Introducing the New Museum Anthropology Editors: An Interview with Dr. Emily Stokes-Rees

In September 2019, the CMA Board announced new editors for the section’s journal, Museum Anthropology. Dr. Emily Stokes-Rees is Associate Director of the School of Design and Associate Professor of Museum Studies at Syracuse University. Dr. Phaedra Livingstone is a Professor and Program Coordinator for the Museum and Cultural Management program at Centennial College. 

 To introduce Dr. Stokes-Rees and Dr. Livingstone to the larger CMA community, Lillia McEnaney (Blog Manager, Communications Committee) conducted short interviews with both co-editors. 

This is Part 2 with Dr. Stokes-Rees – see Dr. Livingstone’s interview here.  

Dr. Emily Stokes-Rees

Associate Director, School of Design + Associate Professor, Graduate Program in Museum Studies

College of Visual and Performing Arts, Syracuse University

Co-Editor, Museum Anthropology

Image courtesy of Emily Stokes-Rees

Please describe your current position, background, research interests, and any supplemental work that you do. 

I’m actually just about to start a new position as Interim Director of the School of Design at Syracuse University, starting July 1st! I’ve been the Associate Director for the past two years, while also an Associate Professor in the School’s Graduate Program in Museum Studies. 

In terms of my background, gosh, that’s a long and convoluted story! I suppose academically the best place to start is that after doing a BA and MA in Canada, I got my D.Phil. in Material Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford (Oxford, UK) in 2007. I was then home with my two daughters for a couple of years while they were very small, and my husband was in a couple of postdoctoral positions in France and Boston (he’s a particle physicist). I then spent two years at Brown University (Providence, RI) as a postdoctoral fellow in the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, followed by a stint at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), where I was in a slightly unusual position split between being an academic dean and lecturer in the anthropology department. I moved to Syracuse, New York six years ago, transitioning into a traditional tenure-stream role in museum studies. I teach graduate-level courses across the field, from historic interpretation to curatorship to development and fundraising.

My research centers on evolving ideas around cultural citizenship and representation in postcolonial Asia, though more broadly I am interested in how museums and their collections might act as agents for social change. My recent publications include a book on museums in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau, a journal article on Anne of Green Gables, and an essay about a brand new digital art museum in Tokyo – so I’m a bit all over the place, as you can see! The connective tissue in my work is the theme of social change, rather than geography. I’ve also done a fair amount of curatorial and collections management work, though these days it tends to be in a more supervisory role working with students. I love all the hands-on aspects of what I do, and treasure every moment I get to spend working with collections both in the classroom and the gallery. My favorite recent curatorial project was massive overhaul of the interpretation at a unique historic house museum – The Matilda Joslyn Gage Home in Fayetteville, NY. It’s very much still ‘in progress’, and I look forward to getting back to work on it very soon! 

How did you become interested in museum anthropology? 

This is another long story, but I will make it short! I fell in love with the idea of studying/working in museums during my first year at Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario) as a History major. I saw an advertisement for volunteers needed at a small medical history museum in town. On a whim, I signed up, and over the course of the next couple of years I got to work with fabulous collections, help create some exhibitions in the local hospital, and learned more about medical history than I ever could have in a classroom. From there I went to work at Old Fort Henry (also in Kingston, Ontario) as an historical interpreter, and fell even more deeply in love with the idea of studying and working in museums. After I finished my MA in Public History, and a couple more years gaining experience in a variety of different museums, I knew that I wanted more. I didn’t know where to start looking, but a wonderful mentor of mine forwarded me a link to the ‘Material Anthropology and Museum Ethnography’ program at Oxford, saying: “I think this sounds like you.” He was absolutely right! 

Why did you want to become an editor of Museum Anthropology? 

I didn’t!! (just kidding). Since moving to the United States in late 2007, I have loved getting to know many fellow museum anthropologists through the Council for Museum Anthropology (CMA) group, and have benefitted so much from the activities, receptions, and networking that comes with being a member. Once I started feeling a bit more ‘established’ in my career a couple years ago, I began looking for opportunities to give back to this community that has taught me so much and given me what really feels like an academic home. When I heard that a number of board positions were coming open last year, I put myself forward and was elected to the Board. BUT, that was with no intention of moving into the role of Museum Anthropology editor! It was at the ICOM conference in Kyoto, Japan last September when a certain fellow board member (who shall remain nameless) approached me to see if I might have some interest. I truly hadn’t given it any thought, but after some reflection I realized that given my current circumstances career-wise, it was actually a perfect time to consider taking on this kind of role. 

What do you think is the most compelling thing about the field of museum anthropology as a whole? 

There are so many aspects of museum anthropology that I love, it’s hard to know where to begin. For me, the thing that drew me to it in the first place was the way so much of the field beautifully combines academic work with hands-on creativity. I am definitely someone who needs a bit of both, so for me working in a museum studies program is the perfect opportunity to combine traditional research (journal articles, books etc.) with working on my dry mounting, InDesign, and power tool skills! I also love that the field is constantly evolving, with new topics and challenges emerging every day. I can’t wait to see what exhibitions and research grow out of the current global situation with Covid-19. Despite the pandemic causing so much uncertainty, fear, and death, I know museum anthropologists across the globe will create new exhibitions and interpretations that will bring about reflection and emotional healing for all.      

Introducing the New Museum Anthropology Editors: An Interview with Dr. Phaedra Livingstone

In September 2019, the CMA Board announced new editors for the section’s journal, Museum Anthropology. Dr. Emily Stokes-Rees is Associate Director of the School of Design and Associate Professor of Museum Studies at Syracuse University. Dr. Phaedra Livingstone is a Professor and Program Coordinator for the Museum and Cultural Management program at Centennial College. 

To introduce Dr. Stokes-Rees and Dr. Livingstone to the larger CMA community, Lillia McEnaney (Blog Manager, Communications Committee) conducted short interviews with both co-editors. 

This is Part 1 with Dr. Livingstone – stay tuned for the second installment with Dr. Stokes-Rees. Interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Image courtesy of Phaedra Livingstone

Dr. Phaedra Livingstone

Professor & Program Coordinator, Museum & Cultural Management

School of Communications, Media, Arts & Design, Centennial College
Co-Editor, Museum Anthropology

Please describe your current position, background, and any supplemental work that you do. 

I am a museologist with extensive international and local experience developing, delivering, and evaluating museum and postsecondary programs and exhibitions. From 2008 through 2015 I was a professor at the University of Oregon, where I directed the museum studies concentration in the (now closed) Arts and Administration graduate program and the university's interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies, and taught core courses in arts management. Before returning home to Toronto and joining Centennial College, I spent a year as a senior museum consultant on the development of Al Shindagha Museum, a national cultural hub in Dubai, UAE. My teaching experience also includes dozens of workshops for professionals, other postsecondary courses for emerging professionals and public education programs in museums, galleries and heritage sites. I continue to consult, as time allows, and do professional service.

Among my publications are articles in ICOM News (France), Journal of Arts Management, Law & Society, and the Journal of Museum Education (USA), Museological Review (UK), Museum Management and Curatorship (Canada), and Museum Management Today International (Japan). I am currently co-editor (with Emily Stokes-Rees) of the academic journal Museum Anthropology. With V. Gosselin, I edited the book Museums and the Past: Constructing historical consciousness (UBC Press, 2016), which is one of the few titles to offer a survey of museological practice and perspectives in Canada. 

I have served on a number of boards, including the International Council of Museums- International Committee on the Training of Professionals (ICOM-ICTOP, 2010-2019), American Alliance of Museums- Museum Studies Network (2014-2016), the Coalition to Advance Learning in Archives, Libraries, & Museums (US, 2015-2016), Heritage Toronto (2004-2008), and the Visitor Studies Association (2001-2003). I also regularly peer-review for scholarly publications and conferences.

Drawing from my broad experience and training in anthropology, museology and education, my applied research and teaching aims to improve museum practice; it explores the subjective and experiential nature of artifact interpretation, the praxis and poetics of public exhibitions, equity and inclusion in museum participation, feminist/standpoint methodology, and the public perception of museums. I was awarded the 2013 Smithsonian Institution Fellowship in Museum Practice for the research project Exhibition Interpretation: Touchstones, Touchscreens and Timeless Tall Tales.

How did you become interested in museum anthropology? 

I’ve worked in the field since 1991 and have been split between a practice and academic focus throughout. I did my honours undergraduate degree as a specialist in anthropology at the University of Toronto (effectively, I double majored in sociocultural anthropology and archaeology with a minor in biological anthropology). Increasingly though, over time, it became clear that material culture analysis was missing from my training, and material culture was really what pulled me to anthropology in the first place. 

While an undergraduate, the Into the Heart of Africa exhibition and boycott happened at the Royal Ontario Museum. So, there was a lot of discussion surrounding representation and the role of museums – all of the conversations that are so central to museum anthropology now were still being problematized and formulized in Canadian museum discourse at the time. Things were still very raw and being worked out – everybody in the field seemed confused and scared. It was a really fascinating time to be interested in material culture because simultaneously, the University of Toronto was still very structural-functionalist in approach and still hadn’t picked material culture back up. 

Because of that void, during my third year, I took an experimental archaeology and comparative ethnography course. For each units’ assignment, we had to go out and do experiments on our own to solve a problem, such as how do you make fire using X method or how do you with make a stone tool using groundstone technology rather than flintknapping? The last unit was a wildcard assignment– we chose our own technology. I chose textile dyeing because I wanted to figure out how resist dyeing (batik) was done. So, I went to what is now the Canadian Textile Museum, got access to their library to do the research, and soon got pulled into doing what became a four-year apprenticeship with the museum. At the time, they were moving into their current collections facility, which allowed me to continue this interest in material culture analysis. Through this informal apprenticeship, I completed a Museum Studies Certificate, and later worked full-time as a field archaeologist. Later on, while working on the archaeological project, I got involved in the museum side of the work, which was my first paid job in museums. 

Since then, I’ve worked at a number of different museums around Canada on a freelance basis.  I later completed my M.M.St. in Museum Studies, and worked as a museum educator in Toronto museums for a while. While I was working at a large art museum there was a First Nations Northwest Coast mask exhibition on display, the curatorial intent for which was to offer an anti-racist intervention. As an educator on the floor of the exhibition, one day I observed two visitors: the son was really engaged, and the dad said no “we’re not stopping to look at this dirty stuff.” This was, of course, the opposite of what the curator intended. There was already all this great New Museology theory out there, but that didn’t mean that the visitor was getting it. 

So, as a result, I did my PhD on learning in non-school settings, where I looked at museum communication and museum learning, which includes staff learning, transformative learning, and issues-based exhibitions. 

If no one is getting what you’re saying, it’s a “so-what” exercise. That is a different sort of museum anthropology that isn’t really a larger conversation in anthropology right now – it’s more in visitor studies, sociology, and psychology. 

Today, my primary interest is in interpretation and representation. Both my practical work and my research have focused on social representation through exhibitions, collections, visitors, and staff. 

Why did you want to become an editor of Museum Anthropology? 

I want to engage in these dialogues, both between theory and practice, and visitor and curator. Critique is one thing, but you have to do it, and I think I’m in a good position to do it. 

I also have a sentimental attachment to the journal – as a sophomore in college, I joined AAA and Museum Anthropology was the first journal I subscribed to. 

 I also have experience during editorial work, even stretching back to high school, where I was an editor on the paper, but more recently, I co-edited book for UBC Press (2016), Museums and the Past: Constructing historical consciousness. So, I’ve not only done editorial work and reviewing for scholarly journals, I’ve been a co-editor before and I enjoy comradery and intellectual exercise. 

 The final reason is that I wanted to work with Emily [Stokes-Rees]. We have a complimentary approach and I’m really excited!

 What do you think is the most interesting or compelling thing about the field of museum anthropology as a whole? 

 In a way, it’s the same reason that I am interested in anthropology as a whole – this excitement about learning about other people, places, and times. It’s almost like science fiction, but its real – it’s better because it is real. 

It is exciting in and of itself, and also inspiring in that people have always been brilliant problem solvers. They’ve solved problems that come up time and again. The human experience is timeless in many ways, and there’s so much to be learned from the knowledge that is to be interpreted from collections. It can, of course, be widely misinterpreted as well, but that’s where the inspiration is. It’s not just about understanding history, it is about being inspired by that creative genius. We’re very concerned with authenticity and appropriate interpretation, but how do we deal with this? 

With the 180 degree turn that museums have done in the past twenty-five years and the curator’s role being rewritten, museums no longer have that singular authoritative voice anymore. Now, there’s an implicit understanding in most museum contexts that you can try to control the visitor’s understanding, but honestly, its jello. Your control of any narrative will melt and slip away quickly – you can’t control it. People come in with their own prior experiences, and they come up with their own brilliant interpretations, which may coincide with the dominant narrative or it may be completely different. Visitors may write a song based on a painting they saw, and that is an incredibly useful use of collections as well. 

We have the role to be scholarly interpreters of material culture, but we also are there to share the human experience. 

Museum Anthropology Leaders: Boris Wastiau, Director, Musee d'ethnographie de Geneve and Tenured Professor, Department of the History of Religions, University of Geneva, Part 3 of 3

Exclusive Museum Anthropology Blog Interview with Dr. Boris Wastiau, Director, Musee d'ethnographie de Geneve and Tenured Professor, Department of the History of Religions, University of Geneva.

This interview is the seventh installment in our series, Museum Anthropology Leaders, where blog intern Lillia McEnaney interviews various anthropological museum professionals.

This interview was conducted over written email correspondence. 

This is Part 3 of 3

. 

9.

More broadly, have you seen any major changes in our field of museum anthropology over the past decade? If so, what are they? 

I might suggest breaking this down into questions for another interview! There is so much to say, and it is difficult to make general statements as the situation differs a lot from a country to another. I would say that in Europe the situation is quite contrasted, sometimes critical, sometimes promising. 

10.

Where do you see the field of museum anthropology going, long term? What role do you see the Musee d’ethnographie playing in the field? 

The role of the MEG will probably be modest on account of its size and where it is located! What I would like to say in answer to this question is that if museums are to reflect the profile of the society in which they function to better serve it, as is now a credo of museum policy, anthropology museums, museums of world cultures or of non-Western art should someday be given far more importance than today. Or otherwise non-Western arts and other collections should “colonise”, so to speak, all the museums traditionally focused on pre-WWII notions of “Western culture”, society and history (in Europe, most museums of art and history). “Ethnographic” or world cultures museums should also proliferate outside the former colonial metropolises and few academic centres where they historically were founded. Also, in most case, our collections must be rejuvenated with new acquisitions and contemporary material.

11.

Do you have any advice or tips for our younger readers who are thinking about going into anthropology or museum work? 

Do fieldwork and, if possible, collect in the field. Always try to know as much as you can about

all

collections around you, do not focus for years on a limited corpus. If you get a museum job, always volunteer to take more responsibilities, in all fields of museum practice. Try to cast an anthropological gaze at all the relationships between people and objects, all the way from the field to the exhibition. 

Museum jobs are great jobs, because museum people tend to be nicer! Anthropology museums are the best places; they are the only ones with collections that open up on such a multitude of countries, cultures, periods, fields of human activity… 

Museum Anthropology Leaders: Boris Wastiau, Director, Musee d'ethnographie de Geneve and Tenured Professor, Department of the History of Religions, University of Geneva, Part 2 of 3

Exclusive Museum Anthropology Blog Interview with Dr. Boris Wastiau, Director, Musee d'ethnographie de Geneve and Tenured Professor, Department of the History of Religions, University of Geneva.

This interview is the seventh installment in our series, Museum Anthropology Leaders, where blog intern Lillia McEnaney interviews various anthropological museum professionals.

This interview was conducted over written email correspondence.

This is Part 2 of 3.


5. Let’s change the focus to your current appointment. You were appointed the Director of the Musee d’ethnographie in 2009, with the specific mission of rebuilding and restructuring the institution. How did you go about doing this? In 2009 I engaged the museum staff to participate in the conception of a masterplan. Budgets were voted, but in 2010 we faced a referendum pro or against the museum. We won with a large majority of the people’s votes in September, closed the museum and moved away. By then many had been so incredulous that not much had been done in terms of exhibition concepts and planning. Also, many key employees had not yet been hired! One can say we did it all in just four years. Restructuring the institution is eventually a very slow process. Changing an organigram (organisational chart) does not change people’s skills, or their behaviour. You have to bring in a concept of slow but permanent, guided change; co-create and nurture values with your staff, your public and all the partners in your networks. Networks and collaborations are so important! For a public institution, they are a vital necessity for growing and reaching out to ever larger circles. If you want to make something big in Geneva, you must make sure that everyone can agree, if not support you. Consensus is a must.
Why was this a project you were interested in taking on? If you love art, cultures, interacting with people and if you love building things, then what better job could you wish to have? 6. What goals do you have for the museum, post-reconstruction? We are currently building new storage for the collections. Before we remove them, in 2018, I want to spend a couple of years on an in-depth assessment of the collections. That is a big job! I also am looking to raise the level of academic activity at the museum. Last year we renewed a convention with the University of Geneva on research and teaching. Curators should teach more and students should come more often to the museum. Recently, new teaching opportunities have just opened up. Several academic conferences are being lined up for 2015-2016, in collaboration with universities and scholarly societies.
7. Could you provide the readers of the blog with a brief description of your day to day job - post-reopening - as the Director of the Musee d’ethnographie de Geneve? The only thing that changed after the opening is that we have all been relieved from the weight of the big deadline we had all been obsessed with for years. Everyone is happy to be able to take the extra time required to do things very well. But there certainly is not less work. On a daily basis, my main job is to make sure that everyone has a clear picture of his or her duty, that they are properly informed and that they have everything they need to work.
8. Do you have a favourite object in the collections of the museum?
I have a few favourite objects in each of the five continents collections! The more you know your collections, the more you find treasures. Mine tend to be those important objects that were mislabelled sometimes for one hundred years, completely ignored because misplaced in the wrong collection, and that turn out to be historically significant objects (see history section of our permanent collection at http://www.meg.ch). I found out for instance that one of our False Face Society masks had been registered in 1825, making it one of the oldest known in a collection!

Museum Anthropology Leaders: David Delgado Shorter, Professor & Vice Chair, Department of World Arts and Culture, University of California - Los Angeles, Part 2 of 2t

Exclusive Museum Anthropology Blog Interview with David Delgado Shorter, Professor & Vice Chair, Department of World Arts and Culture, University of California - Los Angeles.

This interview is the fifth installment in our series, Museum Anthropology Leaders, where blog intern Lillia McEnaney will be interviewing various anthropological museum professionals. This interview is very different than the rest, for Dr. Shorter is the first interviewee who is not a classical museum anthropologist.

This interview was conducted over written email correspondence.

This is Part 2 of 2.

Q: What collection-based project have you worked on that you are most proud of?

A: I’m quite proud of the digital curation I did for NYU’s Hemispheric Institute in 2009,

a module called “The Indigenous Americas.” It took years to develop a digital interface

for their collection of materials related to indigenous performance and politics.

Unfortunately they only allow their member institutions to see the result of that curatorial

work. For your readers who belong to a member institution, they can visit that collection here. If your readers are not institutional members of the Hemispheric Institute, perhaps this will be an enticing invitation. I don’t want to imagine a world without the Hemispheric

Institute, their director Diana Taylor, and their amazingly global team of activists,

scholars, performers, artists, and technicians.

Q: What challenges have you faced as a curator who has not been trained in this practice?

A: The greatest challenge is one of recognizing the expertise of collaborators. I don’t

know about restoration and archiving practices. I wouldn’t dare tell someone doing that

work how I think they should go about storing or hanging something based on best

practices for preservation. And yet I have encountered museum staff telling me what to

write or not write in the text, literally down to word choices. To be sure, the best editors

for my representations of an indigenous community are going to be people with decades of experience in the community being represented. And I don’t know if professionally trained curators take business and economic classes, but I haven’t. So while I want to be careful to respect the expertise of the people working hard to keep museums in the black, I am also dismayed by the small amount of money museums want to invest in shows including the reimbursement of their staffs’, curators’, or artists’ time and energy. The result is not necessarily “lip service,” but a type of interest in representing indigenous art in ethical ways up to a point; and that point seemed to be defined by “up until it costs too much money.” I have seen that what then counts as “too much” could symbolize most settler colonial attitudes towards Native people. Museums and galleries might, for example, have a public face of reconciliation and repatriation, but an actual practice of tight proprietary control of everything down to the color of the font used in the advertising. It’s important to add, though, that as in all collaborative work, we must find a way to see how things look to everyone around the table. I find that gratitude helps immensely in the moments of disagreement. I do not have to excuse myself from critical engagement in order to be grateful for the opportunities to work on projects that bring me joy.

Q: In a large sense, what role do you see digital humanities playing in the museum field in the future?

A: In my two most recent shows, I was surprised by how disengaged the museums and

galleries were from the digital outlets. In one case, they created only one single webpage that had black text on a square white screen with one banner image from the show. I’m not a programmer and even I could have created a visually stimulating and intuitively sharable site in about an hour. They sent Press Releases but spent very little time approaching the show as an opportunity to show the works in the advertisements or in some digital form. When we consider how art gets kept from those people challenged in terms of mobility or transportation, we have all the more reason to have people come in, or on staff, who can create at least truncated but equally engaging digital versions of shows and collections. The reality is that we have talented web designers, photographers, videographers, designers and college-educated people ready and waiting for these sorts of jobs. It would take two days to make some gorgeous, smart digital form that represents the exhibit to those unable to get to the physical show.
As to the question being framed in terms of 'digital humanities,' I'm not a huge fan of linking digital modes of engagement with only the 'humanities,' versus the 'arts' or 'social sciences,' so I’ll not speak too much about the hermeneutic aspect of digital projects. But across multiple disciplinary approaches, the digital era invites us to think of our work bidirectionally, not simply as showing or telling, but also as listening and changing intersubjectively.

Q: Do you see any of your digital linguistics-focused projects (ex: the Wiki for

Indigenous Languages) fitting into a museum context?

A: Without a doubt; and it’s such an insightful question. The Wiki for Indigenous Languages (WIL Project) is a labor of love that is getting attention internationally right now. At its heart is a commitment to building community around the value of language learning, which of course entails biological, cultural, environmental, and religious knowledges. The arts are inseparable from that, both in terms of indigenous art practices but how we shape the website in aesthetically appropriate and enticing ways. Just that level alone is what we are working on now for the second version, coming out in the new year.
In terms of your question about bridging this work with the museum work, I have begun sketching out a museum show that is driven aesthetically by not only the texture of language, but also the content of the indigenous languages. Knowing that communities are losing, and fighting for, and revitalizing languages, helps us find ways of assisting those people from whom we’ve taken so much. For example, when we consider that many indigenous languages are generative rather than representational, the opportunity arises to imagine museum collections more socially since indigenous art then reaches beyond simply symbolizing an objective world. We can imagine then a museum populated and embodied, offering social presence. All of this would proceed by understanding how language works as both the result of and the seminal creation of cultural production. The problem is that such thinking gets at the heart of NAGPRA claims for repatriation. Until museums acknowledge their colonial legacies and make amends, then most of their work on indigenous peoples will remain “on” and not “with.” The question is if whether I can find a large enough gallery space with the sound and video capabilities. The mission is clear enough.

Museum Anthropology Leaders: David Delgado Shorter, Professor & Vice Chair, Department of World Arts and Culture, University of California - Los Angeles, Part 1 of 2

Exclusive Museum Anthropology Blog Interview with David Delgado Shorter, Professor & Vice Chair, Department of World Arts and Culture, University of California - Los Angeles.

This interview is the fifth installment in our series, Museum Anthropology Leaders, where blog intern Lillia McEnaney will be interviewing various anthropological museum professionals. This interview is very different than the rest, for Dr. Shorter is the first interviewee who is not a classical museum anthropologist.

This interview was conducted over written email correspondence.

This is Part 1 of 2.

Q: Can you please explain to the readers how your familial and cultural background impacted your decision to study culture?

A: I grew up in Alamogordo, New Mexico, near where the first atom bomb was tested. My father worked out in the desert on top-secret projects and I spent my years before preschool living with my great grandmother in the housing projects. My mother made sure that I was very connected to her family’s history. We regularly visited my great, great grandmother (whose brother ran with Billy the Kid) up in Lincoln County. Because my father was of German-mixed ancestry, and my mother of mixed Hispanic/Mexican/Indian ancestry, and because I spent my weekdays in the projects but weekends living in the wealthier subdivisions of the city, and because we lived near an air force base with many people moving in and out from different countries, I think I was quite early aware of cultural differences in term of ethnicity, class, and nationality. We were often traveling through the Mescalero Apache community up the highway as well, so early on I was fascinated by religious differences as they could be discerned through ritual and self-representation. Of course, at the time we are not consciously strategizing these factors into what we call our drives or motivations; looking back, I can now see how these environments and communities shaped me.

Q: You mentioned that you got your start in digital curation. Can you please elaborate on this?

A: After graduating from the History of Consciousness Department at UCSC in 2002, I

was noticing how the Internet seemed to be a game changer. (See a comparison here). For example, the now bankrupt Borders Books, Inc. had stores in almost every city. I wanted to test the waters of new modes of publishing, so to speak. I applied to the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU for one of their small grants to develop an online research project. With their, I think it was $3,000.00, and some of my own monies, I realized that a website could meet multiple purposes at once. If done well, a website could attract non-academics and teach them some things about a culture or tribe without playing into ethnic voyeurism. A site could help academics by providing them research, field notes, and media. For the community being represented, such a site could also include archival materials not easily seen elsewhere as well as language tutorials. And unlike a book, the site could be revised, be free, and have a discussion blog. That site was my first opportunity to not only think about what should be used to represent, but how the act of representation might best be accomplished through the graphics, design, and dynamics of the represented culture. The color choices, the movement between screens, and the primary language were all from Yoeme (Yaqui) practices. The result ended up being a product that enabled my tribal collaborators to recognize that I had been paying close attention for the previous, at that point, ten years. Since they were primarily not literate, seeing and hearing my representational work meant a lot to them. Kids enjoyed seeing their language on something as cutting-edge as the Internet.

Q: Seth [Schermerhorn, Hamilton College, Religious Studies Department] informed me that you worked closely with the Yaqui collection at UCLA. Can you reflect on your experience curating this collection at the Fowler?

A: The Fowler Museum told me in 2013 that they had a collection of Yaqui masks

contributed to them by Carlos Castaneda. I was immediately interested in working with

them since supposedly Castaneda had contrived all of his fieldwork among the Yoemem

(Yaquis). Before this experience, I had primarily worked only with intangible materials or

original works by indigenous artists, so this was the first time I “put on the gloves” as a

curator of objects. I went into their collections with their specialists and we examined

what they had been given and the condition of the masks. They also had some incredible rattles made from moth cocoons. From their larger collection, there were a few that would have been quite exciting to show but tribal codes of conduct do not allow for their display. It was an easy decision to exclude them since their absence would not have detracted from a still very exciting display. And we are quite fortunate that in the Yoeme case, the particular mask genre we displayed, the pascola or pahko’ola masks, do not have any ontological status in and of themselves. While the masks ceremonially have and instill much power, Yoeme artists also make them to be displayed on walls as crafts of incredible skill and beauty.

Museum Anthropology Leaders: Paul Tapsell, University of Otago, New Zealand, Part 2 of 2

Exclusive Museum Anthropology Blog Interview with Paul Tapsell, Professor, School for Maori, Pacific, and Indigenous Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand.

This interview is the fourth installment in our series, Museum Anthropology Leaders, where blog intern Lillia McEnaney will be interviewing various anthropological museum professionals.

This interview was conducted over written email correspondence.


This is Part 2 of 2.

Generally, what is your favorite thing about anthropology or museums? Celebrating diversity and difference; negotiating cultural boundaries; providing source communities opportunity to co-produce/narrate their own exhibitions in nation spaces; providing a new generation of scholars opportunity to critically engage museums as places of co-production; and seeing museum-held dead released home, healing cross generational hurt and bringing museums one vital step closer to being places of vitality where the living really matter.
Do you have any pieces of advice or tips for our younger readers who are perhaps thinking about going into anthropology or museums? I was raised in a community where your usefulness was measured by service to others; where ancestors were not owned; and respect was earned, never demanded. These same values continue to underpin our cross-cultural discipline of Museum Ethnography. It is uniquely grounded in the very essence of our humanity, which physically manifests in the cultural objects of identity found in museums throughout the world. As I explain to my students: it's all about boundaries: Museum Ethnography will provide you the reflexive toolkit to recognize and negotiate these complex boundaries. Be prepared to serve those communities you study, demonstrate trust and in turn they will serve you, your career and your future descendants.
Have you seen any major changes in our field over the past decade? If so, what are they? Recognition of source communities as co-producers; developing field of museum ethics; realization that museums in colonized countries rest on a local kin group landscapes who should be engaged as partners in governance/management of cultural property held in museums; willingness of curators to engage indigenous communities again, but as equals!
Where do you see the field of museum anthropology going?
Current museum trends - past two decades - have been toward user pay commercialized business models. Sadly this has been at the expense of research and community service/engagement. In museums' rush to capture market share due to ever increasing operational constraints I fear museums will lose their vitality, becoming glorified tourist attractions where research based curatorship will disappear and museums once unique academic based point of difference will be lost. I believe the key is for museums to focus strongly on their collections and find innovative ways to engage in new research that is demonstrably useful to wider their wider communities and national well being.

Museum Anthropology Leaders: Paul Tapsell, University of Otago, New Zealand, Part 1 of 2

Exclusive Museum Anthropology Blog Interview with Paul Tapsell, Professor, School for Maori, Pacific, and Indigenous Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand.

This interview is the fourth installment in our series, Museum Anthropology Leaders, where blog intern Lillia McEnaney will be interviewing various anthropological museum professionals.

This interview was conducted over written email correspondence.


This is Part 1 of 2.

When in your education did you decide to pursue museum anthropology? Why?

I grew up in a museum family. My Irish grandmother married into my tribe in the early 1920s. Our tribe is famous for weaving and carving with over 50% of all museum-held taonga (Maori ancestral treasures) having originated from our Bay of Plenty region. In the early 1960s my grandmother became really concerned at the continuing loss of our taonga to outsiders or being abandoned by a new generation more focused on surviving colonization. She established the Rotorua Museum, inviting my wider tribal elders to loan our taonga (long-term) as a way of protecting them for future generations to access. The support was overwhelming and to this day these taonga are still actively used in our culture, especially during life crises, like mourning rituals or tangihanga. As a grandchild I grew up surrounded by these taonga. I was unaware of the uniqueness of our museum: taonga still belonging to the community, but available for visitors to view. Having grown up in such an environment I struggled to engage with "normal" museums where my people were objectified. After a sheltered life I remember visiting the BM as a young adult and being horrified with the apparent licit displays of the dead and their possessions.

Thereafter, I avoided museums because they made me feel uneasy. Back then the last thing I ever imagined was that I would end up in a museum career! Through my 20s I internationally pursued competitive sports and enjoyed engaging other cultures, reflecting on my own kin community values in a globaly exciting context. It were these cross-cultural interactions that framed my future academic leaning toward Social Anthropology, complemented by Archaeology, Maori Art History and Psychology. In 1990, as I completed my BA the Curator position opened up at Rotorua Museum, which by now was a New Zealand recognized professionally-run institution. I was reluctant at first to apply, but my tribal elders had other ideas and convinced the Mayor, District Council and not least me (!) that the time had arrived to begin traveling the pathway set by my grandmother. Three years and a bucket load of experiences later I dared to imagine a career in museums, but it had to be inclusive of source communities, exhibiting cultures in alignment with originating values.

I completed my MA in Social Anthropology, focussing on a museum-held taonga, names Pukaki and in 1994 was invited by Schyler Jones to read for a doctorate in Museum Ethnography at Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. Greatest influences on choosing/maintaining an academic framed path in museums were my mentors, Sir Hugh Kawharu, Sir Raymond Firth, Dame Anne Salmond, Karen Nero, Harry Allen, Peter Gathercole, Peter Ucko, Howard Morphy, Chris Gosden and Nick Thomas.

Could you provide the readers of the blog with a brief description of your day to day job at as a professor at the University of Otago?

Although I am currently on sabbatical my work day continues similar to term time - lots of field research, reading and writing - but without teaching (although I am still supervising a couple of post grads and serve on a couple of committees). Most difficult part of my job is balancing tribal responsibilities (kin) with my work priorities (office). Fortunately my fieldwork takes me from

Dunedin (University of Otago) to my tribal homelands in the North Island twice a month. This provides opportunity for me to fulfill tribal duties as well as sitting on local and national government appointed committees.

What project have you worked on are you most proud of?

In the 1990s the return home of Pukaki tommy tribe was special, fulfilling my elders' dream to see their revered taonga home;

In the 2000s it was the Ko Tawa exhibition, touring museum-held taonga back into communities of origin; and

Currently, the Maori Maps project, assisting reconnection of Maori youth to their home tribal communities.

4. What was the most challenging project or aspect of a project that you have worked on?

The Ko Tawa Project presented multiple challenges, not least museums' reluctance to release taonga to visit communities of origin in an exhibition that had no glass cabinets. This project demonstrated to museums - yet again - that Maori communities remain worthy Treaty partners and are committed to bettering Nationhood on the basis of inclusion, recognizing it is Maori culture that provides NZ's international unique point of difference.

Museum Anthropology Leaders: Steve Lekson, University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, Boulder, Part 2

Exclusive Museum Anthropology Blog Interview with Steve Lekson, Curator of Archaeology and Professor of Anthropology, Univeristy of Colorado Museum of Natural History, Boulder

This interview is the third installment in a our series, Museum Anthropology Leaders, where blog intern Lillia McEnaney will be interviewing various anthropological museum professionals. The first installment in the series was with Alaka Wali at the Field Museum, with the second being with Sheila Goff, based at History Colorado.

This interview was conducted over written email correspondence.

This is Part 2 of 2.


Generally, what is your favorite thing about archaeology and museum anthropology? Museum: I enjoy the weird old orphaned collections, trying to figure out what they are and where they came from and how on earth we got 'em. Archaeology: Reconnaissance survey in new areas. It's great to find big sites that no one knew about (except the cowboys and Indians).
Have you seen any major changes in our field over the past decade? If so, what are they? I've gone from straight-up natural science museums, to Native American cultural centers/art museums, to a university museum that's split between high-end science research and cutting-edge museology. That's a bit of change. For Anthropology, of course, the inclusion of Native peoples has changed, for the better, completely in my 40 years. Also, the explosion of digital media -- a huge difference from when I began and where we are today.
Where do you see the field of museum anthropology going? I think the pendulum may swing back, a bit, from post-colonial angst to substantive anthropology. How many times can you say you're sorry? The trick is to develop anthropology/archaeology questions and answers that are of genuine interest to Native Peoples. That process will probably be collaborative -- but not necessarily. I'm recently working on Southwest-Mesoamerica which is largely a straight archeology question. Almost every Indian I've talked to is really interested in the topic and it's a happy thing we can talk about with mutual enthusiasm. A lot more cheerful than NAGPRA.
As an author, archaeologist, and curator, how have you ‘changed’ your research to support these different venues of scholarship? Except for gray literature reports and contract deliverables, I've always tried to write accessibly. That hasn't always been easy; my academic colleagues and academic presses need a while to get used to it.
Do you have any advice or tips for our younger readers who are perhaps thinking about going into archaeology or museums?
Archaeology: think CRM; think practical field research; think project management and personnel skills. Museums: learn everything, collections, education, exhibits, administration -- because there are far more small museums out there (where you'll wear several hats) than big museums with separate departments and specialized duties. And most of those small museums are history museums, so learn historiography and costume/metal/paper/film collections management.

Museum Anthropology Leaders: Steve Lekson, University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, Boulder, Part 1

Exclusive Museum Anthropology Blog Interview with Steve Lekson, Curator of Archaeology and Professor of Anthropology, Univeristy of Colorado Museum of Natural History, Boulder

This interview is the third installment in a our series, Museum Anthropology Leaders, where blog intern Lillia McEnaney will be interviewing various anthropological museum professionals. The first installment in the series was with Alaka Wali at the Field Museum, with the second being with Sheila Goff, based at History Colorado.

This interview was conducted over written email correspondence.

This is Part 1 of 2.

When in your education did you decide to pursue museum anthropology? Why?

Probably right after the BA, when I was running big CRM projects in Tennessee. I didn't want to do that forever, I didn't want to be a professor, and a research curator pretty filled my requirements.

Could you provide the readers of the blog with a brief description of your day to day job at as the Curator of Anthropology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History?

There are no two days that are the same. In the last decade, LOTS of NAGPRA, a couple of big exhibits, a few major accessions, planning and grant writing for storage improvements, teaching classes, graduate students, (until last summer) almost every summer a field project, and a lot of university "business" -- endless committee work.

Which project or exhibition that you worked on are you most proud of?

Hard to say. Last big exhibit was "History of the Ancient Southwest", up for a year and very successful. I was happy with it.

When I took this job, after about a half-year I saw four things that needed doing: (1) NAGPRA compliance (we were behind the curve); (2) rehousing our Southwest textiles; (2) rehabbing the Yellow Jacket collections -- our largest archaeological collection, but in a poor state of health; and (4) doing something with our remarkable collection of Southwestern pots which had not been on exhibit for as long as anyone could remember. Got 'em all done except (2) and we're working on that right now!

What was the most challenging project or aspect of a project that you have worked on?

NAGPRA. We have, after ten years, repatriated all of the HRs under our control, about 635 individuals. We consulted with almost 100 tribes. We had no NAGPRA staff and no budget. It was a huge job and not a happy one. I wrote about this in Museum Anthropology 33(2), 2010.

Do you have a favorite object in the University of Colorado collection?

Not one object. We have a really rich collection. The Mantle's Cave collection is pretty remarkable.

Part 2 coming soon!

Museum Anthropology Leaders: Sheila Goff, History Colorado, Denver, Part 2

Exclusive Museum Anthropology Blog Interview with Sheila Goff, History Colorado, Denver

This interview is the second installment in a new series, Museum Anthropology Leaders, where blog intern Lillia McEnaney will be interviewing various anthropological museum professionals. The first installment in the series was with Alaka Wali at the Field Museum. 

This is Part 2 of 2.

Do you have a favorite object in the History Colorado collection?

I have many favorites. I am drawn to Mesa Verde Black-on-white pottery with its beautifully painted designs. I also like objects that make me think about the person who made or used them. For example, we have a coiled basket from the Mesa Verde region with a broken awl tip embedded in it. I imagine the reaction of the woman who was making the basket when she broke her tool. 

Image courtesy of History Colorado, 

Stephen H. Hart Library & Research Center

Generally, what is your favorite thing about museum anthropology?

Learning about the past in multiple ways. We study artifacts, using a variety of techniques and approaches. We consult experts who include archaeologists and the descendants of the people who made or used the artifacts.

Do you have any advice or tips for our younger readers who are perhaps thinking about going into archaeology or museums? 

Develop your specialty but at the same time prepare yourself broadly to do the variety of things that need to be done in a museum. In my case, in graduate school, my museum specialty was collections management and my cognate was Southwest archaeology. While my preparation is appropriate for my current job, I am grateful I took classes in exhibit development and that I had a background in education because exhibits and education through outreach are also a part of my job. Also, be sure to do volunteer work or internships to hone your skills, decide better what you want to do, and make contacts in the field. 

Have you seen any major changes in our field over the past decade? If so, what were they? 

I have seen several changes. Many museums of the past developed exhibits with content that curators thought visitors should know. I see a move now toward developing exhibits based on what visitors know and want to know. That information is gleaned through a lot of visitor testing before, during, and after exhibit development. I see museums becoming vibrant places with exhibits that provide content in a variety of ways (images, text, artifacts, video, interactives, programming, websites, etc.). More and more museums are consulting with tribes in the development of exhibits and programs that relate to tribes. NAGPRA also brought tribes into collections and museums have benefited from learning more about their archaeological and ethnographic collections from them. 

Where do you see the field of museum anthropology going? 

I believe it will only get better. I see more and more museums collaborating with the people and/or their descendants associated with museum collections to bring their visitors an accurate interpretation of objects and stories from multiple perspectives. 

As a relatively new curator, what differences have you seen between your coursework in Museum Studies and your work at History Colorado?  

I don’t see a lot of difference. When I reflect upon my overall program in Museum Studies, I think all aspects of it were relevant and prepared me well. In my current position, I have ended up using information from most of the courses I took. More importantly, while in school I was a graduate assistant in the Anthropology Collections Section of the CU Museum of Natural History, where I gained practical experience daily working with collections. My internship and thesis enhanced my knowledge of my cognate area. I was encouraged to join professional organizations and attend annual meetings, which I did and these too helped prepare me for work.