Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums (First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies (University of North Carolina Press Paperback))

"Must read for museum professionals handling Native American artifacts" according to K. Nettles. Decolonizing Museums discusses efforts by museums to decolonize by telling the “hard truths of colonialism”, and sharing authority with Native Americans in designing exhibits that represent their history and culture. Beyond influences in exhibit design, the power to control representation of their cultures is “…linked to the larger movements of self-d. Explaining museum decolonizing practice Stephanie Seacord Very good explanation of what "decolonizing" means for museum professionals. Also how museums are listening, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to their Native American partners.. "Two Worlds Come Together" according to dragon711. Historically, museums and Native American communities have been at contentious cross-purposes with each other. Native American artifacts were looted to museums with the notion that these were "artifacts" of a "vanishing race" with no relevance to modern people. Prominent academics routinely robbed Indian graves. Thankfully, this state of affairs has been much altered- though

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. She addresses historical and contemporary museum practices and charts possible paths for the future curation and presentation of Native lifeways.. 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. 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. 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

All levels/libraries.--ChoiceOffers an excellent overview of Indigenous museum representations since the late nineteenth century.--Journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies AssociationAsks provocative and important questions about how museums engage with indigenous communities, and challenges the field to think critically about ingrained behaviors and methodologies that privilege the perspectives of the colonizer.--Museums and Social IssuesLonetree offers a powerful and meditative study. Wor