Paper short abstract:

This paper suggests a realignment of the archive and the field within the anthropology museum. We explore humanistic anthropology, with its holistic treatment of human experience, emphasis on cultural narratives and varied fieldwork outputs, as a framework for doing so.

Paper long abstract:

Each morning at 10am, rows of eager children's eyes can be seen twinkling at the doorway of the Horniman Museum, eagerly awaiting their visit. In an era of fake news and fast assumptions what has the discipline of anthropology to offer these children as well as our very many other visitors?

Once intimately connected, the disconnect between anthropology and the field, and its museums and archives, has arguably had implications for both sides in their ability to communicate effectively and creatively to a non-specialist public. Whilst anthropology sometimes struggles to translate the complexity of contemporary human experience (is this the right term?), museums often struggle to locate the contemporary in their archives from the past.

This paper suggests a realignment of the archive and the field within the anthropology museum. We explore humanistic anthropology, with its holistic treatment of human experience, emphasis on cultural narratives and varied fieldwork outputs, as a framework for doing so. The Horniman has a long history of working with anthropologists in the field; in this paper we unpack some of these relationships to rethink the anthropology museum as a dynamic and responsive space. One that moves us away from a preoccupation of archival reflexivity to a recognition that the museum is a continued space in-flux, akin to anthropology's many changing field-sites.