Our talk last week about what it means to be an animal or human permeated through the Objects of Ethnography reading in the way that museums and anthropologists alike have to decide what becomes an object for observation when it is removed from its real environment. And when a human or non-human becomes an ethnographic subject placed in a museum, it’s hard for me to see it as the things itself due to its distance from any natural environment (I don’t know if this makes sense). For instance, humans are no longer humans when place in a diorama; they become an object. Plus, when a subject, especially a human is place on display in an institution, that person and their people become objects on display not only within but outside the institution itself. Once something is removed as something new for observation, it stays an other. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett also discusses the mentality that the museum creates (the museum effect): besides the fact that objects in the museum stay object outside, the museum acts as a “model for experiencing life outside its walls,” meaning that the idea of separation is distilled into everyday life. So the reason these objects stay objects is because the people viewing them keep them as a spectacle

Posting 3/1

I really appreciated tonight's readings because I think they dealt with the social versus the theoretical aspects of anthropology and ethnography. I've had a long standing battle with trying to reconcile the two, but I rarely feel like I have the authority to claim one or the other. Like Amber often reiterates it's easy to accuse all meaning as being socially constructed, thus making the anthropologists job obsolete. However in the Gimblett piece she helps distinguish this idea that objects are "...by virtue of the manner in which they have been detached for disciplines make their objects and in the process make themselves." (387) My interpretation of this quote is that by categorizing an artifact you are not necessarily giving meaning to the object but you are placing a meaning to it within a context to yourself. I think this is a major principal in the social sciences that's forgotten by public interpretation. Gimblett claims that this process of forgetting by the public is due partly by the "spectacle of the installation" (390). She goes on to explain that this spectacle represents objects as art rather then cultural objects. This is followed with a history of how museums began labeling objects, and the innate responsibility and power this gives to the museum. I really loved the part where she discusses how the public trusts information. She explains that the time and evidence collected by the ethnographer is kind of like collateral for public value.

The most vital part of this piece though was the part about actor vs animal. I found this really interesting because I had read about this idea of acting and culture before in other anthropology classes in context with cultural memory. If I can remember correctly Maurice Halbwach’s has a theory on types of memory: personal, cognitive, and habit . Specifically habit, is linked to ideas of performance and ritual. What separates the idea of performance from individualistic memory, is that performance is not a reflection of something, but rather a direct composition of it. In essence the performance of the living is a direct three-dimensional manifestation of that particular memory. I guess where I'm going with this is that the museum is trying to navigate a cultural memory with in a historical context. However, in some ways this is contradictory because the cultural memory must exceed the bounds of historical ideology.

So this post is totally convoluted and thick with strange analysis, but this reading really got my brain going in like 20 different directions.

Entangled Objects 3/2

Once you get past the initial academic dryness of the Thomas piece he actually recorded an interesting quote that I think is up for debate, AM Focart was disgruntle about the use of native Fijians asking questions about the dynamic of the island landholding system, he said, "When will govts. realize that a native is not the best authority on native customs?" When I read that an immediate red flag went up. I thought to myself who is this pompous European man to come to a foreign territory and insult the native people about their position in ethnographic power? Is his point of reference not a bit skewed? How is a recent immigrant the best authority about anything besides his homeland? This is a certain degree of bias with every human being because we all have different memories and traditions that shape our perception of the world around us and the people outside our comfort zone. This difference does not exclude one group from becoming aware and culturally acute of another, nor does it mean that the native group can't teach any newcomers about themselves. But, I feel very strongly that the native group are the best experts on themselves. Can one really understand and devour a non-native tradition and become an expert unless they've immersed themselves in that tradition. Unless you are an honest to God, true blue Fijian or have tried to respectfully put yourself in the shoes of a Fijian I doubt your authority on the peoples of Fiji. The natives are the ultimate authority of native customs, they invented it, didn't they? Are you going to tell a chef how his utensils work? In his own kitchen no less. Immersion and cultural prowess isn't mocking the native society or "trying to be down," when it's painfully obvious you come from a different walk of life. Immersion is acknowledging the difference but not letting it impede on your quest to become an expert. Immersion is putting yourself in another person's shoes without simultaneously keeping a ten foot pole between your culture and their's. And that is Hocart's problem, probably without knowing it, his undercover racial remark is both offensive and takes off points for the earnest white man who is trying to become an authority on native custom.

--Jewel Brooks