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Book Cover
E-book
Author Turner, Hannah, 1986- author.

Title Cataloguing culture : legacies of colonialism in museum documentation / Hannah Turner
Published Vancouver ; Toronto : UBC Press, [2020]

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 243 pages) : illustrations, portraits, plans, photographs
Contents Figures and tables -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1. Writing desiderata: defining evidence in the field -- 2. On the margins: paper systems of classification -- 3. Ordering devices and Indian files: cataloguing ethnographic specimens -- 4. Pragmatic classification: the routine work of description after 1950 -- 5. Object, specimen, data: computerization and the legacy of dirty data -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary "How does material culture become data? Why does this matter, and for whom? As the cultures of Indigenous peoples in North America were mined for scientific knowledge, years of organizing, classifying, and cataloguing--hardened into accepted categories, naming conventions, and tribal affiliations --much of it wrong. Cataloguing Culture examines how colonialism operates in museum bureaucracies. Using the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History as her reference, Hannah Turner organizes her study by the technologies framing museum work over 200 years: field records, the ledger, the card catalogue, the punch card, and eventually the database. She examines how categories were applied to ethnographic material culture and became routine throughout federal collecting institutions. As Indigenous communities encounter the documentary traces of imperialism while attempting to reclaim what is theirs, this timely work shines a light on access to and return of cultural heritage."-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record; online resource viewed February 2, 2021
Subject National Museum of Natural History (U.S.) -- Case studies
SUBJECT National Museum of Natural History (U.S.) fast
Subject Cataloging of archival materials -- Case studies
Cataloging of special collections in libraries -- Case studies
Museums -- Collection management -- Case studies
Ethnological museums and collections -- Case studies
Indians of North America -- Material culture -- Case studies
Museums and Indians -- Case studies
ART / Museum Studies.
Cataloging of special collections in libraries
Cataloging of archival materials
Ethnological museums and collections
Indians of North America -- Material culture
Museums and Indians
Museums -- Collection management
Genre/Form Case studies
Case studies.
Études de cas.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 0774863943
9780774863940