This has been an interesting thread, but it lacks balance and without
balance there is no basis for progress and reform.

Farar P. Elliott speaks eloquently about the value of community involvement
and I do not doubt the value of community involvement.  But it may not be
the highest value of a museum to become an adjunct phone line to a domestic
violence or rape crisis center.

During the mid-70's I was employed as the director of a folklore/folklife
program on an American Indian reservation.  My task was to hire and train
Native staff to do fieldwork in the areas of anthropology, archaeology,
material culture, linguistics, and folklore/life.  I was also expected to
train a Native American to be my replacement.

In the course of six months I accomplished this goal and left the project.
For the next 2.5 years (this was a three-year project) the staff which I
had trained to do fieldwork attended sensitivity classes, learned to do
bead work and make baskets, and manned suicide hot lines.  All of the data
accumulated during three years was collected during the first six months.

During my tenure on this project a professor of linguistics came to the
reservation for the summer to conduct fieldwork.  He stopped by my office
to pay a courtesy call and we talked for awhile.  At one point he mentioned
that the reason he received a grant for summer employment/fieldwork was
that he had submitted a separate letter to the tribal council (from whom he
needed a letter in support of his research to acquire the grant) giving
them first refusal (i.e. copyright control) for anything which he might
want to publish based upon his summer's research.

Subsequently, I spoke with other researchers and learned that this is a
common practice.  This may explain why there are so many articles and books
about Native American crafts and so few about Native Americans.

People of color?  There are two choices.  We can create exhibits which
demonstrate how people of color have been treated in North America (for
instance), or we can create exhibits about the cultures which people of
color left behind.

As an Anglo of Scottish, Irish, and Swedish descent, how should I take
museum exhibits which show how the British have used Scots as front line
troops to be killed first in battle; how the British kicked the Irish off
farms and did little to stave off starving during the potato famine of the
19th c.; how the Scandinavians are portrayed in Viking garb doing the odd
bit of rape and pillage?

My personal opinion is that while any competent scholar may undertake the
task of honestly portraying material culture, the social aspects of a
culture are best portrayed by a scholar descended from that culture.

Put another way, I strongly support ethnicity in the staffing of museums,
so long as the staff is honest and balanced in their treatment of
collections.

This can be very uncomfortable.  An example from one of my current projects
may be germain.  Last week I completed a conservation survey of artifacts
going into a museum in the Pacific Northwest.  The time period ranges from
before the White Man came, to modern times, but without any artifacts
representing Japanese-Americans who ever lived in this region.  During WW
II we Whites sent them off to concentration camps and now, apparently, we
wish to treat them as they treat the Ainu, and other foreigners, on their
home islands.

Is that nice?  No.  Is it fair, honest and balanced.  No.
Is that life/reality?  Sadly, yes.

Many of the people who subscribe to this list are entry level or mid-level
museum employees.  In time they will be responsible for hiring new
employees.

I hope that the fire which burns in them now is not banked and smoldering then.

Jack


>Date:    Fri, 7 Mar 1997 11:04:45 -0500
>From:    "Farar P. Elliott" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: museums and people of color
>Once you begin to collaborate with the children's program at the domestic
>>violence shelter and come to meetings on welfare reform and helped, you
>may >find you have learned more about the different communities you serve
>than you >thought.
>
>The other cent of my two cents is that if the basis of museums is
>collections, it's important that we foster and evince publicly our
>commitment to collecting material of the experiences of people of color.
>A long-term collecting project is the surest way to make certain that people
>of color have an intellectual ownership in one's institution, and
>exhibiting that material is the surest way to make certain that everyone
>benefits from that collecting.
>
>Hopping down from my soapbox for the weekend,
>
>Farar Elliott
>Director
>Women's Rape Crisis Center
>Burlington, VT
>[log in to unmask]

Jack C. Thompson

Thompson Conservation Lab.
7549 N. Fenwick                               I hear and I forget,
Portland, Oregon  97217                       I see and I remember,
                                              I do and I understand.
www.teleport.com/~tcl/