Revitalizing "Dangling" Ethnographic Collections

FAIN: FT-286263-22

Amy Vlassia Margaris
Oberlin College (Oberlin, OH 44074-1057)

Research and writing leading to a book about the stewardship of abandoned ethnographic collections.

Dangling Ethnographic Collections is a book project to document, contextualize, and theorize ongoing collaborative work to revitalize the un-curated ethnographic holdings of the 19th century Oberlin College Natural History Museum. The project’s theoretical scaffolding locates materiality as a thread drawing together areas in current pedagogy, humanities scholarship, and Indigenous cultural heritage revitalization efforts. As an anthropological archaeologist I explore how diverse “dangling” objects of cultural patrimony–from an Alaska Native seal gut bag to Micronesian coconut fiber armor–serve as material nodes connecting multiple stakeholders, from an object’s source community to liberal arts students. Extending practices from critical museology, such as community consultation and physical handling, to the vastly overlooked extra-museum context helps elucidate the diverse meanings collected objects assume today and the ethical conversations that mediate them.

Associated Products

Center for the Future of Museums Blog (Blog Post)
Title: Center for the Future of Museums Blog
Author: Margaris, Amy V.
Author: Handa, Isabel K.
Abstract: It’s May 2023, and a nineteen-year-old Oberlin College student and a professor she’d met just two weeks before are aboard a plane to Hawaiʻi. In the student’s backpack, wrapped in pounded kapa (bark cloth), is the skull of a Native Hawaiian kupuna (ancestor) who is returning home after a century and a half. This essay, written as a dialogue between that student and professor, moves beyond the legal aspects of repatriation to explore the restorative actions that surrounded the kupuna’s return. In it, we discuss inherited trauma linked to historical teaching collections, welcoming both Indigenous and Western forms of knowledge in the academy, and our advice to other Indigenous individuals and collections stewards for successful collaboration.
Date: 1/10/2024
Primary URL: http://https://www.aam-us.org/2024/01/10/when-the-ancestors-call-to-you/
Primary URL Description: American Alliance of Museums
Blog Title: When the Ancestors Call to You
Website: American Alliance of Museums

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