museums – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

0.178: The Social Production of Science and Anthropology as Knowledge for Domination

The intellectual heritage of European expansion that we inherit as anthropologists – certainly not without modification and criticism – is again the subject in this series. If Immanuel Wallerstein explained which agendas became dominant with the institutionalization of the social sciences, with some notes on why they became dominant, Pierre Bourdieu provides some explanation as […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Spirited Encounters: American Indians Protest Museum Policies and Practices

In line with an earlier post about the repatriation of First Nation remains held in museums, I am happy to tell readers of the recent publication of a new book, by AltaMira Press, titled Spirited Encounters: American Indians Protest Museum Policies and Practices. The publisher’s synopsis reads as follows (with minor edits): “During the twentieth […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Colonialism and the Archaeological Wild Man: Canadian anthropologists react to Indiana Jones

This item, published under the title of “Indiana Jones is no model of the modern archeologist” in The Calgary Herald today, speaks of Canadian academics who are involved in setting up ethical guidelines for “digging up the past,” and focuses on their reaction against the Indian Jones movies which “represent the dark side of archeology’s […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Questions about Race, Indigeneity, and Photography

Given the debate surrounding the proposed ban of “mixed-blood” marriages among Dominica’s Caribs, and the unexplained assertion that 1,000 “full blood Caribs” remain there, added to assertions made in the Taino Revival book that contemporary Tainos are really black people trying to deny their blackness by choosing a Taino identity, there seems to be a […]