New publication: The Anthropologist as Curator

Our chapter, written by the Ethnographic Terminalia Collective (Kate Hennessy, Trudi Lynn Smith, Fiona P. McDonald, Craig Campbell, and Stephanie Takaragawa), “Ethnographic Terminalia: Co-Curation and the Role of the Anecdote in Practice” has just come out in the volume The Anthropologist as Curator, edited by Roger Sansi. Bloomsbury Press.

The Anthropologist as Curator. Roger Sansi, Ed. London: Bloomsbury

About The Anthropologist as Curator

Why do contemporary art curators define their work as ethnography? How can curation illuminate the practice of contemporary anthropology? Has the curator become a general model of the contemporary cultural worker? Does anthropology risk disappearing as a specific discipline within the general model of the curatorial?The Anthropologist as Curator collects together the research of international scholars working at the intersection of anthropology and contemporary art in order to explore these questions. The essays in the book challenge what it means to do ethnographic work, as well as the very definition of the discipline of anthropology in light of what it means to work as a curator. The contributors examine these ideas from a variety of angles, including from the perspectives of anthropologists who have set up their own exhibitions, those who have conducted fieldwork on the arts and collecting practices, including participatory practices, digital images and sound, and contributors who are currently working in a curatorial capacity at a museum.With case studies from the US, Canada, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, India, and Japan, the book represents an international perspective and is relevant to students and scholars of anthropology, contemporary art, museum studies, curatorial studies, and heritage studies.

Table of contents

1: Introduction: The Curator as Ethnographer, Roger Sansi, University of Barcelona, Spain
2: The Recursivity of the Curatorial, Sharon MacDonald, University of York, UK and Jonas Tinius, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany
3: Curatorial Designs in the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography Today: A Conversation Between Tarek Elhaik, UC Davis, USA and George E. Marcus, UC Irvine, USA
4: Ethnographic Terminalia: Co-Curation and the Role of the Anecdote in Practice, Ethnographic Terminalia Collective
5: Facing the ‘Curatorial Turn’: Anthropological Ethnography and Contemporary Art Curatorial Practices, Ivan Bargna, University of Milano Biccoca, Italy
6: History, Legacies and Communities: Of Africa at the Royal Ontario Museum, Silvia Forni, Royal Ontario Museum, Canada
7: From Of To With To And: Issues in Inter- and Trans-Disciplinary Exhibition Making, Jen Clarke, University of Aberdeen, UK
8: Un-learning: A Shared Conversation Between Anthropology and Curation, Judith Winter, Manchester School of Art, UK
9: Curatorial Methodologies: Enabling, Displaying, and Generating Research, Rafael Schachter, University College London, UK
10: Curatorial Practice in Cambridge: The Aesthetics of Knowledge Production, Alex Flynn, Durham University, UK
11: Curating the Documentary Image, Paolo Favero, University of Antwerp, Belgium
12: The Anthropologist as Sound Curator, Noel Lobley, University of Virginia, USA
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