{"id":348,"date":"2017-01-30T03:08:57","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T03:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/?p=348"},"modified":"2017-01-30T03:08:57","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T03:08:57","slug":"blog-two-museum-map-analysis-of-nmai-ny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/2017\/01\/30\/blog-two-museum-map-analysis-of-nmai-ny\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Two: Museum Map Analysis of NMAI (NY)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conn’s discussion of rational organization is tainted with white supremacy and notions of discrete categorizations for particular political purposes. This emphasis on discrete formations and categorizations is a mechanism by which white supremacy naturalizes and reifies itself through euphemism. Consider the use of “collections” to refer to human remains which were excavated and desecrated for display (often treated with chemicals or drilled into, the former of which makes return to the earth impossible because poisons the soil). Here, queer of color critique is useful as an analytic and as a design process. In Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique<\/em>, Roderick Ferguson extends the intersectional critique initiated by women of color feminists. Ferguson’s discussion of subjectivity and identity as irrevocably linked to that which produces their particular socio-cultural context promises interesting applications to, in this case, museum studies. Ferguson’s discusses the stakes of Queer of color critique when he writes, “Queer of color analysis presumes that liberal ideology occludes the intersecting saliency of race, gender, sexuality, and class in forming social practices. Approaching ideologies of transparency as formations that have worked to conceal those intersections means that queer of color analysis has to debunk the idea that race, class, gender, and sexuality are discrete formations, apparently insulated from another” (4). Content is never divorced from context so perhaps the ontologies and methods of categorization undergirded by white supremacy might be unseated by either offering interruptions of discrete categorizations or by creating new ontologies and methods.<\/p>\n

One area where we see this work being actively produced is in the institutions run by or heavily featuring consultation with Native communities. Consider the organization of the New York branch of the National Museum of the American Indian<\/a>. I visited the DC location in March 2009 and the New York location in January 2014. You can see the floor plan here<\/a>. Geography and tribal affiliations serve as forms of exhibit delineation but this often intentionally bleeds over (kinds of items are often juxtaposed in broader categories instead of utilizing tribal affiliation). Their display on Native dance provides glimpses of regalia used but the center of the exhibit is a film of contemporary Native people dancing and discussing what dance, heritage, and community gatherings represent to them. When static displays (regalia on a mannequin) are displayed, there is a deliberate effort to juxtapose this with images and voices of extant Native peoples and communities. In this way, the arrangement of cultural artifacts in Eurocentric displays of Native cultures is confounded and deliberately interrupted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conn’s discussion of rational organization is tainted with white supremacy and notions of discrete categorizations for particular political purposes. This<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}