Abstract
Museums of natural and cultural history in the 21st century hold responsibilities that are vastly different from those of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the time of many of their inceptions. No longer conceived of as cabinets of curiosities, institutional priorities are in the process of undergoing dramatic changes. This article reviews the history of the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks, Alaska, from its development in the early 1920s, describing the changing ways staff have worked with Indigenous individuals and communities. Projects like the Modern Alaska Native Material Culture and the Barter Island Project are highlighted as examples of how artifacts and the people who constructed them are no longer viewed as simply examples of material culture and Native informants but are considered partners in the acquisition, preservation, and perpetuation of traditional and scientific knowledge in Alaska.
Highlights
The early Wunderkammer, or “cabinet of curiosity” of Europe from which our modern museums grew, attempted to assemble and categorize all of the rarities of the natural world (Impey and MacGregor 1987)
As the American Civil Rights movement brought to prominence the experiences of minorities, the University of Alaska Museum created a public project aimed at showcasing objects and stories of Alaska’s Indigenous people in order to bring to light the local impacts of acculturation, partially as a result of the education policies created by Dr Sheldon Jackson
While no museum in 2017 can serve as the perfect model of a totally decolonized institution that balances Western concepts of preservation with Indigenous values of cultural perpetuation, there are many in Alaska who are attempting to open channels of communication and share both their own histories and legacies in order to move forward towards a better system
Summary
The early Wunderkammer, or “cabinet of curiosity” of Europe from which our modern museums grew, attempted to assemble and categorize all of the rarities of the natural world (Impey and MacGregor 1987). As the American Civil Rights movement brought to prominence the experiences of minorities, the University of Alaska Museum created a public project aimed at showcasing objects and stories of Alaska’s Indigenous people in order to bring to light the local impacts of acculturation, partially as a result of the education policies created by Dr Sheldon Jackson.
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