Associated Products
“Recuperating the Boasian Archive: A Collaborative Effort to Reunite Objects, Records, and Indigenous Knowledge.” (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: “Recuperating the Boasian Archive: A Collaborative Effort to Reunite Objects, Records, and Indigenous Knowledge.”
Author: Aaron Glass
Author: Judith Berman
Abstract: Franz Boas's 1897 monograph, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, was a landmark in anthropology for its integrative approach to museum collections, photographs and sound recordings as well as text. A result of participant observation and extensive collaboration with indigenous partners—especially George Hunt—the book set a standard for both ethnography and museum practice. However, both Boas and Hunt remained dissatisfied with the published text, laboring for decades to correct and supplement a volume that would forever mediate global knowledge of the Kwakwaka’wakw. They left behind a vast archive of unpublished materials (ranging from interlinear fieldnotes to watercolour drawings, touched-up photographs to wax cylinder recordings) relevant to the creation and afterlife of this seminal text and its related museum collections. These materials are now widely distributed across institutional, disciplinary, and international borders so that related ethnographic records have become fractured, thereby limiting the documentary potential at each site and the research possibilities for both scholars and indigenous communities. This paper discusses a current collaborative project to create a new, annotated critical edition of the work that unites published and unpublished records with one another and with current Kwakwaka’wakw knowledge in an interactive, multimedia website. Archival revelations about the truly co-authored nature of the original text allow us to better situate the contexts and methods of creating ethnographic knowledge in terms of the indigenous epistemologies it purports to represent. Moreover, new digital technologies can harness multimedia to return sensory richness to Boas and Hunt’s synthetic text, to reactivate disparate and long dormant museum collections, and to restore cultural patrimony to its indigenous inheritors.
Date: 05/08/2013
Primary URL:
http://www.cas-sca.ca/conference/past-conferencesPrimary URL Description: CASCA Website with links to past conferences
Conference Name: Presented at the invited session "Unsettling Records: Images and Objects," Canadian Anthropology Society-La Société Canadienne d'Anthropologie Conference, Victoria, BC
"Reassembling The Social Organization: Collaborative Ethnography and Digital Media in the Making and Remaking of Franz Boas’s 1897 Monograph." (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: "Reassembling The Social Organization: Collaborative Ethnography and Digital Media in the Making and Remaking of Franz Boas’s 1897 Monograph."
Author: Aaron Glass
Author: Judith Berman
Abstract: Franz Boas's 1897 monograph, The Social Organization and Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, was a landmark in anthropology for its integrative approach to ethnography, the use of multiple media, and the collaborative role of Boas’s indigenous partner George Hunt. Not only did the volume draw on existing museum collections from around the world, the two men also left behind a vast and now widely distributed archive of unpublished materials relevant to the creation and afterlife of this seminal text, including hundreds of pages of Hunt’s corrections and emendations. This paper discusses an international collaborative project to create a new, annotated critical edition of the book that unites published and unpublished materials with one another and with current Kwakwaka’wakw knowledge in a multimedia online format. The paper will catalogue the range of archival materials at issue and present an interactive prototype for the digital edition that attempts to re-embed ethnographic knowledge within indigenous epistemological frameworks and hereditary protocols for access. While at a preliminary stage of design, working through the functionality and interface of the project prototype during the early research phase has raised key technical, ethical, and theoretical questions about the contexts and methods of collaborative ethnography—and the politics of authority and authorship—both in the original volume and in the newly annotated edition.
Date: 11/08/2015
Primary URL:
https://aaa.confex.com/aaa/2015/webprogram/Session14778.htmlPrimary URL Description: Session listing at AAA conference site.
Conference Name: Presented at the session "Refamiliarizing The Estranged: Digital Representation of Indigenous Peoples Through Sharing, Collaboration, and Negotiation," American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Denver, CO
"Reassembling The Social Organization: Museums, Collaboration, and Digital Media in the Making and Remaking of Franz Boas’s 1897 Monograph." (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: "Reassembling The Social Organization: Museums, Collaboration, and Digital Media in the Making and Remaking of Franz Boas’s 1897 Monograph."
Author: Aaron Glass
Author: Judith Berman
Author: Rainer Hatoum
Abstract: Franz Boas's 1897 monograph, The Social Organization and Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, was a landmark in anthropology for its integrative approach to ethnography, the use of multiple media, and the collaborative role of Boas’s indigenous partner George Hunt. Not only did the volume draw on existing museum collections from around the world, the two men also left behind a vast and now widely distributed archive of unpublished materials relevant to the creation and afterlife of this seminal text, including hundreds of pages of Hunt’s corrections and emendations. This paper discusses an international and intercultural collaborative project to create a new, annotated critical edition of the book--in both print and digital formats--that unites published and unpublished materials with one another and with current Kwakwaka’wakw knowledge. We catalogue the range of museum collections and archival materials at issue and present an interactive prototype for the digital edition that re-embeds ethnographic knowledge within indigenous epistemological frameworks and hereditary protocols for access. This unprecedented effort within anthropology promises new ways of using digital media to link together disparate collections and Native communities in order to produce a critical historiography of the book while recuperating long dormant ethnographic materials for use in current and future cultural revitalization.
Date: 07/20/2016
Primary URL:
http://www.easaonline.org/conferences/easa2016/index.shtmlPrimary URL Description: Main EASA 2016 conference site
Conference Name: Presented at the session "Re-visioning Material Anthropological Legacies for Cosmos-optimal Futures,"European Association of Social Anthropologists Conference, Milan, Italy
“Reassembling The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians: Toward a Collaborative Critical Edition of Franz Boas and George Hunt’s Pioneering 1897 Monograph” (Conference/Institute/Seminar)Title: “Reassembling The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians: Toward a Collaborative Critical Edition of Franz Boas and George Hunt’s Pioneering 1897 Monograph”
Author: Aaron Glass
Author: Judith Berman
Abstract: In 1897, anthropologist Franz Boas published The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, a synthesis of his initial research on the Northwest Coast with materials authored by his Indigenous collaborator, George Hunt. Although highly influential, the monograph remained incomplete and fractured, and extensive archival materials relating to its origins and afterlives were scattered across two continents. This seminar will bring together an international team whose aim is to synthesize historic and contemporary ethnographic data with community perspectives in three overlapping realms: 1) the incorporation of Kwakwaka’wakw cultural ontology into the project’s metadata structure and content; 2) a set of research questions that cross sub-disciplinary boundaries and forms of ethnographic media; and, 3) the suitability for publication of potentially sensitive ceremonial and genealogical materials. This is an unprecedented effort within anthropology and the humanities, promising new ways of using ethnography and digital media to link together disparate archives, museums, textual repositories, and contemporary Native communities.
Date Range: October 25–27, 2016
Location: School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Primary URL:
http://sarweb.org/index.php?2016seminar_kwakiutl-p:2016_seminarsPrimary URL Description: Online listing for the seminar
Reassembling The Social Organization: Collaboration and Digital Media in (Re)making Boas’s 1897 Book (Article)Title: Reassembling The Social Organization: Collaboration and Digital Media in (Re)making Boas’s 1897 Book
Author: Aaron Glass
Author: Judith Berman
Author: Rainer Hatoum
Abstract: Franz Boas’s 1897 monograph The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians was a landmark in anthropology for its integrative approach to ethnography, the use of multiple media, and the collaborative role of Boas’s Indigenous partner, George Hunt. Not only did the volume draw on existing museum collections from around the world, but the two men also left behind a vast and now widely distributed archive of unpublished materials relevant to the creation and afterlife of this seminal text. This article discusses an international and intercultural project to create a new, annotated critical edition of the book that reassembles the dispersed materials and reembeds them within Kwakwaka’wakw ontologies of both persons and things. The project mobilizes digital media to link together disparate collections, scholars, and Indigenous communities in order to recuperate long-dormant ethnographic records for use in current and future cultural revitalization.
Year: 2017
Primary URL:
https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/museum-worlds/5/1/armw050111.xmlFormat: Journal
Periodical Title: Museum Worlds
Publisher: Berghahn
Reassembling The Social Organization: Anthropological Typology meets Indigenous Ontology in the Franz Boas Critical (Digital) Edition. (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Reassembling The Social Organization: Anthropological Typology meets Indigenous Ontology in the Franz Boas Critical (Digital) Edition.
Author: Aaron Glass
Abstract: Franz Boas's 1897 report, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, was a landmark in anthropology for its integrative approach to museum collections, photographs, and sound recordings as well as text. A result of participant observation and extensive collaboration with Indigenous partners—especially George Hunt—the book set a standard for both ethnography and museum practice. However, both Boas and Hunt remained dissatisfied with the published text, laboring for decades to correct and supplement a volume that would forever mediate global knowledge of the Kwakwaka’wakw. They left behind a vast archive of unpublished materials relevant to the creation and afterlife of this seminal text and its related museum collections. These materials are now widely distributed across institutional, disciplinary, and international borders; related ethnographic records have become fractured, thereby limiting the documentary potential at each site and the research possibilities for both scholars and Native communities. This paper discusses a current collaborative project to create an annotated critical edition of the work that unites published and unpublished materials with one another and with Kwakwaka’wakw knowledge in an interactive, multimedia website. Archival revelations about the truly co-authored nature of the original text allow us to better situate the contexts and methods of creating ethnographic knowledge in terms of the Indigenous ontologies it purports to represent. Moreover, digital technologies can harness multimedia to return sensory richness to Boas and Hunt’s synthetic text, to reactivate disparate and long dormant museum collections, and to restore cultural patrimony to its Indigenous inheritors.
Date: 05.05.17
Primary URL:
https://ampersand.gseis.ucla.edu/international-symposium-on-the-politics-of-classification-hosted-by-ucla-is-on-may-5/Conference Name: Politics of Classification
Reassembling The Social Organization: Uniting Museums, Archives, and Indigenous Knowledge around Franz Boas’s 1897 Monograph (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Reassembling The Social Organization: Uniting Museums, Archives, and Indigenous Knowledge around Franz Boas’s 1897 Monograph
Author: Aaron Glass
Abstract: Franz Boas's 1897 report, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, was a landmark in anthropology for its integrative approach to museum collections, photographs, and sound recordings as well as text. A result of participant observation and extensive collaboration with Indigenous partners—especially George Hunt—the book set a standard for both ethnography and museum practice. However, both Boas and Hunt remained dissatisfied with the published text, laboring for decades to correct and supplement a volume that would forever mediate global knowledge of the Kwakwaka’wakw. They left behind a vast archive of unpublished materials relevant to the creation and afterlife of this seminal text and its related museum collections. These materials are now widely distributed across institutional, disciplinary, and international borders; related ethnographic records have become fractured, thereby limiting the documentary potential at each site and the research possibilities for both scholars and Native communities. This paper discusses a current collaborative project to create an annotated critical edition of the work that unites published and unpublished materials with one another and with Kwakwaka’wakw knowledge in an interactive, multimedia website. Archival revelations about the truly co-authored nature of the original text allow us to better situate the contexts and methods of creating ethnographic knowledge in terms of the Indigenous ontologies it purports to represent. Moreover, digital technologies can harness multimedia to return sensory richness to Boas and Hunt’s synthetic text, to reactivate disparate and long dormant museum collections, and to restore cultural patrimony to its Indigenous inheritors.
Date: 10/28/17
Primary URL:
https://naasa.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/naasa-21-5-aug-final-draft-hjlkm-corrected1.pdfConference Name: Native American Art Studies Association Biennial Meeting
What is a Mask? Materiality, Instantiation, and Title (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: What is a Mask? Materiality, Instantiation, and Title
Author: Aaron Glass
Author: Judith Berman
Abstract: Ethnographic museums and archives generally apply standardized terms in order to catalogue their collections, terms that are often incompatible with the cultural assumptions and values of the materials' originating communities. To explore this tension, we describe a current collaborative project that brings together anthropologists and Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl) to create a critical, annotated, digital edition of Franz Boas's first Northwest Coast monograph. In this 1897 text, Boas provided a typological foundation for concurrent and future museum classification of masks and other ritual regalia, along with their ceremonially associated songs, dances, and charter narratives. However, in this typological mode, multiple instantiations of diverse hereditary prerogatives became mere tokens of a common type, thereby stripping out core cultural meanings. Our current challenge is to build a digital metadata structure responsive to Indigenous ontologies of the object where the immaterial—genealogical rights and title to specific masks—is more durable and essential than the material. In such cases, ephemeral genealogical data might be the most significant “artifacts” to preserve—a point forcefully made by Boas’s primary Native collaborator, George Hunt, over the decades of their work together.
Date: 12/02/17
Primary URL:
https://www.eventscribe.net/2017/AAA/assets/pdf/AAA2017_Program_BOOK_v2.pdfConference Name: American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting
Reassembling The Social Organization: Uniting Museums, Archives, and Indigenous Knowledge around Franz Boas’s 1897 Monograph (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Reassembling The Social Organization: Uniting Museums, Archives, and Indigenous Knowledge around Franz Boas’s 1897 Monograph
Author: Aaron Glass
Author: Judith Berman
Abstract: Franz Boas's 1897 report, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, was a landmark in anthropology for its integrative approach to museum collections, photographs, and sound recordings as well as text. However, both Boas and his Indigenous collaborator George Hunt remained dissatisfied with the published text, laboring for decades to correct and supplement it. They left behind a vast archive of materials related to the book’s creation and afterlife that are now widely distributed across institutional, disciplinary, and international borders. This paper discusses a collaborative project to create an annotated critical edition of the work that unites published and unpublished materials with museum collections and with Kwakwaka’wakw knowledge in an interactive, multimedia website. Archival revelations about the truly co-authored nature of the original text allow us to better situate the contexts and methods of creating ethnographic knowledge in terms of the Indigenous ontologies it purports to represent. We are harnessing digital technologies to return sensory richness to Boas and Hunt’s synthetic text, to reactivate disparate and long dormant museum collections, and to restore cultural patrimony to its Indigenous inheritors.
Date: 04/13/18
Primary URL:
http://www.saa.org/AbouttheSociety/AnnualMeeting/PreliminaryProgram/tabid/187/Default.aspxConference Name: Society of American Archaeologists Annual Meeting
Reassembling The Social Organization: Museum Collections, Indigenous Knowledge, and the Recuperation of the Franz Boas/George Hunt Archive (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Reassembling The Social Organization: Museum Collections, Indigenous Knowledge, and the Recuperation of the Franz Boas/George Hunt Archive
Author: Aaron Glass
Author: Judith Berman
Abstract: Franz Boas's 1897 monograph, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, was a landmark in anthropology for its integrative approach to ethnography, the use of multiple media, and the collaborative role of Boas’s Indigenous partner George Hunt. Not only did the volume draw on existing museum collections from around the world, the two men also left behind a vast and now widely distributed archive of unpublished materials relevant to the creation and afterlife of this seminal text, including hundreds of pages of Hunt’s corrections and emendations. This paper discusses an international and intercultural collaborative project to create a new, annotated critical edition of the book--in both print and digital formats--that unites published and unpublished materials with one another and with current Kwakwaka’wakw knowledge. We catalogue the range of museum collections and archival materials at issue and present an interactive prototype for the digital edition that re-embeds ethnographic knowledge within Indigenous epistemological frameworks and hereditary protocols for access. This unprecedented effort within anthropology promises new ways of using digital media to link together disparate collections and Native communities in order to produce a critical historiography of the book while recuperating long dormant ethnographic materials for use in current and future cultural revitalization.
Date: 06/01/18
Primary URL:
https://www.therai.org.uk/conferences/art-materiality-and-representationConference Name: Annual Meeting of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Reuniting Objects, Records, and Indigenous Knowledge in Digital Platforms (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Reuniting Objects, Records, and Indigenous Knowledge in Digital Platforms
Author: Aaron Glass
Author: Judith Berman
Abstract: This session features two innovative, collaborative projects using digital media to link diverse collections and Native American communities with goals of enhanced scholarship and cultural revitalization. The first is an effort to reunite Franz Boas and George Hunt's 1897 monograph on the “Kwakiutl Indians” with widely distributed museum collections and unpublished archival materials, and includes a prototype for a critical digital edition built on Indigenous ontologies and hereditary protocols. The second, GRASAC, explores convergence, bringing together digitized heritage and language items from archival, ethnographic, and archaeological collections, while also interweaving Great Lakes Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge protocols and research methodologies.
Date: 10/11/18
Primary URL:
http://www.atalm.org/node/386Conference Name: International Conference of the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums
The Story Box: Franz Boas, George Hunt and the Making of Anthropology (Exhibition)Title: The Story Box: Franz Boas, George Hunt and the Making of Anthropology
Curator: Corrine Hunt, Exhibition Artist
Curator: Aaron Glass
Abstract: This exhibition explores the hidden histories and complex legacies of one of the most influential books in the field of anthropology, Franz Boas’s The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians (1897). Groundbreaking in its holistic detail, this portrait of a Native North American society was the result of Boas’s fieldwork among the Kwakwa_ka_’wakw of British Columbia and a collaboration with his Indigenous research partner, George Hunt. Drawing on a Kwakwa_ka_’wakw metaphor, Boas imagined his book as a storage box for “laws and stories,” preserving them for science in case the culture vanished under colonial impact.
In fact, the book fails to address three important aspects of its making: Canada’s assimilation policy, which outlawed potlatch ceremonies; the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, where Boas and Hunt conducted much of their fieldwork; and Hunt’s status as a full co-author. In the early 1920s, Hunt took it upon himself to correct and expand the book, in part by reconnecting hereditary treasures to the families to whom they belong. Hundreds of pages of unpublished revisions were consigned to archives after Boas’s death, examples of which have been reunited with the book for the first time.
The exhibition—with designs by artist Corrine Hunt, a great-granddaughter of George Hunt—features ceremonial objects as well as rare archival photographs, manuscripts, and drawings that shed new light on the book and advance understanding of the ongoing cultural traditions it documents.
Year: 2019
Primary URL:
https://www.bgc.bard.edu/gallery/exhibitions/88/the-story-boxPrimary URL Description: Bard Graduate Center's Gallery webpage
Symposium—Field/Fair/Museum: Franz Boas, George Hunt and the Making of Anthropology (Conference/Institute/Seminar)Title: Symposium—Field/Fair/Museum: Franz Boas, George Hunt and the Making of Anthropology
Author: Aaron Glass
Abstract: This symposium marks the opening of The Story Box, a BGC Focus Exhibition that examines the hidden histories and complex legacies of one of the most influential books in the field of anthropology: Franz Boas’s The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians (1897). The collaborative product of Boas’s own observations and extensive materials authored by his long-time Indigenous co-worker George Hunt, the text was the first systematic attempt to document all sociocultural, spiritual, and aesthetic aspects of a spectacular Native North American ceremonial structure. A pioneering achievement on many levels—not least in its use of “new” media for ethnographic representation—it was the immediate inspiration for subsequent books, images, and museum displays, and has been the subject of an ever-lengthening list of secondary literature.
Yet few readers realize the conditions under which the book was produced, which include the scramble for Northwest Coast collections, the Canadian prohibition of the potlatch, and the participation of Kwakwa_ka_’wakw in the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. This exhibit and symposium contribute to a collaborative project to reassemble globally distributed collections and fragmented archives, illuminate the book’s history, and return long-dormant knowledge to the Indigenous families whose patrimony is represented in it. Speakers include project team members who will discuss the primary media utilized by Boas and Hunt (museum objects, texts, photographs, and wax cylinder recordings), the main sites for their ethnographic recording (fieldwork in British Columbia, the Chicago World’s Fair, and museums in North America and Europe), and the legacy of the book in Kwakwa_ka_’wakw communities.
Date Range: 02/15/2019
Location: Bard Graduate Center
Primary URL:
https://www.bgc.bard.edu/events/925/15-feb-2019-symposium-fieldPrimary URL Description: Bard Graduate Center website