Abstract:
Sharing Knowledge & Cultural Heritage (SK&CH), First Nations of the Americas, testifies to the growing commitment of museum professionals in the twenty-first century to share collections with the descendants of people and communities from whom the collections originated. Thanks to collection histories and the Documenting of relations with particular indigenous communities it is well known that until as recently as the 1970s museum doors – except for a handful of cases – were shut to indigenous peoples.
This volume is the result of an ‘expert meeting’ held in November 2007, at the National Museum of Ethnology (NME) in Leiden, the Netherlands. Since then SK&CH projects have developed. The NME invited leading indigenous as well as non-native professional experts in the field, from the America’s and Europe to explore and discuss case studies based on fieldwork, collecting material culture and/or work with indigenous communities in Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, North America and Central and South America.
Review
“This statement embodies the courageous challenge and intellectual honesty present throughout this brilliant text about collaborative efforts between museum curators, archaeologists, and First Nation communities.”
“This is by far one of the best texts on cultural heritage and collaborative efforts between Western academics and Native populations that has been written in the last couple of years.”
source: Review published in Museum Anthropology 26 (2013)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/muan.12007/abstract
Dr.
Cunera Buijs
Dr. Cunera Buijs (1958) is anthropologist and curator Arctic of the National Museum of World Cultures, Leiden. Her research interest lies in issues of dress and identity, and questions of ownership, authority and access. In 2004, she finished her PhD-thesis on clothing, its significance and role in Inuit society (Leiden University). Her publications have also focused on climate change and the trade boycott of sealskin.
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Dr.
Pieter Hovens
Pieter Hovens (1951) is currently Curator North America at the Dutch National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. He studied cultural anthropology at Radboud University (Nijmegen, the Netherlands) and North American Indian Studies at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada).
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Dr.
Laura van Broekhoven
Laura Van Broekhoven (1972) is the Director of the Pitt Rivers museum. Laura’s current research interests include repatriation and redress, with a focus on the importance of collaboration, inclusivity and reflexive inquiry. Her regional academic research has focused on collaborative collection research with Amazonian (Surinam and Brazil) indigenous peoples, Yokot’an (Maya) oral history, Mixtec indigenous market systems, and Nicaraguan indigenous resistance in colonial times. She has curated numerous exhibitions, and authored dozens of books, articles and papers.
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