Reflections: Working with a local museum and landscape

This post is part of the UMD Anthropology reflections series. Ennis Barbery gained her M.A.A. in 2013. Her research interests include cultural landscapes, museums, and heritage tourism.

Docent Matt Johnson stands in front of the Greenbelt Museum's historic house and explains features of Greenbelt's planned landscape before leading a walking tour (August 2013)

When I started the first course in the Museum Scholarship and Material Culture Certificate program, I was not sure that I would be able to complete the certificate. My schedule of required courses had prevented me from starting the museum course sequence earlier in my time at UMD, and—now--graduation from the M.A.A. program was just one semester away. After talking with faculty members about my career interests and goals, I decided to extend my time as a graduate student in order to gain the experience that this certificate program offers.

I am glad that I made that decision. The certificate provides a chance to learn from museum practitioners at the Smithsonian Institution and other museums, and—in large part— the certificate is what each individual student makes it. As a student interested in small, locally focused museums and in cultural landscapes, I had the opportunity to focus my course work on these topics. The most significant part of the course work, for me, was the practicum course. In this course, students design their own projects tailored to their interests and negotiate them with mentors at a museum and faculty members.

I researched museums in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area (there are many options) and found several that seemed to be the kind of institutions for which I could see myself working in the future. The one that ultimately worked out as a site for my museum practicum project was the Greenbelt Museum in Greenbelt, Maryland. Its director, Megan Searing Young, was interested in the project I proposed, and I was interested in the work she did at the Greenbelt Museum.

We developed a working relationship in which I focused on an independent project that benefitted the museum, but I was also able to shadow her in some of her activities. I saw what it meant to direct a small museum in this particular case: the relationships she maintains with residents and city government and the tasks she has to balance from collections management and programming to basic accounting and marketing.

My independent project was also rewarding. I interviewed 14 Greenbelt residents, asked these residents to draw maps of Greenbelt, transcribed these interviews with the help of two undergraduate students (thank you Becca Lane and Katie Hutchinson!), analyzed this data, and created interpretive content in the form of podcasts for the Greenbelt Museum’s website. I hope the products I was able to produce will continue to prompt discussion among residents and museum supporters about what constitutes Greenbelt’s history and which parts of Greenbelt’s landscape are included in this history.

Reflections: University of Maryland and Smithsonian Institution Certificate Program in Museum Scholarship & Material Culture

This post is part of the UMD Anthropology student reflections series. Amy Carattini is a PhD student in socio-cultural anthropology at the University of Maryland where her current focus is on professional migration, transnational and global spaces, and political models of diversity. She is a research associate with Dr. Judith's Freidenberg's Immigrant Life Research Course Program (ILCRP): writing grants, developing exhibit material and conducting life history interviewing and analysis. She has also finished Maryland’s certificate program in Museum Scholarship and Material Culture, culminating in a summer fellowship at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum where she explored research methods involving material culture.

Amy Carattini, a graduate student in the anthropology department who is working on this study and helped to design the poster, points to some of the interviews done with immigrants, from a retired Peruvian international organization professional to an Argentinean doctoral student, an Uruguayan construction worker, and a Vietnamese restaurant manager and former boat person. (2012)

The museum certificate program challenged me to think critically about how to communicate and represent anthropological findings. I was introduced to issues facing anthropologists working in museum settings. While ideas about ethnographic representation have moved beyond the framework of social evolution and progress, there are still the lingering effects of older models that tend to rely more on monolithic perspectives. For example, although most of the cultural exhibits in the National Museum of Natural History have been re-conceptualized and no longer show culture through a series of tool classifications, the oldest cultural exhibit, Western Cultures, still retains a sense of linear progression. Then too, every year, the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage sponsors a Folklife Festival where different cultures from around the world are invited to come and show their craft to the public. They wear their traditional garbs and ply their trade all for interested audiences, recalling some of the earlier exoticism and entertainment of live cultural displays that were part of the World’s Fair exhibitions, ostensibly however, in the present, with more ethical motives. Also, UNESCO, with its emphasis on preserving World Heritage Sites has sometimes sparked controversy in an effort to restore a historical account of a bygone era.  The result, in its attempt to mimetically recreate, is akin that of understanding the “other” through maintaining difference in the past rather than its dynamism in the present. The museum certificate program has sensitized me to these nuances.

Further, the program has given me the opportunity to reflect on and creatively engage with the diversity found in individual perspectives. In my research, I focused on ethnographic representation through photography as 1) a way to display the individual in the context of larger social and cultural patterns and as 2) a platform and to encourage audience reflection and participation. The result was an exploration of the many cultural confluences that comprise social identity and continue to keep it in a state of flux through the ongoing process of cultural transmission. 

For my museum practicum, which is the culmination of the museum certificate, I decided to write a museum catalogue for Dr. Judith Freidenberg’s travelling exhibit The Immigrant Experience in Prince George’s County. The work included contextualizing carefully selected excerpts from interviews that could speak to the motivations for immigrating as well as to the adjustments to U.S. society. In so doing, I researched the social history connected to the individual narratives. Also, as part of the catalogue creation, I spoke with each of the immigrants that I selected, asking for their input into my research and interpretation of their interview as well as soliciting photographs from their personal collections to be paired with their interview excerpts. The result was a collaborative effort in creating the final product.

Ultimately, the museum certificate program challenged me to think more critically about the production of knowledge. In creating the catalogue, I had to think about how to keep the material alive and relevant through time and space with the goal of engaging current and future audiences in an open flow of communication. In so doing, I was also able to think about how the representation and continued production of knowledge intersects with policy, individual identity, community building, conceptions of race and ethnicity, and historical analysis. For my part, I’m excited to continue my participation in this type of work as it informs my growth as an academic with an interest in research applications.

Reflections: The Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology in Quebec on Ice

This post is part of the UMD Anthropology student reflections series. Adam Fracchia is a PhD student in the Anthropology Department studying the historical archaeology of labor, urbanization, space, and capitalism  He currently is finishing his dissertation which examines the relationship between industry and everyday life in the small quarry town of Texas, Maryland.

Looking up at the Hotel Frontenac from the Lower Town and St. Lawrence River

The annual meeting of the SHA was a great opportunity to present my dissertation work on the town of Texas to the wider field and explore the amazing city of Quebec.  My presentation was but one of the fifteen given by students and faculty in the Department.  All of these papers were amazing and showed a wide range of research interests and perspectives.   Equally as interesting were the many papers given about French-American archaeology and how strong and focused the discipline is in this region of Canada.  Exposure to this non-US or even non-Anglo American historical archaeology was eye opening and definitely broadened my perspective on the field and its practice.  I think everyone who attended learned a great deal in this way. Thank you to the Graduate School for helping to partially fund this trip for so many of us.

The old city walls of Quebec covered in ice

We also became acclimated to the bitter cold we are now experiencing and more importantly, the ice.  For much of the conference, the city literally was covered in a sheet of ice—ice on the roads, ice on the sidewalks, ice falling from the roofs (chutes de glace!), and even ice all over the runway.  Walking down the sidewalk one had to be careful not to step too near the downhill sidewalks or else he or she would start sliding downward unable to stop until the ground leveled out.   Adding to the challenge, the conference was at the highest point in Quebec.  This winter wonderland was great preparation for this week, although a local shopkeeper told me the weather had been a little too warm for Quebec that week!

Mike Roller learning about the transatlantic trade system and the dangers of crossing the Atlantic at Musée de la place Royale

Still, we all managed to slip around and attempt a few French words while exploring the many sites and establishments in and around the old city.  Dodging in and out to warm up, we visited museums on the French colony and the later history of Quebec and even archaeology.  The time depth of this history and the amount of pride invested in it was unexpected and refreshing to see.  We also spent some time sampling the local food and beverages, such as Poutine.  Who would have thought that covering french fries with cheese curds and gravy and everything else imaginable could be so good?  I think it is worth another trip to Quebec—in the summer.