Would We Really Miss Anthropology in Museums?
John E. Stanton, University of Western Australia
Nancy Parezo has suggested that the broader public probably learns more about anthropology as a discipline from museums than from universities, and has discussed what the possible implications of this may be for the future of the discipline as a whole. Michael Ames has taken up this theme, examining in greater detail the role of the self-appointed keepers of knowledge who are both the curators of collections and the curators of exhibitions. The Berndt Museum of Anthropology has had a key role in helping to redefine in Aboriginal Australian museology the nature of relationships between those who display the culture and those who produce it, and who live it. They can be the same. What has been the role of anthropology in this process? How has anthropology as a discipline informed museological practice? And what are the implications for the discipline in the future?
