New publication: “Museum Collections, Indigenous Knowledge, and Emergent Digital Networks” in Smithsonian Handbook of North American Indians

Co-authors Aaron Glass (Bard Graduate Centre, NYC) and Kate Hennessy are excited to finally share their chapter “Museum Collections, Indigenous Knowledge, and Emergent Digital Networks” in the final volume of the historic series The Handbook of North American Indians. , Volume 1. The chapter was written with contributing authors Susan Rowley, Dave Schaepe, Leona Sparrow, Jim Enote, Ruth Phillips, Heidi Bohaker, Alan Corbiere, Darlene Johnston, Paula Whitlow, Cory Willmott, Kimberly Christen, Natasha Lyons, Charles Arnold, Mervin Joe, Catherine Cockney, Stephen Loring, Albert Elias, Dave Schaepe, Michael Blake, Andy Phillips, Colin Pennier, and Kyle McIntosh.

In the opening decades of the new millennium, rapid advances in digital technology brought significant changes to global channels of communication, commerce, and culture. Over this brief period, Native North Americans increasingly used digital media to forge innovative alliances with museums and other repositories of their material and immaterial heritage. These collaborative partnerships extend the decades-old call for revised relationships between majority institutions and Indigenous peoples by building on recent developments in museum databases, digital media production, social media, online interfaces, strategies of reciprocal curation and information management, and repatriation legislation.

This chapter discusses the historical foundations of such “digital collectives” (Holland and Smith 1999), surveys a variety of platforms for knowledge exchange, features case studies of influential projects authored by their coproducers, and assesses the larger Native cultural principles and intercultural dynamics that are be- ing made visible through institutional and community collaborations. In particular, it explores the emergent and hybrid “spaces” (domains) being created through new digital networks, both online and offline. These networks provide a crucial, contemporary means of social reconfiguration and renegotiation of dominant museum values surrounding access to, preservation of, and representation through collections. (Glass and Hennessy 2022, 165)

Glass, A. and Hennessy, K. (2022) Museum Collections, Indigenous Knowledge, and Emergent Digital Networks. In, The Smithsonian Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 1. Smithsonian Institution. Igor Krupnik, Ed. Pp. 165-181. [Free download here]

We also extend congratulations to Dr. Hannah Turner (Assistant Prof, UBC School of Information Studies) and MCL Postdoc Alum, on the publication of her chapter co-authored with the Smithsonian’s Candace Green, “Access to Native Collections in Museums and Archives: History, Context, and Future Directions”.

Turner, H. and Greene, C. (2022) Access to Native Collections in Museums and Archives: History, Context, and Future Directions. In, The Smithsonian Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 1. Smithsonian Institution. Igor Krupnik, Ed. Pp. 165-181.

The whole volume is available for download and online viewing. See below.