Unearthing the Native Past: Citizen Archaeology and Modern (Non)Belonging at the Pueblo Grande Museum
TL;DR: This paper analyzed the interpellation of museum visitors as citizen archaeologists, a process that re/produces racialized discourses through rhetorics of science and time, and argued that as visitors excavate remnants of the past they engage an archaeological vision that reinforces dominant constructions of "modern" citizenship.
Abstract: Portrayals of the US Southwest's Native American inhabitants as “primitive” relics have been shaped by the intertwining practices of archaeological collection and museum display. Focusing on the Pueblo Grande Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, this essay analyzes the interpellation of museum visitors as citizen archaeologists, a process that re/produces racialized discourses through rhetorics of science and time. It is argued that as visitors excavate remnants of the past they engage an archaeological vision that reinforces dominant constructions of “modern” citizenship. This vision maintains colonial histories by disallowing Native peoples both authorship of the past and belonging in the present.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow as mentioned in this paper describes a place where population, manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant change in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved.
Abstract: I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it is in such little retired . . . valleys . . . that population, manners, and customs, remain fixed; while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant change in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are little nooks of still water which border a rapid stream . . . Washington Irving, \"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,\" 1820
380 citations
TL;DR: In this article, critical rhetorical fieldwork in the Mariana Islands archipelago is conducted to destabilize colonial naming projects and US federal control that dispossess island places from Indig...
Abstract: Engaging critical rhetorical fieldwork in the Mariana Islands archipelago, this article destabilizes colonial naming projects and US federal control that dispossess island places from Indig...
63 citations
TL;DR: The authors define rhetorical fieldwork as a set of approaches that integrate qualitative and rhetorical approaches, and define it as a "set of approaches" that integrally integrate qualitative information and rhetorical inquiry.
Abstract: This special issue examines intersections between qualitative and rhetorical inquiry through (re)introducing rhetorical fieldwork. We define rhetorical fieldwork as a set of approaches that integra...
36 citations
Cites background from "Unearthing the Native Past: Citizen..."
...Methodologically, the various rhetorical studies have taken up oral histories (Endres, 2011; Pezzullo & Depoe, 2010), interviews (Chevrette & Hess, 2015; Hess, 2011, 2015; Pezzullo, 2003; Senda-Cook, 2012, 2013), observation (Hauser, 1999), participant observation (Endres & Senda-Cook, 2011; Hess,…...
[...]
...Moreover, critics have augmented their understanding of the rhetoric of museums through interactions or interviews with docents and visitors (Chevrette & Hess, 2015; Katriel, 1994)....
[...]
...…(Dunn, 2012; Herbig & Hess, 2012), memory and museum rhetorics (Aoki, Dickinson, & Ott, 2010; Armada, 2010; Blair, 2001; Blair & Michel, 2000; Chevrette & Hess, 2015; Choi, 2008; Clark, 2010; G. Dickinson et al., 2010; Hess & Herbig, 2013; Kelly & Hoerl, 2012; Owen & Ehrenhaus, 2014; Smith &…...
[...]
TL;DR: For example, the survival of western Great Lakes tribes or California nations during the American removal period and into the modern era differs from the experiences of northern Great Plains and southeastern tribes in remarkable fashion as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: F A L L 2 0 0 9 W I C A Z O S A R E V I E W and tribes have engaged in the American political process and American culture as lobbyists, voters, and consumers. So much of the work that Indians do in the political arena is educating outsiders about Indian people and tribal governments. It is a thankless, sometimes brutal task. Last, it should be recognized that a text of this character, a summary of the political interactions of Indian nations in the American political structure, cannot hope to accurately portray or analyze more than a few Indian tribes. My only other suggestion for Professor Wilkins in future editions would be to somehow remind the reader that the American political system is a large machine that does not work the same for each Indian nation. The stories of all Indian nations are not and cannot be captured in one text. For example, the survival of western Great Lakes tribes or California nations during the American removal period and into the modern era differs from the experiences of northern Great Plains and southeastern tribes in remarkable fashion. Perhaps a lesson Wilkins can urge his readers to learn is that American politics and Indian tribes may be moving into an era where the federal government, at the urging of Indian nations, no longer seeks broad federal solutions intended to apply to all Indian nations, as has been the path for centuries. The future of American Indian law and policy may be microcosmic, with incremental legislation, litigation, and regulatory schemes driven by savvy Indian tribes implementing the new paradigm. All in all, Wilkins’s work is indispensable and an extraordinary text.
18 citations
References
More filters
TL;DR: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow as mentioned in this paper describes a place where population, manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant change in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved.
Abstract: I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it is in such little retired . . . valleys . . . that population, manners, and customs, remain fixed; while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant change in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are little nooks of still water which border a rapid stream . . . Washington Irving, \"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,\" 1820
380 citations
11 Aug 2005
TL;DR: In this article, Douglas Crimp suggests that there is another such institution of confinement ripe for analyzing in Foucault's terms-the museum-and another discipline-art history, although the terms of his proposal are misleadingly restrictive.
Abstract: In reviewing Foucault on the asylum, the clinic, and the prison as institutional articulations of power and
knowledge relations, Douglas Crimp suggests that there ‘is another such institution of confinement ripe for
analysis in Foucault’s terms-the museum-and another discipline-art history’.1 Crimp is no doubt right,
although the terms of his proposal are misleadingly restrictive. For the emergence of the art museum was
closely related to that of a wider range of institutions-history and natural-science museums, dioramas and
panoramas, national and, later, international exhibitions, arcades and department stores-which served as
linked sites for the development and circulation of new disciplines (history, biology, art history,
anthropology) and their discursive formations (the past, evolution, aesthetics, Man) as well as for the
development of new technologies of vision. Furthermore, while these comprised an intersecting set of
institutional and disciplinary relations which might be productively analysed as particular articulations of
power and knowledge, the suggestion that they should be construed as institutions of confinement is
curious. It seems to imply that works of art had previously wandered through the streets of Europe like the
Ships of Fools in Foucault’s Madness and Civilisations; or that geological and natural-history specimens
had been displayed before the world, like the condemned on the scaffold, rather than being withheld from
public gaze, secreted in the studiolo of princes, or made accessible only to the limited gaze of high society
in the cabinets des curieux of the aristocracy. Museums may have enclosed objects within walls, but the
nineteenth century saw their doors opened to the general public-witnesses whose presence was just as
essential to a display of power as had been that of the people before the spectacle of punishment in the
eighteenth century.
342 citations
Additional excerpts
...[20] Tony Bennett, “The Exhibitionary Complex,” New Formations 4 (1988): 73–102....
[...]
TL;DR: The authors proposed a discourse theory of citizenship as a mode of public engagement and argued that citizenship engagement may be approached through potential foci of generativity, risk, commitment, creativity, and sociability.
Abstract: This essay calls for a reorientation in scholarly approaches to civic engagement from asking questions of what to asking questions of how. I advance a discourse theory of citizenship as a mode of public engagement. Attending to modalities of citizenship recognizes its fluid and quotidian enactment and considers action that is purposeful, potentially uncontrollable and unruly, multiple, and supportive of radical but achievable democratic practices. Citizenship engagement may be approached through potential foci of generativity, risk, commitment, creativity, and sociability. A discourse theory reformulates the relationship between citizenship and citizen, reveals differences in enactments of citizenship, and calls attention to hybrid cases of citizenship.
194 citations
"Unearthing the Native Past: Citizen..." refers background in this paper
...[34] Robert Asen, “A Discourse Theory of Citizenship,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 90 (2004):...
[...]
Book•
19 Nov 2012
TL;DR: In this paper, 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.
Abstract: 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.
171 citations
TL;DR: The authors argues that landscapes of memory like Old Pasadena respond to the fragmentation with memory created by contemporary culture, where memory becomes a grammar for the rhetorical performance of the self, and the engagement between traditional rhetorical concepts and postmodern problems leads to a retheorizing and reevaluation of memory, invention and style.
Abstract: The contemporary moment is characterized by a deep desire for memory. The shift of identity from traditional familial, community and work structures to “lifestyle” along with the fragmentation and globalization of postmodern culture engenders in many a profoundly felt need for the past. The loss of a culture of memory has been met by the rise of “memory places.” This essay argues that landscapes of memory like Old Pasadena respond to the fragmentation with memory created by contemporary culture. Classical and Renaissance rhetorical concepts provide the materials necessary for a critical analysis of contemporary landscapes of memory. The engagement between traditional rhetorical concepts and postmodern problems leads to a retheorizing and reevaluation of memory, invention and style, where memory becomes a grammar for the rhetorical performance of the self.
144 citations
"Unearthing the Native Past: Citizen..." refers background in this paper
...[32] Carole Blair and Neil Michel, “Commemorating in the Theme Park Zone: Reading the...
[...]