Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies

Stretching back to the 1950s, interdisciplinary work between Anthropology and History has taken diverse expressions. Yet it has developed with more coherence since the 1980s, largely in response to the declining promise of global modernity and the rise of poststructuralism and deconstructionism. Through a critical and contemporary engagement with this wave of scholarship, this volume challenges readers to think of work at the crossroads of Anthropology and History as transdisciplinary and anthrohistorical, moving beyond a partial integration of the disciplines as it critically evaluates their assumptions and trajectories.

This approach permits Anthrohistory to present a broader perspective that unsettles the constraints of existing academic practice. The volume does not offer a blueprint for fulfilling this goal, but rather a variety of positions taken by anthrohistorians who work in diverse contexts. Adopting an innovative and accessible style, Anthrohistory opens a provocative window into broader questions of interdisciplinarity, representation, epistemology, methodology, and social commitment.

Chandra D. Bhimull is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the African American Studies Program at Colby College.

David William Cohen is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Professor Emeritus of History, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan.

Fernando Coronil is Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York and Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Professor Emeritus of History, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan.

Edward Murphy is Assistant Professor of History and Global Urban Studies at Michigan State University.

Monica Eileen Patterson is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Ethnographic Research and Exhibition in the Aftermath of Violence at Concordia University in Montreal.

Julie Skurski is Distinguished Lecturer in Anthropology and History at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York.

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Table of Contents

Illustrations

Openings

A Prefatory Piece, Chandra D. Bhimull, Edward Murphy, and Monica Eileen Patterson

The Pursuits of Anthrohistory: Formation against Formation, David William Cohen

I. Encountering Boundaries

Notes on the Difficulty of Studying ‘el Pueblo’, Paul K. Eiss

Step into Anthrohistory, David Pedersen

Genealogies of Mediation: ‘Culture Broker’ and Imperial Governmentality, E. Natalie Rothman

Childhood, Memory and Gap: Reflections from an Anthrohistorian on George Perec’s 'W or the Memory of Childhood', Monica Eileen Patterson

Working in the In-Between: Archives, Ethnography, and Research in Gaza, Ilana Feldman

The Past and Present of the Future Perfect in Anthropology and History, Deirdre de la Cruz

II. Unsettling Knowledge

Past Warfare: Ethics, Knowledge, and the Yanamomi Controversy, Julie Skurski

Disaster Preparedness, Shannon Lee Dawdy

Reclaiming Tradition, Zareena A. Grewal

Impressions: An Interval

The Miracle of History: Temporality and Un-certainty in Southern Arabia, Mandana E. Limbert

The Politics of Burial in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Kerry Ward

Losing the Phenomenon: Time and Indeterminacy in the Practice of Anthrohistory, Oana Mateescu


III. Questioning Discipline

Anthrohistory and Phantom Limb Syndrome: Transdisciplinarity in a Disciplinary World, Thomas C. Wolfe

On the Subject of Governance, Anupama Rao and Steven Pierce

Between Disciplines, After Modernity, S. C. Humphreys

The Politics of Naming: Ethical Dilemmas and Disciplinary Divides in Anthropology and History, Dorothy L. Hodgson

On the Importance of Having a Method, or What Does Archival Work on Soviet Atheism have to do with Ethnography of Post-Soviet Religion?, Sonja Luehrmann

Wanderings beyond Codification and Desire, Setrag Manoukian

Openings

Pieces for Anthrohistory: A Puzzle to be Assembled Together, Fernando Coronil


Contributors

Bibliography

Index

Much of the literature on post-violent contexts addresses problems of transitional justice, memory studies, and post-conflict reconciliation. This volume inscribes an innovative domain of inquiry, situating itself creatively amidst these discussions but building upon the literatures of museum and heritage studies. The contributors (themselves practitioners, artists, curators, activists and academics) draw from a broad range of geographical and theoretical material, and explore new ways of bearing witness vis-a-vis curatorial practice, heritage work and memorializing the past, to examine the challenges and limitations of such endeavors.


Authors:
ERICA LEHRER is Assistant Professor in History and Anthropology-Sociology at Concordia University in Montreal, where she also holds the Canada Research chair in Post-Conflict Studies. She is author of Revisiting Jewish Poland: Heritage, Memory, Reconciliation (2012), and has undertaken experimental curatorial work on Jewish heritage and memory in contemporary Poland.

CYNTHIA E. MILTON is Canada Research Chair in Latin American History and Associate Professor in the Département d'histoire at the Université de Montréal, Canada. She is author of The Many Meanings of Poverty: Colonialism, Social Compacts, and Assistance in Eighteenth-Century Ecuador (2007), editor of The Arts of Truth-telling in Post-Shining Path Peru, and co-editor of The Art of Truth-Telling about Authoritarian Rule (2005).

MONICA EILEEN PATTERSON is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Ethnographic Research and Exhibition in the Aftermath of Violence at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. She is the author of numerous publications, and co-editor of Anthrohistory: Unsettling Knowledge, Questioning Discipline (2011).




Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors

Introduction: Witnesses to Witnessing; E.Lehrer & C.E.Milton

PART I: BEARING WITNESS BETWEEN MUSEUMS AND COMMUNITIES
'We were so far away': Exhibiting Inuit Oral Histories of Residential Schools; H.Igloliorte
The Past is a Dangerous Place: the Museum as a Safe Haven; V.Szekeres
Teaching Tolerance through Objects of Hatred: The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia as 'Counter-Museum'; M.E.Patterson
Politics of the Past: Remembering the Rwandan Genocide at the Kigali Memorial Center; A.Sodaro

PART II: VISUALIZING THE PAST
Living Historically through Photographs in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Reflections on Kliptown Museum, Soweto; D.Newbury
Showing and Telling: Photography Exhibitions in Israeli Discourses of Dissent; T.Katriel
Visualizing Apartheid: Re-framing Truth and Reconciliation through Contemporary South African Art; E.Mosely

PART III: MATERIALITY AND MEMORIAL CHALLENGES
Points of No Return: Cultural Heritage and Counter-Memory in Post-Yugoslavia; A.Herscher
Defacing Memory: (Un)tying Peru's Memory Knots; C.E.Milton
(Mis)representations of the Jewish Past in Poland's Memoryscapes: Nationalism, Religion and Political Economies of Commemoration; S.Kapralski

Afterward: The Turn to Pedagogy: a Needed Conversation on the Practice of Curating Difficult Knowledge; R.I.Simon

Index

Copyright © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited

Review:
'How to put difficult knowledge on public display is one of the biggest challenges for curators. It is also of major importance in contemporary civic life: what should be said and shown in museums, and how? This raises fascinating and complex intellectual and political questions. This book exposes and tackles these brilliantly through excellent discussion of a wide range of provocative cases. It should be read by anybody concerned with the dilemmas of curating difficult knowledge.' - Sharon Macdonald, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester, UK

The last few decades have seen an upsurge among anthropologists (and others) of critical attention to memory in its various manifestations. Simultaneously, there has been a proliferation of museums, memorials and media-based interventions seeking to represent and remember past atrocity. Experimenting at the intersection of these trends, we have developed a “curatorial pedagogy” that engages students in both critical thinking and creative production around the question of what it means for public audiences to “learn from the past” in the face of ongoing global violence.

By Chandra D. Bhimull, Edward Murphy, and Monica Eileen Patterson. “A Prefatory Piece.” In Anthrohistory: Unsettling Knowledge, Questioning Discipline, edited by Edward Murphy, David William Cohen, Chandra D. Bhimull, Fernando Coronil, Monica Eileen Patterson, and Julie Skurski, pp 3-10. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2011.