Museums and the Representation of Native Canadians

Negotiating the Borders of Culture
1. Auflage 1999
ISBN: 978-0-8153-2988-6
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 318 Seiten, Format (B × H): 145 mm x 222 mm, Gewicht: 536 g

Reihe: Native Americans: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

If we were to think about museums as three dimensional maps-as spaces to be divided, defended, and privileged-what would they tell us about the place of Native Canadians within the larger nation? Utilizing a combination of exhibit analysis and interviews, this book explores how Canadian history, anthropology, and art museums have situated Native Canadian history and culture within a larger narrative of nationhood. Until very recently, these museums have, with few exceptions, perpetuated the continued isolation of Native Canadians on the Other side of carefully demarcated boundaries of time, space, and culture. Despite a living and highly politicized presence outside their walls, inside these museums Native Canadians have remained fixed and isolated in time and space. This book discusses how this particular image of Native Canadians has been translated into the numerous dichotomies and borders of the museum; between modern and traditional, past and present, myth and science, progress and stasis, active and passive, and, ultimately, us and them.
However, in tribal museums and more recent programming at the larger museums we are able to identify alternative maps that realign these borders and give voice to alternative constructions of these histories. The past decade has seen enormous change in how museum curators, educators, and directors imagine their role in these museums and, more particularly, in the construction of a history of Native Canadians. This book considers how museums, and those who work within them, have responded to the challenge of writing a more complex and multivocal history for the nation.
(Ph.D. dissertation, the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1992; revised with new preface, bibliography, and index)

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mcloughlin, Moira

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophische Anthropologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Figures, Foreword by Larry Gross, Acknowledgments, Chapter I: Of What Was the Spirit Singing?, Chapter II: Cultures Under Glass, Chapter III: The History of Evolving First Nations' Exhibits, Chapter IV: Mapping the Nation(s), Chapter V: The Continuity of Native Art, Chapter VI: Is There a Space for Museums in the Future?, Bibliography, Index

Über Autor(innen)

McLoughlin, Moira