ANTH 233 Ethnographic Studies
Winter 2019
I acknowledge that St FX is in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People.

Jan.  28, 31, Feb, 4, 7, 14: Museum anthropology
What do to with monuments to historical figures who committed acts of atrocity. Expanded Commentary section in Museum Anthropology.
    READ: Saul, Gwendolyn W. And Diana Marsh. 2018. “In Whose Honor? On Monuments, Public Spaces, Historical Narratives, and Memory.” Museum Anthropology. 41(2): 117-120, and comments by Bailey Duhé, Alex Barker, Courtney Lewis, Eric Gable, Richard Leventhal, Mark Auslander, and Chelsey Carter (pages 120-141 in this issue of the journal)    
Review online exhibits:
    Adams, Julie. 2016.  “Containing the Divine: A Sculpture of the Pacific Godd a’a.” British Museum. https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/KAKykHU7R6rvJQ
    
    Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC) in collaboration with the Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute (GSCI), Northwest Territories, and the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation (VGFN), Yukon. N.d. “Gwadàl’ Zheii: Belongings from the Land.” Canadian Museum of Civilization. https://www.historymuseum.ca/gwichin/

First, a Canadian counterpart to the US Confederate statues: Cornwallis’ statue in Halifax
- the view from the National Post newspaper: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-true-history-of-cornwallis-shows-hes-more-a-victim-than-a-villain
- the view from the Coast newspaper: https://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/cornwallis-statue-is-history/Content?oid=12360151

ALSO: CBC news February 14, 2019: “Mi'kmaw man urges N.S. golf club to remove Indigenous imagery from logo”: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/mi-kmaw-man-urges-cape-breton-golf-club-to-remove-indigenous-imagery-from-logo-1.5016190

How does what Saul & Marsh and the other commentators relate to the argument made by Wrightson about what museums should do?
    - to what extent do some of their views reflect the “colonial politics of recognition,” and to what extent do they express urgency about working to overcome wider inequalities and injustice in the present?
- Duhé: decentre whiteness
-Barker: difference between past and heritage (role of the past/heritage in imagining the future)
- Lewis: alteration bans on monuments (i.e. defense of statues representing the past is very much about the present and future)
-Gable: what is the role of anthropology in understanding who takes what position on such statues?
- Leventhal: put the statues and monuments in museums and universities where they can be critically discussed
- Auslander: hesitant to take monuments of this sort; rather, museums should be places of dialogue across different positions
- Carter: argues for destroying the monuments because of the negative health impacts on those who are descendants of Black slaves