Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums

by Amy Lonetree

Overview

Museum exhibitions focusing on Native American history have long been curator controlled. However, a shift is occurring, giving Indigenous people a larger role in determining exhibition content. In Decolonizing Museums, Amy Lonetree examines the complexities of these new relationships with an eye toward exploring how museums can grapple with centuries of unresolved trauma as they tell the stories of Native peoples. She investigates how museums can honor an Indigenous worldview and way of knowing, challenge stereotypical representations, and speak the hard truths of colonization within exhibition spaces to address the persistent legacies of historical unresolved grief in Native communities.
Lonetree focuses on the representation of Native Americans in exhibitions at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, the Mille Lacs Indian Museum in Minnesota, and the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways in Michigan. Drawing on her experiences as an Indigenous scholar and museum professional, Lonetree analyzes exhibition texts and images, records of exhibition development, and interviews with staff members. She addresses historical and contemporary museum practices and charts possible paths for the future curation and presentation of Native lifeways.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807837153
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	11/19/2012
Series:	First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies (University of North Carolina Press Paperback)
Edition description:	1
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	639,829
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Amy Lonetree (Ho-Chunk) is associate professor of American studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-editor, with Amanda J. Cobb, of The National Museum of the American Indian: Critical Conversations. She is co-author of People of the Big Voice: Photographs of Ho-Chunk Families by Charles Van Schaick, 1879-1942.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xvii

A Note on Names xxiii

1 Introduction: Native Americans and Museums 1

2 Collaboration Matters: The Minnesota Historical Society, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and the Creation of a "Hybrid Tribal Museum" 29

3 Exhibiting Native America at the National Museum of the American Indian: Collaborations and Missed Opportunities 73

4 The Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways: Decolonization, Truth Telling, and Addressing Historical Unresolved Grief 123

5 Conclusion: Transforming Museums into "Places that Matter" for Indigenous Peoples 168

Notes 177

Bibliography 191

Index 213

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A forceful reassessment of museum and curatorial studies. Lonetree steers American art history away from its metropolitan and European underpinnings and encourages essential new directions in indigenous arts theory and practice."—Ned Blackhawk, Yale University

Lonetree incorporates elements of memoir, interpretation, observation, and anthropology interspersed with theory and local history to make museums come alive for the reader. There are no other books like it in existence."—Nancy Parezo, University of Arizona

Editorial Reviews

Thoughtful and compelling. . . . Recommended. All levels/libraries."—Choice



[An] interesting and important new book."—Anthropology Review Database



Lonetree analyzes the complexities of developing exhibitions through collaborations between museum curators and Native communities, with the goal of telling stories that honor the Native worldview and way of knowing, challenge stereotypes, and speak the hard truths of colonization."—Minnesota Historical Society Press



An important new volume for understanding museum representation in different contexts."—Ethnohistory



A challenging and, at times, heartbreaking text. . . . Should be mandatory reading, for graduate level anthropology, museum studies, arts administration, and history classes dealing with Native American cultures and representation. Working museum professionals will gain much from this book, as well."-—Journal of Folklore Research



Lonetree offers a powerful and meditative study. . . . [It] is an uncompromising yet candid statement that no matter how far Western museums have come in their representations of Native Americans, there is still much work to be done."—Indigenous Peoples' Issues and Resources



Provides the reader with an easy-to-follow breakdown of the concept of decolonization within the context of museums. . . [and] is well written and carefully structured."—History News



This book is written in a clear and accessible fashion, suitable for scholars and professionals as well as undergraduate students. . . . I highly recommend this book to museum professionals, museum studies scholars, anthropologists, historians, and students of museum theory and practice."—Collaborative Anthropologies



Lonetree generates compelling ideas for discussion and debate in the museum field, and these ideas call for practical application in museums and sites of cultural representation."—Collaborative Anthropologies



Lonetree does an admirable job of incorporating Native American storytelling preferences into a kind of scholarly discourse that is insightful, critically astute, and a pleasure to read."—Journal of American Ethnic History

From the Publisher