Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. - Museums and communities: the politics of public culture

MUSEUMS AND
COMMUNITIES

This book
was published
in cooperation with
the American
Association of
Museums.

Copyright 1992 by Smithsonian Institution

Portions of first appeared, in different form, as The Multicultural Paradigm, reprinted from High Performance magazine, 1641 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90404, vol. 12, no. 3, Fall 1989, and Acculturation vs. Frontierization, Visions 3, no. 4 (1989), and are reproduced here with permission.

copyright 1992 by the Chinatown History Museum.
copyright 1992 by Fath Davis Ruffins.
All other rights reserved.

Designed by Linda McKnight.
Edited by Susan Warga.
Production editing by Rebecca Browning.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Museums and communities : the politics of public culture / edited by Ivan Karp, Christine Mullen Kreamer, and Steven D. Lavine.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-58834-345-1
1. MuseumsPlanningCongresses. 2. Public relationsMuseumsCongresses. 3. Museum techniquesCongresses. I. Karp, Ivan. II. Kreamer, Christine Mullen. III. Lavine, Steven, 1947 .
AM5.M928 1992
069.5dc20 91-31648

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

For permission to reproduce individual illustrations appearing in this book, please correspond directly with the owners of the works, as listed in the captions. The Smithsonian Institution Press does not retain reproduction rights for these illustrations or maintain a file of addresses for photo sources.

On the cover and title page: Exterior view of the Grand Hall of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, depicting the melting glaciers at the end of the Ice Age. Photo by Stephen Alsford, courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

v3.1_r1

T he essays in this volume were presented at a conference entitled Museums and Communities, held at the International Center of the Smithsonian Institution 2123 March 1990. Museums and Communities was the second of two conferences on the presentation and interpretation of cultural diversity in museums. Proceedings of the first conference appear in Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine, eds., Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991). Both conferences were sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and, at the Smithsonian, by the International Directorate, the Offices of the Assistant Secretaries for Museums and Research, and the National Museum of Natural History and its Department of Anthropology.

At the Rockefeller Foundation, Alberta Arthurs, director for arts and humanities, encouraged this project from its inception; Ellen Buchwalter, Rose Marie Minore, Carol Bowen, and Tomas Ybarra-Frausto provided patient logistical assistance and advice throughout.

At the Smithsonian Institution, Robert McC. Adams, Francine Berkowitz, David Challinor, Zahava Doering, Tom Freudenheim, Elaine Heumann Gurian, Christine Helms, Robert Hoffmann, John Reinhart, and Ross Simons supported the project. We are grateful to Robert McC. Adams for delivering the opening remarks at the conference. We thank Cheryl LaBerge, director of the Office of Conference Services, Karen Hanson, and Sheri Price for their support throughout the event. Robert Leopold watched over the conference and coordinated the preparation of the manuscript.

Throughout this project we have benefited from the advice of scholars and museum professionals, many of whom participated in planning sessions as well as in the conference. In addition to the authors themselves, these include Maria Acosta-Colon, Donald Cosentino, Zahava Doering, Michael Fischer, Hilde Hein, Mary Jane Hewitt, Corinne Kratz, Hillel Levine, Joanne Malatesta Davidoff, Roger Mandle, Steve Prystupa, Doran Ross, Betsy Quick, Anthony Seeger, Allen Sekula, Jim Sims, Kathy Dwyer Southern, Rowena Stewart, and Michael Watts.

Rebecca Browning, of the Smithsonian Institution Press, guided the preparation of this book, and Susan Warga, more co-editor than copy editor, graciously edited the individual contributions, critiqued drafts of the introductions, and tried to keep us intellectually honest.

Ivan Karp wishes to thank the present and past directors of the National Museum of Natural History, Frank Talbot and Robert Hoffmann, and the present and past chairs of the Department of Anthropology, Donald Ortner and Adrienne Kaeppler, for enabling this project to go forward. He would also like to thank Cory Kratz for commenting on each and every draft of the two introductions he wrote and not sparing him her criticism.

Christine Mullen Kreamer would like to thank her colleagues at the August 1989 Salzburg seminar on Museums and Community for their insights and support for this project. In addition, she would like to thank her husband, Ross G. Kreamer, for his unflagging enthusiasm in this and all other endeavors.