AANA18111U Material and Visual Culture: Critical and practical anthropological approaches to museums and heritage

Anthropology deals with material, visual and practical dimensions of life, yet its products are mostly academic texts. What is generated if anthropologists make products in more modalities and registers than academic texts; if anthropologists study and disseminate as embodied researchers? One fast-growing field where anthropologists increasingly develop their scholarship, find employment and reach out to wider audiences is museums and heritage sites. More and more anthropologists are employed at museums and heritage sites, which in the present times of cultural complexity increasingly demand the critical theoretical approaches offered by anthropologists: Anthropologists whose practice, ethnographic methods and critical insights go beyond textual formats, and engages with exhibition-making based on material objects, panels, exhibition books and flyers, videos, podcasts, etc. Anthropology graduates, however, are held back by the impression that museums and heritage sites are stale and/or old-fashioned, and hence unworthy of their intellectual endeavor; but dated museum exhibits or heritage complex could constitute an opportunity for critical, practical and visual input by anthropologists. Much political friction and socio-cultural battles of our present times center around what heritage is, and who is to define it. We invite students to be critically and practically engaged in this field.

In this course students will learn about both critical and practical aspects of the anthropology of museums and heritage:

1. Students will learn about the critical anthropological approaches through a cross-reading of contemporary work within the anthropology of museums and heritage, in connection with neighboring disciplines (history, cultural studies) and with social science classics. The outcome will be a firm grounding in the critical theoretical literature on museums and heritage.
2. Students will learn about the practical aspects of museum and heritage work through small group projects involving research and communication based at museums or heritage sites. The outcomes of these practical engagements would be in formats that could be potentially useful for the sites where the projects take place, e.g. small-scale basic museum or heritage research, an exhibition text, a small video, a podcast. This development of the project and its final product would form part of the portfolio. The outcome would be knowledge of the various skills and competencies as well as of the various formats needed for effective museum and heritage work.
3. Students will learn the basics about multimodality, and the visual anthropological approach through a short crash course by a trained and accomplished visual anthropologist. They will reflect on perception, visual culture and representation, while approaching the field and thinking with a camera.

Eventually, this course might prepare interested students for MA research in and on museums or heritage sites, and potentially prepare for a final thesis (‘speciale’) in the form of a ‘different communication product’ (anderledes formidlingsprodukt).