What Shall We Do with the Bodies? Reconsidering the Archive in the Aftermath of Fraud

This article examines how Jimmie Durham’s false claims to Cherokee identity demand a radical reassessment of the entirety of his body of work and the scholarship that supports it. This essay takes into account the extent to which Durham’s work—much of which consisted of sardonic critiques of Native American stereotypes—depended upon its enunciation by an authentic Native voice. Now that this voice has been determined to be false, his work and the vast supporting archive require reevaluation.

Museums and Antiquarian Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future

This article traces the divergent reception of a museum catalog I co-authored at the outset of my career as a case study to explore shifting paradigms of museum practice in the 20th and 21st centuries. Reconsidering its initial condemnation as “antiquarian” on its publication becomes a means to rethink collections as heritage resources in relation to Native communities and consider how museum publications are repurposed in other arenas through ethnographic research. This new perspective draws on decades of collaboration with members of the community whose heritage the collection represents, assessing the role of mutually engaged, critical perspectives on “old” museum collections for contemporary museum practice. Using a reflexive lens, I argue that collaborative anthropology recovering historical entanglements and Native voice and agency enables museum resources to engender a post-colonial, post-antiquarian anthropology.

Our Lives: Collaboration, Native Voice, and the Making of the National Museum of the American Indian (Shannon)

This work is a book review considering the title Our Lives: Collaboration, Native Voice, and the Making of the National Museum of the American Indian by Jennifer A. Shannon.