Museum Studies Works

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https://hdl.handle.net/1805/8270

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Browsing Museum Studies Works by Author "Anthropology, School of Liberal Arts"

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    ‘I just don’t ever use that word’: investigating stakeholders’ understanding of heritage
    (Taylor & Francis, 2017) Kryder-Reid, Elizabeth; Foutz, Jeremy W.; Wood, Elizabeth; Zimmerman, Larry J.; Anthropology, School of Liberal Arts
    Understanding the value of heritage sites for diverse stakeholders requires both paying attention to the fields of power in which the sites operate and applying methodologies that are open to user-defined paradigms of value. In the U.S., official discourse often frames the value of heritage sites associated the deep Native American past as archaeological sites, an interpretation that is consistent with settler colonial ideologies. This narrative generally obfuscates connections between the heritage of the sites and contemporary peoples, and it effaces the history of colonialism and dispossession. A study of stakeholder-defined heritage at two contested sites in the central Midwest revealed both congruencies and conflicts among diverse constituencies’ articulations of the sites’ value. At Mounds State Park a proposed dam and reservoir ‘Mounds Lake’ project would inundate a large portion of the site. At Strawtown Koteewi, Native American tribes have made repatriation claims under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).The study also problematised the term ‘cultural heritage’ as it is understood and used by the different constituencies, particularly for culturally and historically affiliated Native Americans. It also highlighted the positions of the constituencies within the broader fields of power implicated in these contested sites.
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    New Paths to Social Justice and Recovering the Past
    (Taylor & Francis, 2016) Cusack-McVeigh, Holly; Anthropology, School of Liberal Arts
    On April 1, 2014, after months of investigative work and intensive planning, FBI agents knocked on the door of a private collector in rural Indiana. This was the start of a complex, multi-year investigation that resulted in the recovery of several thousand objects of cultural heritage. The collection, noted by scholars and agents alike for its “astounding global and temporal scope,” included material culture from places as diverse as Colombia, China, Peru, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Italy, Canada and the United States. What is most relevant, however, is the way the FBI has handled the case and why it may prove to be a replicable model. This article examines this unique, collaborative approach and its implications for future cases worldwide. It also highlights the moral issues surrounding cultural heritage protection and the shared sense of responsibility that this investigation engendered among stakeholders.