MA Anthropology & Museum Practice

You’ll be introduced to current debates about heritage and museum practice, including:

• Curation as a means of knowledge production and of public cultural engagement
• The history of museums and the museum in anthropological history
• Museums as sites of imagination, distinction and exclusionary practice

The module will be made up of 10 practical sessions hosted by the Horniman Museum. These sessions will be:

1. Documentation and theories of knowledge management
2. Curation
3. Research and fieldwork within the museum
4. Education / Outreach
5. Object handling and conservation
6. Storage and collection managements
7. Museum management and funding
8. Exhibition design and installation
9. Digital museum and interactivity
10. Fundraising, marketing and membership

The aims and objectives of this module are to introduce students to the theories and methods of modern anthropology. This module is designed to complement AN71081B Anthropological Theory. In the autumn term you situated current theoretical concerns in anthropology historically and philosophically. This term we will introduce the methods used by anthropologists as well as returning to some key texts from last term and critically analysing the links between theory and methods within.

The module is designed to follow the three stages of writing a report; planning researching and writing up. Over the term we will cover a number of different types of data including surveys, the use of archives, images and film, in-depth interviews, participant observation and participatory research, conflicts of interest, ethical codes, informed consent, and other challenges. Throughout the module you will also be working on your own group research projects and you are encouraged to use this project to relate to the lectures and readings.

The dissertation is an extended piece of written work of academic standard, i.e. adequately researched, clearly written, well presented and structured and following academic conventions. It will show that you have an understanding of both theoretical debates in anthropology and relevant ethnography and make convincing use of secondary or library based data. Your project can involve fieldwork and/or archives (primary data that you have collected) as well as your analysis of the relevant secondary sources in anthropology (secondary data that you have consulted).

This module is concerned with social and cultural constructions and understandings of gender, sexuality and the body as discussed in anthropology and beyond. The main aim of the module is to develop a critical understanding of some of the major theoretical approaches to gender, sex and the body, as they have been and are relevant to anthropology. In European intellectual history ideas about the body have often revolved around the biological binary categories male and female. In this module, however, using a range of ethnographic examples we look at ways in which the idea of male and female is perceived, embodied and challenged, cross-culturally, in different contexts, and at different historical moments. The topics addressed range from work, performance and narrations of the self, to queer communities and families, and from biopolitics, and new technologies of the body/reproduction, the body, gender, and nation, and gender and globalisation. By the end of the module, you will be expected to be familiar with the main theoretical perspectives in anthropology on gender, sexuality and the related politics. You should also be aware of the historical changes which have marked the analysis of these concepts and be able to use ethnographic material as evidence for theoretical points.

Arguably modern anthropology and modern art are close in terms of both their origins and their critical reflection on the relationships between images, objects and persons, and a concern with anthropological or ethnographic issues is often an explicit feature of contemporary artworks. But despite a long history of dealing with the so-called ‘art’ of other cultures, what does anthropology have to contribute to an understanding of the kinds of artworks you might find at Tate Modern today? Using ethnographic case studies this module will consider key anthropological approaches to art both historically and thematically, and will explore how art and anthropology are entangled with each other, including suggesting ways in which anthropology can productively learn from contemporary art.

The module draws on visual art, ethnography and film to think about central anthropological issues such as ‘personhood’, ‘class’, ‘indigeneity’, ‘commodity fetishism’, ‘performance’, ‘identity’, ‘memory’, ‘the sensuous’, ‘realism’, ‘history’, ‘mediation’ and ‘advocacy’. The aim of the module is to reflect on how much images tell us about human beings and their relationships in the contemporary world.

This module explores the role of visual representation in anthropology in terms of both the history of its use within the discipline, and also the potential it holds for new ways of working. It looks at work in a wide range of media – photography, film/video, performance – and the ways in which they might be used in an anthropological context, and this will involve looking at work from outside anthropology such as photojournalism and contemporary art, as well as the work of visual anthropologists.

The intention of the module is to give students a challenging and creative view of the potentials for using audio-visual material within anthropology.

It has been claimed that the contemporary global flows of ideas, commodities and people fragment national political and cultural spaces towards both more local and global directions. Others have argued that nationalist ideologies are, in fact, re-emerging and legitimising growing inequalities in the new global order. We will revise classical theories of state and nationalism in the light of these two positions and discuss ethnographies of conflicting – regional, supranational, national, global – identities.

This module will consider the border politics involved in the making of 'transnational', diasporic', and 'local' communities. We will theorise the border as a material, political, cultural and linguistic boundary that is increasingly defining social life as well as engage with the experiences of those who cross borders. We will ask: How are borders constructed and contested? How do migrants experience borders? How is the discourse of citizenship destabilised when movement and borders become central heuristics by which to understand belonging and membership? Throughout the module we will read academic texts as well as engage with films and literature that focus on migrant lives and border crossings to develop a theoretical and practical knowledge of border politics in relationship to migratory flows.

The module will provide an overview of the study of material culture within the discipline of anthropology, with a focus on the materiality of heritage, memory and archival practice. Students will engage in conversations about the materialization of the past through both formal and informal archival practice, including institutional archives, policy archives, oral histories, collective remembering, and other forms of memorialization. They will also engage in discussions on absences and silences in the archives and hold conversations about the immaterial archive, for example exploring how experiences of intimacy or sensuality are denied space within professionalized archival practice.