Culture under glass: First Nations in Canadian museums

In 1992, when this dissertation was completed, Canadian museums (among many others) were in a state of crisis over how to best provide a voice--or a forum--for the diversity of peoples represented (and not represented) within their walls. This dissertation looks at perhaps the most volatile of debates within this larger crisis: that between the Canadian museum community and First Nations. In my analysis of seventeen museums (history, art, anthropology and tribal), I have situated within the larger context of theories addressing the representation of the cultural Other, a study of the practices and politics of the collection and exhibition of First Nations\u27 art, history and culture. I have suggested that we apply the metaphor of mapping to museums; to consider them as geographic spaces which are divided, defended and privileged in the process of defining ourselves and our nations. I argue in the dissertation that the metaphorical language of maps is particularly revealing of the power relations in museums exhibits and provides us with the tools necessary to re-imagine the museum space. In traditional museum settings, museums have, overall, perpetuated the continued isolation of Native Canadians on the Other side of carefully demarcated boundaries of time, space and custom. Despite a living and highly politicized presence outside its walls, inside these museums, Native Canadians remain fixed and isolated in time and space. This essence structures the museums into a primary dichotomy here and there --which has been translated into the numerous dichotomies of the museum-- modern and traditional , past and present , myth and science , progress and stasis , active and passive , and ultimately us and them . In tribal museums and more recent innovative programming at the larger museums we are able to identify alternative maps which realign border and privilege different spaces and structural discourses. I have argued that these spaces might be seen as borders or boundaries occupied by all Canadians: points of contestation and friction, which must somehow answer to all whose lives its touches. And as the identity of those who occupy these borders shift--with some players moving out while others enter--the rigidity of the museum map is slowly being challenged