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Paper short abstract:

This paper draws on Karin Knorr-Cetina’s theorisation of scientific practice to argue for rethinking anthropology as an objectual practice, thereby bringing material and museum studies into the centre of the disciplinary endeavour.

Paper long abstract:

It is commonly understood that anthropology at its inception was a deeply material practice. The collection, organisation, comparison, and analysis of data in the form of written reports, sound and image recordings, objects, and even people were at the heart of the discipline and drove the development of the intensive participant-observer method. As ‘epistemic objects’ characterised by their ‘lack of completeness’ that accommodates and enables ‘structures of wanting’ (Knorr-Cetina, 2001), materials in ethnographic study collections trace past desires and remind us of anthropology’s extractivist nature. However, they also enable and accommodate reconciliation and revitalization. They place demands on our discipline.

While a great deal of anthropologists now recognise the significance of such collections and the need to address our disciplinary history, the labour of meaningfully engaging with these material traces is left to a handful of museum anthropologists and museum staff, who are often seen to exist outside of social and cultural anthropology.

Drawing on my experience learning and teaching with museum collections, I argue that museum and material anthropology needs to be brought to the heart of our disciplinary training. Through object-based teaching, the logic of past thinking can be brought into meaningful dialogue with contemporary research methods thereby facilitating a more consciously active and pluralistic practice.