The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions

Anthropologist Kuper (Incest and Influence: The Private Life of Bourgeois England) examines the history and contentious future of anthropology and ethnography museums, which became popular in Europe and the United States in the mid-1800s. Collections within these institutions often featured items entrenched in colonialist values, freezing entire peoples’ histories in time and depriving their descendants of access to ancestral bones. Marisa Calin narrates, offering a lively reading of Kuper’s argument, that culturally sensitive conversations on collecting, interpreting, and maintaining objects are long overdue. Calin’s balanced performance mirrors Kuper’s approach, ably guiding listeners through the facts and his proposal for a way forward. Rather than simply repatriating entire collections, Kuper suggests that museum curators keep abreast of dialogues and scholarship while working to create more cosmopolitan collections and institutions.