The scholar–practitioner expanded: an indigenous and museum research network

Abstract

An ongoing initiative based at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, England, is expanding the idea of the museum scholar–practitioner. In partnership with the Haida First Nation from British Columbia, Canada, the project Haida Material Culture in UK Museums: Generating New Forms of Knowledge is an international research network that uses museum collections to build and maintain long–term relationships between scholar–practitioners from both museum and aboriginal communities. The material heritage of the Haida acts as a nexus for dialogues regarding provenance, conservation techniques, cataloguing practices, cultural expression and artistic innovation, linguistic research and the emotive and affective power of objects. Such dialogues also promote forms of repatriation, and build links between material culture and the generation and transmission of cultural identity. The result is a multi-sited community of practice, comprised of seasoned and burgeoning scholar–practitioners using material culture and collective knowledge to explore Haida history, contemporary cultural expression, museum practices and the relationships between them.

Keywords:

• museums
• indigenous communities
• collections
• scholar–practitioners
• communities of practice

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Haida delegates, staff at the Pitt Rivers Museum, British Museum, Haida Gwaii Museum and Haida Heritage Centre at K'aay Llnagaay. Funding for this research was provided by the Leverhulme Trust and John Fell Fund, Canada Council for the Arts and Gwaii Trust. We also thank Haida delegates and anonymous reviewers for comments on the original conference paper, and the current article.

Notes

1. For further information on the Haida Gwaii Museum, Haida Repatriation Committee or Haida Heritage Centre, see www.haidaheritagecentre.com; www.repatriation.ca; Bell and Collison (2006).

2. The Leverhulme Trust and the John Fell Fund, University of Oxford funded 11 Haida delegates, all preliminary collections-based and organisational work and special events associated with the visit. Haida delegates contributed through their own fundraising efforts and successful grant applications to the Canada Council of the Arts and Gwaii Trust brought an additional 10 delegates to the UK.

3. The Flickr site is publicly accessible at http://www.flickr.com/photos/haida_prm

4. These amendments were overseen by Krmpotich, who has been working with the Haida Repatriation Committee since 2005 conducting ethnographic research on repatriation. Krmpotich was employed as network facilitator from March 2009 through June 2010 at the PRM. Since July 2010, she has been at the University of Toronto. Examples of modifications include adding the ‘Classification’ term ‘Status’ and Keyword ‘Status object’ to potlatch goods, which were previously annotated simply as ‘Ceremonial’ and ‘Ceremonial object’ or classifying shamanic items as ‘Medicinal objects’ in addition to ‘Ceremonial objects’. Contemporary place name spellings and lineage name spellings were added, and historic mistranslations of Haida words were explained where possible.

5. http://southernsudan.prm.ox.ac.uk/

6. http://history.prm.ox.ac.uk/

7. The project also involves Dr. Alison Brown of the University of Aberdeen as co-investigator; see www.prm.ox.ac.uk/blackfootshirts/

8. Lave and Wenger's (1991) original formulation of communities of practice was the outcome of ethnographic investigations of apprenticeship learning (see also Wenger 1998). For additional anthropological investigations of master/apprentice relationships, see Trevor Marchand's (2001, 2009) work on the masons of Djenné and minaret building in Yemen.

9. PRM conservator Heather Richardson recalled a similar interpretation by Haida artist Jim Hart who had a session with the same mask before its display in Raven Travelling: Two Centuries of Haida Art at the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) in 2005. Richardson facilitated the session with Hart.

10. Haidas acted as curators and curatorial consultants for exhibitions such as Listening to Our Ancestors (NMAI); Raven Travelling: Two Centuries of Haida Art (VAG); Our World–Our Way of Life (Virtual Museum of Canada).

11. Nika Collison, interview with Udi Mandel Butler. 14 September 2009, PRM, Oxford, England.

12. Vince Collison, interview with Udi Mandel Butler. 14 September 2009, PRM, Oxford, England.

13. Jason Alsop, interview with Udi Mandel Butler. 14 September 2009, PRM, Oxford, England.

14. Conaty (2003) describes the attitude of Blackfoot ceremonialists advising on the exhibition ‘Nitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life’, who recognised their own expertise as teachers of Blackfoot culture and history, and Glenbow staff's expertise at constructing effective exhibitions.

15. The Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Culture is further evidence that such networks, or communities of practice, can foster productive, dynamic, inter-cultural learning. For more information on GRASAC, visit https://grasac.org/gks/gks_about.php