Recent decades have seen tremendous growth in the number of museums and cultural centers in the United States and Canada run by Native Americans. While such institutions were few and far between before 1970, current surveys put the count between 150 and 250 in the U.S. alone (Cooper 2006:98–112; Abrams 2003:3), the variance being due to the use of somewhat different criteria in defining the subject. Given that there were 564 federally recognized tribes in the U.S. in 2009 (U.S. Department of the Interior 2009:40218), the figures indicate that between 27 and 44 percent of these groups now have museums or cultural centers of their own. Scholarship on tribal museums has grown during this same period, but, not surprisingly, has hardly been able to keep apace of the changes. Much of the literature consists of article-length case studies describing and evaluating the institutions’ exhibits, programs, and practices as examples of Native self-representation. As critics have noted for some time now, such studies tend to leave unexamined larger questions about how and to what extent tribal museums actually function as vehicles for community empowerment (Simpson 1996). Gwyneira Isaac’s book Mediating Knowledges makes a major contribution to efforts to advance this field by staking out the realm of study in far-reaching terms.
With its “big-picture” approach, the book is not so much a study of the Zuni museum per se as it is a broad study of the development of the institution in its community—a consideration of the museum, according to Isaac, as “an agent within a wider network of social processes” (17). The consideration rests on the premise that a particular tension exists between the Western institution of the museum on the one hand, and the traditional culture-systems of Zuni on the other. At the heart of the tension are different assumptions about the nature of knowledge, how it is best transmitted (and to whom), and to what degree, if any, its access should be restricted (and by whom). These issues, socially involved as they are, have required numerous on-the-ground negotiations to be made at Zuni, not only between Zunis and non-Zunis but also among diverse groups of Zunis themselves. To examine the negotiations, Isaac carried out her study ethnographically, working at the museum early on and later interviewing such different parties as museum staff and board members, a range of community leaders, and elders and youth; historical research supplemented the interviews. Her subsequent analysis—thoroughly informed, deeply sympathetic to her consultants’ concerns, and never simplistic—builds on a kind of sociology of knowledge (or, at points, what might be called an anthropology of knowledge) to demonstrate the complex ways that the museum has mediated among the various groups over time to define itself in the local community and find its own “middle ground.” As Isaac points out, that phrase resonates powerfully both in scholarship on Native-colonial encounters (she cites a 1991 work by Richard White using the phrase in its title) and at Zuni, as the English approximation of the traditional name for the area in which the Pueblo is located.
The book is organized into seven chapters. Following an introductory first chapter, Isaac examines in turn each of three sets of perspectives brought to bear on the creation of the museum at Zuni: Zuni traditional methods for, and Zunis’ perspectives on, the transmission of cultural knowledge; Anglo-American assumptions about knowledge, as played out both in the development of anthropology (in which fieldwork at Zuni featured centrally) and in Anglo-American museum practices; and Zunis’ perspectives on Anglo-American ideas about museum methods and whether those methods might be adaptable for use at Zuni (134). Isaac’s explication of that third set of perspectives receives the longest treatment, covering two chapters that most fully present her view of the Zuni museum as a mediating agent associated with particular segments of the community. An additional chapter, appropriately entitled “Living with Contradictions,” makes clear that two or even all of the perspectives may coexist in individuals, just as they coexist within the larger (non-homogeneous) social body. Isaac suggests that a tolerance for ambiguity at Zuni may well allow mediation to flourish: by requiring individuals to consider all viewpoints respectfully, it grants them the space to sort out difficult issues, element by element if necessary, as they work together to reconcile differences—an ongoing process to which the museum has committed itself. The book ends with a series of brief conclusions, looking back on the period of Isaac’s study and forward to the museum’s next stage of development, already well underway.
Mediating Knowledges is of value for its deft handling of these ideas within the many situated examples that it brings into stimulating discussion. Although not all of the ideas are new, they are exceptionally well integrated and admirably applied in practice; rarely have community responses to a museum been documented in as much depth as they are here. For these achievements, the book is certain to set standards in anthropology and museum studies for many years to come. Readers in those fields, in folklore, and in Native American and indigenous studies will find it especially rewarding, but it will be of interest as well to those involved in the study of knowledge paradigms and systems, particularly their social and political dimensions. Perhaps more immediately, it can speak to anyone grappling, either intellectually or practically, with problems surrounding the institutionalization of traditional culture. As folklorists know (and will appreciate seeing so detailed in Isaac’s work), that endeavor, even when undertaken as a supplement to other methods for preserving and transmitting knowledge, raises a host of conflicting hopes, expectations, and fears along with its vital opportunities for empowerment and renewal.
WORKS CITED
Abrams, George H. J. Tribal Museums in America: A Report. Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 2003.
Cooper, Karen Coody. “Directory of North American Native-Managed Museums.” In Living Homes for Cultural Expression: North American Native Perspectives on Creating Community Museums, edited by Karen Coody Cooper and Nicolasa J. Sandoval, 96–119. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 2006.
Simpson, Moira G. “Native American Museums and Culture Centres.” In Making Representations: Museums in the Post-Colonial Era, edited by Moira G. Simpson, 135–69. London: Routledge, 1996.
U.S. Department of the Interior: Bureau of Indian Affairs. “Indian Entities Recognized and Eligible to Receive Services from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs.” In Federal Register 74: 153 (August 11, 2009): 40218–23.
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[Review length: 1065 words • Review posted on April 20, 2010]