This paper explores the role of Indigenous and queer embodiment in understanding the current limitations of sociotechnical systems as they relate to cultural heritage institutions. Through the utilization of a critical case study the paper highlights the ways in which the ideologies of colonialism and cisnormativity render Indigenous and queer identities invisible within cultural heritage institutions. In particular, the case studies highlight information organization, archival description, and cataloging as sites of ideological reinforcement for colonialism and gender binaries. In response, the paper identifies methods for not only naming such normative ideologies, but actionable ways to challenge such inequities through community‐led, Indigenous, and queer affirming descriptive practices. Additionally, the paper attends to the way findings impact other historically marginalized identities and theorize methods for confronting such inequities within sociotechnical systems more broadly.
This paper discusses the potential role of the Council for the Preservation of Anthropological Records (CoPAR) in the context of contemporary developments in anthropological research and archival practice. Despite many efforts, there are no discipline-wide, agreed-upon best practices for making or keeping anthropological records, and no central space where such conversations are taking place. Founded in the 1990s, CoPAR aims to convey the value of anthropological records, to encourage anthropology practitioners and institutions to preserve the field's records, to identify and locate primary anthropological materials, and to promote the use of records in the discipline. While CoPAR led efforts to preserve records of anthropologists in the 1990s, it became inactive by the early 2000s. Since then, the shift to digital field records and the increased digital access of archival records has exposed new concerns for the field's archival records. This article explores the outcomes of a 2015 meeting on this topic and identifies new gaps and challenges for anthropological records, joining this work with current archival perspectives. The article makes a case for a revitalized CoPAR that will encourage life-cycle data thinking and more community-driven approaches to archival stewardship.
Anthropology and its institutions have come under increased pressure to focus critical attention on the way they produce, steward, and manage cultural knowledge. However, in spite of the discipline’s reflexive turn, many museums remain encumbered by Enlightenment-derived legitimating conventions. Although anthropological critiques and critical museology have not sufficiently disrupted the majority paradigm, certain exhibitionary projects have served to break with established theory and practice. The workshop described in this article takes these nonconforming “interruptions” as a point of departure to consider how paradigm shifts and local museologies can galvanize the museum sector to promote intercultural understanding and dialogue in the context of right-wing populism, systemic racism, and neoliberal culture wars.
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