversations about radical engagement, object-centered narratives, and the history of the discipline.

Two days until the CMA Museum Futures Conference!

We are really looking forward to seeing all of you who can attend. For those who are unable, there are so many different ways to stay tuned, including this Facebook Page -- choose the medium of your choice!

CMA Twitter - http://twitter.com/MuseumAnth/
CMA Futures Conference Website - https://cmafutures.wordpress.com/
CMA Museum Anthropology Blog - http://Museumanthropology.blogspot.com
CMA Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/CouncilForMuseumAnthropology

2016 CMA Student Travel Award Winners

AK de Morais and Sowparnika Balaswaminathan
April 17, 2017

Each year, CMA awards grants of $500 to students to support travel to present at the AAA annual meeting. This year’s Council for Museum Anthropology Board was pleased to offer travel award support to two students in the field who show creativity in their research approach, commitment to the field, and potential for broader impact in museum anthropology. They have shared their work for this month’s Section News.
AK de Morais is a PhD candidate in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with previous degrees in Social Anthropology from the University of Cape Town. AK studies the visual and material culture of the British Empire in Africa, focusing on how ethnographic museum culture along the Cape-to-Cairo route and typological postcards have informed geographic, temporal and racial ideas of the African continent, and situating these materials as openings through which to see seemingly foreclosed futures.

Her dissertation project is an interdisciplinary analysis of imperial and anthropological region- and race-making, focusing particularly on their material manifestations on African terrain, in museums situated in and along the Cape-to-Cairo route and railway. Her dissertation thinks the Cape-to-Cairo route as significant for both enabling fantasies of the continent, and for how the infrastructure associated with it has enabled travel for scholars and tourists alike. African museums would come to be the primarily local sites through which the latter would come to “know” Africans, and African material culture the primary means through which the continent would come to be invented. Decentering anthropological text and African nations as the appropriate entry points for engaging with the continent, and the racial and spatial legacies of African knowledge formations, her project is instead oriented towards anthropological materials, broadly considered, and the region-making of the Cape-to-Cairo route and railway. Thus, her research is grounded in a study of museum exhibits, collections, expeditions and postcards, held primarily in the material culture and visual culture exhibits, collections, and anthropological archives, of museums of ethnology, ethnography, heritage and culture situated in several cities along the Cape-to-Cairo route. Her project explores how museum culture works with and resists incorporation into the place-making projects—imperial, transnational, and nationalist alike—that grand rail schemes evoke, raising critical questions about how the histories of travel, collection, cultural exchange and imperialism that have built the ethnographic museum as a concept and its exemplars across the Cape-to-Cairo route, have also built an idea of Africa.
Her presentation at the 2016 AAA Annual Meeting, Contingent Collection and Uncertain Objects: Thinking through the Smithsonian-Universal African Expedition, was drawn and developed from her introductory chapter to the dissertation, in which she unpacks the concepts and themes that ground her research and writing.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw the proliferation of museum-sponsored expeditions that sought to collect footage, artifacts, and specimens to expand museum collections, and that necessarily met obstacles and challenges to their collection once in the field. These obstacles raise important questions about the African material culture accessioned from collecting expeditions, and held by research museums today, when the process of collecting has been at the least constrained, often haphazard. In this paper, I consider what such objects can still tell us, despite the uncertainties they concretize. I situate my discussions in the travels of one expeditionary group, the Smithsonian-Universal African Expedition. In August of 1919, the expedition arrived in Cape Town, to begin its traverse of the continent, to Cairo. With naturalists, cinematographers, directors and actors in tow, the group commenced a yearlong journey of scholarship, filming and collection that was, by almost all metrics, a resounding failure. This failure, unexceptional for its time, reveals entanglements with and amongst empires and imperialisms, which together signal the ways imperial practice was fundamentally concerned with the management of the contingent, unplanned and unexpected. I argue that these imperial concerns are most evident through the uncertainties in the objects collected, which open spaces from which the accidental, contingent and unintended can be grasped, and thus open too the pathways for imagining different postcolonial futures.

Sowparnika Balaswaminathan is an 8th year anthropology student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. She studies South Asian art, artisans, museums, and ethical arts practice and has worked as an instructor of world history and argumentative writing. She is currently an Editorial Assistant for the journal, Latin American Antiquity. Her initial foray into anthropology was through working at an architectural and craft museum in Chennai called DakshinaChitra. Although her work at the museum was more on the side of art historical research and exhibition planning, she became interested in the lives and cultures of living artisan communities because of the museum’s prioritization of extant traditions over extinct practices. Currently in the process of writing her dissertation, Sowparnika continues her engagement with museum anthropology through spearheading a digital humanities project drawn from her dissertation research on South Indian artisans which aims to have a pedagogical focus.

Sowparnika’s dissertation research focuses on a contemporary sculptor community who trace their lineage, through caste and technique, to the medieval artisans of the Chola empire (9–13th century) in South India. The medieval sculptors made the South Indian bronzes such as the Nataraja, now found in older temples but also museums. The Government of India has been invested in the discourse over Indian art and craft because of their prominent role as artifacts of Indian culture and tradition and also because of the economic value they hold in terms of export and employment. The largest collection of the antique South Indian bronzes, also called Swamimalai bronzes after the current residential town of the sculptors, is at the Government Museum in Chennai, which has invested money and time in ensuring they have a separate “Bronze Gallery” under the purview of the Archaeology department. Through the exhibition and publications under the museum, there is a control of discourse on the bronzes, not to mention a control over the bronzes themselves. Sowparnika’s dissertation argues that when it comes to such discourses concerning traditional artisans (especially those who belong to an artisan caste) and their craft objects, the government and the artisans contest and negotiate narratives with different end goals in mind. While governmental institutions seek to shape political and economic values, artisans want to demonstrate an ethical position by conflating traditional arts practice with being a “proper” (good) person.

Sowparnika presented the paper, “Contesting Tradition: What is Visible and Valuable through Iconic Replication” in the 2016 AAA conference in a panel she co-organizes called “Value(s) and Replication: Evidence-Based Ethnography.” Her paper was about the iconic transactions between government museums in India, handicraft corporations that market replications of antique art, and living sculptors who create the replicas whole claiming a genealogical connection with medieval artisan communities. The South Indian bronze is a culturally significant heritage artifact for the Indian national consciousness with a history that begins in the 8th century. Various governmental museums and cultural organizations have utilized it to index India’s precolonial traditions. The Indian museums promote a narrative of tradition that is securely placed in the past by positioning bronzes as “archaeological” artifacts, cutting off living sculptors from accessing them. These sculptors residing in the Tamil town, Swamimalai, are an occupational community of artisans, some of whom trace their genealogical and caste lineage to the medieval bronzecasters who made the museum bronzes. Taking advantage of the economically thriving handicraft sector, the Swamimalai sculptors produce contemporary replicas of the antique bronzes and sell them as artistic and ethnic collectible objects, although the historical purpose of these idols has been to serve as deities in temples. Sowparnika’s paper examined the inherent contradictions of the government apparatus in its attempts to define “tradition” and the response from a traditional artisan community struggling to reclaim ownership over the same through the act of replication. Using Marx (1977) and Strathern’s (1990) notions of value as the visible, her paper used ethnographic evidence to showcase how museums circumscribe historical artifacts within their hegemonic narratives. She argued that bronzecasters make themselves visible (and valuable) through objectifying their labor by creating iconic links (Peirce 1932) with antique bronzes and thereby claiming a relationship with the medieval artisans and their bronzes.


This article originally appeared in Anthropology News. Contact CMA Secretary Diana Marsh at dmarsh@amphilsoc.org.

Last Call for Session Proposals: “Museum Anthropology Futures” Conference

Call for Session Proposals: “Museum Anthropology Futures” Conference (due March 1)
Council for Museum Anthropology Inaugural Conference
May 25-27, 2017 at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The Council for Museum Anthropology is seeking submissions for its inaugural conference taking place in Montreal from May 25-27, 2017. This will not be your traditional conference experience! “Museum Anthropology Futures” seeks to spark critical reflection and discussion on (1) the state of museum anthropology as an academic discipline; (2) innovative methods for the use of collections; (3) exhibition experiments that engage with anthropological research; and (4) museums as significant sites for grappling with pressing social concerns such as immigration, inequality, racism, colonial legacies, heritage preservation, cultural identities, representation, and creativity as productive responses to these.

The conference will have several sessions each day that all participants will attend, as well as one period each day with breakout sessions like workshops and formats that would benefit from a more intimate setting for dialogue and collaboration.

We are seeking session proposals that are different than the usual call for papers - see session descriptions below. Feel free to email us with questions at museumfutures2017@gmail.com.

More information here. 

Call for Submissions: CMA in Anthropology News


Museums are spaces where peoples of different backgrounds, cultures, and faiths can come together to promote dialogue and understanding. In the wake of global political upheaval, what can museums and heritage sites do? How are museum anthropologists and cultural heritage professionals reacting to threats to funding, speech, or the essential exchange of international ideas, exhibitions, and objects? What can our work in museum anthropology, material culture, or cultural heritage do, say, or advocate for in the current environment? Submit your proposal now!

The Council for Museum Anthropology's regular column in Anthropology News, the newsletter of the American Anthropological Association, is dedicated to publishing the most current thinking in our field. In addition to publishing news of the CMA, our CMA News column offers a space to publish our most relevant and innovative work fast online. (One piece from each section will be chosen each year for print publication.)

Send your proposal, half (500-700 word) or full (1000-1400 word) piece to Diana E. Marsh at: dmarsh@amphilsoc.org

CMA news columns have rolling acceptance and will be published online approximately two weeks after the final submission has been accepted and approved.

In addition to work on current events, for the 2017 year, we especially welcome submissions on the following topics:
museum anthropology and the public
curatorial conundrums (e.g. difficult heritage/the "interrogative" museum)
current exhibitions (reviews or curatorial perspectives)
collaboration
student work
teaching and methods

Submissions must be received by e-mail in Microsoft Word or other standard text format. Authors may submit up to three images as separate files. Credit or caption text should be submitted as part of the text document. Authors must also provide their name, title, institution, and a short, one- to two-sentence bio to be included with their piece.

Submissions must be no longer than the specified word limit (700 for half pieces, 1000 for full), including title, photo captions, and bio.

Reminder - 2017 Call for Board Member Nominations: Council for Museum Anthropology


2017 Call for Nominations:
  • Three Board Members
  • One Student Board Member

Deadline Feb. 13, 2017

The Council for Museum Anthropology invites candidate applications and nominations for people to serve on the CMA Board. Four CMA positions will be open in the upcoming AAA elections:  3 Board Members and 1 Student Board Member.

If you are interested in serving in one of these positions, or would like to nominate someone else as a candidate, please email the CMA Nominations committee soon through Robert Leopold at  LEOPOLD@si.edu.  Questions can be sent to the same address. Candidates must submit a biographical sketch, a brief platform statement, and a photo before February 13, 2017.

Candidate Material Instructions
1.      Biographical sketch
Format biographical sketches  exactly as follows:  include bold headings where appropriate (CV's will not be accepted):
                  Full Name (First & Last) Education (highest degree earned, institution where degree was earned, year degree was earned)  Positions Held: (Limit 5 -most recent first): Title, (dates from-to) Name of Institution;  Interests and/or Activities:(Limit 3);  Significant Publications: (Limit 3 – most recent first): Title, co-authors/editors if applicable, where published, year published.

Example
Wanna Wyn (PhD, University of Whereiwannabe, 1985)  Positions Held:Grand Inquisitor (1999-Pres) Search the World Over, Inc.; Leader of the Pack (1988-1998) Wearethebest University; Asst Leader of the Pack (1980-1988) Whimsy College;  Interests and/or Activities: ritual, migration, presented paper at the Interdisciplinary Conference on Presenting Papers;  Significant Publications: I Didn't Really Know What I Was Talking About, but Now I Do (with Yule Shirley Wyn, PhD), The Perfect Press, Inc, 2010; "Trust Me, I know what I am talking about" (with Imrunin Aginstya, PhD) Journal of Ultimate Knowledge, 1998.

2.      Platform statement (you do not need to include this title in your submission)
The platform statement should be approximately 200 words in length. Statements significantly over 200 words will be cut down to 200 words before publishing.

3.      Photo

Please submit a photo electronically with your candidate material. Full material should be sent by email to Robert Leopold, CMA Nomination Committee, Email: LEOPOLD@si.edu. 
Photos will not be returned.

Call for Session Proposals: “Museum Anthropology Futures” Conference (due March 1)

Call for Session Proposals: “Museum Anthropology Futures” Conference (due March 1)
Council for Museum Anthropology Inaugural Conference
May 25-27, 2017 at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The Council for Museum Anthropology is seeking submissions for its inaugural conference taking place in Montreal from May 25-27, 2017. This will not be your traditional conference experience! “Museum Anthropology Futures” seeks to spark critical reflection and discussion on (1) the state of museum anthropology as an academic discipline; (2) innovative methods for the use of collections; (3) exhibition experiments that engage with anthropological research; and (4) museums as significant sites for grappling with pressing social concerns such as immigration, inequality, racism, colonial legacies, heritage preservation, cultural identities, representation, and creativity as productive responses to these.

The conference will have several sessions each day that all participants will attend, as well as one period each day with breakout sessions like workshops and formats that would benefit from a more intimate setting for dialogue and collaboration.

We are seeking session proposals that are different than the usual call for papers - see session descriptions below. Feel free to email us with questions at museumfutures2017@gmail.com.

Updates available at our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/MuseumFutures/

Email your session proposal to museumfutures2017@gmail.com by March 1, 2017

Please provide the following information in your email text, no attachment:
1) Your name, title, home institution (if applicable), and email address
2) Your proposed session format (see below)
3) The title of your session
4) Additional session participants if a group submission (title and email address)
5) A description of your session (max 150 words) Specific requirements for each format below.
6) What you hope to achieve in presenting/participating in this session (1-3 sentences)
7) What you believe this session can contribute to museum futures (1-3 sentences)

***Please note: Some Workshops and Pre-circulated Paper sessions will be by registration only due to limited capacity. All other sessions are open to all conference participants. For example, Roundtable or PechaKucha-style sessions will have several presenters who discuss their work, and the audience attending the session is invited to listen and ask questions or give feedback.***

SESSION FORMATS

Roundtable - Group submission
Description: Each person presents for 5 to 7 minutes about a common topic related to the conference themes. Often there is a moderator who provides questions for the panel to respond to. Audience engagement is encouraged. Example topics include: decolonizing museology, learning from mistakes, digital museology, teaching museum anthropology, emergent media, rethinking collections, artists in museums, curatorial brainstorming, etc.
Best for: Engaging discussion around a theme or topic.
Submission requirement: Describe your topic and a list of two to five panelists.

PechaKucha-style Presentation – Individual Submission
Description:  A talk that is based on 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide, no text (about 7 minutes). Lightning rounds of 4 or 5 PechaKucha-style presentations will be grouped thematically with plenty of time for discussion. (For more information on this style of presentation, visit www.pechakucha.org)
Best for: Getting feedback or sparking discussion about a project, idea, or research.
Submission requirement: Describe the content of your presentation.

Pre-Circulated Papers Session – Group or individual submission
Description: Closed session to presenters. 5 to 8 participants. All participants will circulate and read each other’s papers prior to the conference and bring comments and feedback to the session. During the session, each participant will make a two to five minute presentation related to their paper and invite group discussion. Individual submissions will be grouped together by conference organizers.
Best for: Preparing a written work for publication. Individuals who may want to publish together or get extended feedback on their written work from others in their field. 
Submission requirement: Group submission: include a brief description of the content of each paper and current status towards completion. Individual submission: 100-150 word description and current status towards completion. Include intended publication venue, if known.

Workshop – Group or Individual Submission
Description: An open or closed session, depending on capacity. There should be a product at the end (an exhibit proposal, sample labels, a grant proposal, an outline of a white paper, a syllabi or reading list, compiled feedback, etc.). Presentation format is open and can include small-group work, materials (presenter must provide), etc.
Best for: Building skills, sharing knowledge, working closely with colleagues, producing something you can walk away with.
Submission requirement: Explain the content and aim of the workshop, how you will organize the time, how you will present to or teach the participants, the minimum and maximum number of participants possible for the workshop, and what will be produced in the end.  Be sure to include what kind of space and technology do you need for your workshop.

Problem Solving Session – Group or Individual Submission
Description: The session starts with a presentation about the problem, and invites participants to weigh in. This session is aimed to bring people together around a particular problem or challenge that you seek to address. As a group, you provide discussion and models for an audience. As an individual submission, you seek an audience/practitioners who can think through the issue with you. The aim is to produce a list of action items at the close of the session. This can be achieved in the group as a whole or through small group work.
Best for: Brainstorming solutions or approaches to a problem in curating, teaching, scholarship, research, etc. You can use this kind of session to refine position papers into manifestos, tool-kits, action plans, etc.
Submission requirement: The session title should be the problem or question that you would like to tackle. Describe how you will present the problem, how you will organize the time, and how you will structure the participation of audience. If an individual submission, include in your description what category of specialist you believe would be helpful to address it (for example, curators who have worked with Oceanic collections, anthropologists who have experience in teaching material culture in the classroom, etc.).

Pop Up Exhibit/Poster/Digital Project/Multimedia Presentation– Individual Submission 
Description: A poster or multimedia projection that presents a proposed display, exhibit, or existing project, or sparks a themed conversation, etc. If an exhibit, for example, consider including a clear thesis, target audience identification, exhibit goals, main points around the theme, supporting images, proposed programming associated with the exhibition, and/or proposed forms of visitor engagement. Space for these projects will be allotted based on availability and need. For a technology-rich space available for use see: http://capsl.cerev.ca/facilities-equipment/
Best for: Presenting an exhibit, draft exhibit, project, or other visual material for feedback.
Submission requirement: Describe the title and content of the work. Indicate physical space and technological requirements. For example, if a projection does it need audio speakers? If a poster, what are the dimensions?

Birds of a Feather/Themed Lunch Table – Individual Submission
Description: There will be some tables marked with identified themes when we gather to eat to encourage informal talks around a common topic of interest. There is no presentation, simply a facilitator who will lead introductions and offer some prepared questions to help move the conversation forward. 
Best for: Brainstorming, introductions, meeting new people in the field, networking. Please note: a “career advice” themed table(s) is already scheduled.
Submission requirement: Describe your proposed theme.

Film Screening - Group or Individual submission
Description: Film screening and moderated Q&A. The subject of the film should relate in some way to museums and the other themes of conference. Film shorts are encouraged.
Best for: Getting feedback and sharing your or others’ work.
Submission requirement: Describe the film, including length, genre, and content, as well as your role in making the film (if applicable), and how it fits into the conference themes. If additional people involved in making the film will attend, explain their roles and how they will participate in the session.


Submissions are due March 1; we will contact you by March 31 regarding the status of your submission. 



We look forward to receiving your submissions and seeing in what new directions you will lead our field during our first conference.  We couldn’t do this without your support and participation. Thank you!

CMA Conference Committee
Erica Lehrer (Concordia University)
Jen Shannon (University of Colorado Museum of Natural History)
Joshua A. Bell (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution)
John P. Lukavic (Denver Art Museum)


Support for the Museum Anthropology Futures Conference comes from the
Council for Museum Anthropology and the Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada.