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CHRISTIAN FEEST
University of Vienna

Which Ethnography Do Ethnographic Museums Need?

In 1969 William C. Sturtevant published a paper entitled Does Anthropology Need Museums? In
view of the fact that the primary audience he was addressing – anthropologists in general and
those working in the museum field in particular – were somewhat surprised that his
important comments on the present state and future prospects of museum anthropology
(and more specifically, museum ethnology) were not to be printed in one of the leading an-
thropology journals, but rather were buried in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Wash-
1
ington, a journal difficult to access in pre-internet days, especially in Europe . The paper re-
mains highly relevant, although (or perhaps, because) the developments of the past
forty-three years have in general not followed the therapeutic advice of Dr. Sturtevant. In
his diagnosis, Sturtevant argued that anthropology museums or museums of ethnology
had consistently lost their importance for anthropology at large because of a declining in-
terest in the anthropological study of material culture, the neglect of museums that were
often faced with conflicting tasks, the recruitment of wrong staff, and the museums’ lack
of theoretical interest in and significant contributions to anthropology.
Added to this is the increasingly presentist orientation of cultural anthropology, which
poses a problem for museums, which by their very nature are primarily dealing with histor-
ical subject matter. Thus, e.g., the recent revival of an anthropological interest in material
culture is largely focused on its current social and economic functions (such as in studies on
consumption) rather than on historically collected material. If indeed museums can make
a contribution to anthropology, it must necessarily be related not only to the materiality
of the data they are preserving, but also to their historicity.
It was in the research aspect of museums as anthropological archives or data banks (cf.
Sturtevant 1973) that Sturtevant saw the continuing importance of these institutions. «An-
2
thropology does indeed need museums. But it needs the Very Model of a Modern Anthro-
pology Museum, not an equivocal and petrified institution which reminds one of a bordel-
lo» (Sturtevant 1969: 646-647).

1
As a recipient of an off-print, I became the major supplier of copies of this paper to my Austri-
an and German colleagues. The number of requests were few and this actually supports Stur-
tevant’s arguments about the marginality of museums in relation to mainstream anthropolo-
gy and, one might add, the indifference of many curators in anthropology museums to
academic anthropology. The paper is now accessible on-line at http://biostor.org/refer-
ence/74075 (accessed January5,2013).
2
Sturtevant (1969: 619) opened his essay with a quote attributed to Gertrude Stein (when re-
fusing to leave her collection to the Museum of Modern Art): «You can be a museum, or you
can be modern, but you can’t be both». While Stein was obviously referring to the historicity
of museum collections, museums as institutions are indeed a typical product of modernity
with its emphasis on evidence as an essential feature of discourse. Whether or not the future
of ethnographic museums will take them beyond “modernity”, as the title of this volume im-
plies, largely depends upon what is meant by “modernity” or “modernities”.

Which Ethnography do Ethngraphic Museums Need? | 186

 Almost at the same time as Sturtevant (and without the benefit of having any knowl-
edge of his publication), Hans Fischer (1971) concluded that since museum collections did
not produce any data useful to anthropological theory, they should best be discarded (after
having been photographed) so as to save the space and resources necessary for their preser-
vation (cp. Feest 1999a). This view continues to be shared by a significant number of univer-
sity anthropologists and has led a growing number of museums and museum anthropologists
to act like rejected lovers and in turn reject academic anthropology. The Musée du quai
Branly is only the most prominent example of an institution defining itself not as an “eth-
nographic museum”, but as a museum with ethnographic collections; the National Museum
of the American Indian in Washington DC is the very incarnation of the indigenous critique
of (or aversion to) anthropology; and, so I am told, all “ethno-” words have recently been
tabooed in a municipal German museum of anthropology. In all of these cases, the museums
are no longer directed by anthropologists – perhaps another indication of society’s disap-
pointment with the anthropological content (or the lack of such) in these museums.
The provocative question Do Ethnography Museums Need Ethnography? must be read in this
context. In the colloquium’s introductory statement, the organizers asserted their conviction
that «a new alliance between anthropology and museums of ethnography is a precious re-
source», especially because by abandoning anthropology, museums would lose the basis for
the “interpretive knowledge” needed to explain «intercultural processes occurring within
globalized societies, … cultural difference as a richness», and many of the other key issues
of the twenty-first century. Rather than questioning the need for ethnography, they are ask-
ing «which ethnography do ethnographic museums need?» (see Introduction on page xv).
Before proceeding on this matter, it may be useful to bring up a matter of terminology.
In Europe, “ethnographic museums” has become the most common term for museums col-
lecting material documents
3 from living societies, ideally acquired in the course of ethno-
graphic fieldwork . If “ethnography”, however, refers to the process of collecting data in – as
the word implies – a descriptive manner, the term “ethnographic museums” may be mis-
leading, because every form of data collecting and of display is necessarily interpretive and
based on some underlying theory. There are basically two interpretive traditions, which may
be termed “ethnological” (attempting to understand specific cultures or traditions) and
“(cultural) anthropological” (embracing a variety of comparative approaches dealing with
the range of articulations of a shared humanity). In past practice, most of the museums
3
When using this term in the United States, I am sometimes asked by cultural anthropologists
what it means. Once an explanation is given, the response is that «there are no such museums
in this country», because“ anthropology museums” generally reflect the four field-tradition
of anthropology and include ethnographic, archaeological, physical anthropological, and (very
rarely) linguistic material.

187|Christian Feest
under discussion have tended to favor the “ethnological” approach, which is also reflected in
the mostly regional organization of their collections, exhibitions, and staff.
Reading the question which ethnography do ethnographic museums need? to mean
which kind of interpretive approach these museums should follow to remain relevant (or re-
gain relevance) in society, it is my firm conviction that under conditions of globalization the
comparative approach promises major advantages in explaining, for example, cultural di-
versity, if only for not exoticizing cultural difference, which is a fairly common by-product
of “ethnological” displays (cp., e.g. Feest 2001, 2007). This is not to say that “ethnological” ex-
hibitions will cease to exist, but given the nature of the existing collections the model which
they should follow will more often than not be that of “historical ethnography” rather than
“field ethnography”. Like it or not, museum ethnology is primarily a branch of ethnohistory
(see also below).
Another word of caution is needed because of the diversity of institutions subsumed
under the label “ethnographic museums”. The main line of development of these museums
can be traced back to the invention of the concept and term(s) “ethnography” and “ethnolo-
gy” in the late eighteenth century, when objects began to be assembled to catalog and explain
the cultural diversity of humankind. Even if from the very beginning the exhibitions were
mostly organized by region, the goal was a global one. This tradition established itself pri-
marily in most parts of Europe (gradually petering out to the east and south), but at a very
early date also in some of the major colonial cities in countries with strong European cultur-
al traditions (Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the United States,
Canada; see Feest 2011). The global approach was compromised in the second half of the
nineteenth century by the establishment of separate museums for “domestic” or “European”
ethnography, which turned many of the older institutions into museums of non-Western cul-
tures. In most non-European countries (except for the United States and Canada) global col-
lecting was given up in favor of focusing on the cultural diversity of the (pre-European) cul-
tural traditions of these nation states. Today many smaller regional and local museums are
included in the category “ethnographic museums” although they never tried to be global.
Overcoming the exclusion of Europe and the restoring of a truly global approach is a major
issue today especially in German-speaking ethnographic museums. Because of the different
goals and possibilities of museums with transnational collections, they should ultimately be
called by a different name to avoid confusion.
The following remarks, which will be limited to the class of “museums of global ethnog-
raphy”, take up some questions, which have been (or should have been) raised in this con-
ference: Do ethnographic museums have ethnographic collections? Do ethnographic muse-
ums need ethnological/cultural anthropology? Does society need ethnographic museums?

Which Ethnography do Ethngraphic Museums Need? | 188

Does society know it needs ethnographic museums? There is no need to repeat Sturtevant’s
question, since little has changed in this matter since 1969: it would be great if anthropolo-
gy needed museums, but it will be up to the museums to prove it to academia.

DO ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUMS HAVE ETHNOGRAPHIC COLLECTIONS?

Whatever goals ethnographic collections might want to define for themselves, the necessary
means have to be found in their collections, which have been assembled in the past. Muse-
ums therefore are to a significant extent also the victims of past collection policies, and
even today the collection policies of most museums are not guided by a clearly defined goal,
i.e., by an underlying theory of what should be represented. Collecting always means select-
ing, and what was excluded may in the long term be as significant as what was included in
collections. For a very long time – in fact until fairly recently – a frequently used criterion
for selection was the “traditional” nature of artifacts, based on the assumption that supposed-
ly pristine traditional cultures were contaminated as a result of their contact with Western
colonial societies and that the goal was to keep a record of vanishing cultures. Fortunately,
most museums were rarely able to assemble their collections exclusively on the basis of pro-
fessional ethnographic collecting, following strict guidelines, and have acquired (often
through gifts) the collections of travelling amateurs, which included objects that otherwise
might never have been preserved.
As for systematic collecting, the genre of guidebooks for gathering data (including
objects) has a venerable history extending back at least to the late seventeenth century. One
of the latest attempts in this direction, and one of the most thorough, was William Sturte-
vant’s Guide to the Field Collecting of Ethnographic Specimens, published in 1965. I will use it
here as a measure to determine the extent to which ethnographic museums have collections
that would allow them to do an “ethnological” display representing any specific society in
and through its material culture.
Based on comparative evidence, Sturtevant assumes that the complete inventory of the
material culture in “traditional
4 societies” amounts to between 300 and 500 items (excluding
trade goods or exofacts ). By pointing out the need to include in the collection complete in-
ventory examples both of new and used specimens, of typical as well as exceptional items
4
I have coined the term "exofact" (as opposed to "endofact") in analogy to Wendell Oswalt's
(1976) distinction between "artifact" and "naturefact" (Feest1999b: 15). Like naturefacts
such as stones picked up for cracking nuts), exofacts are not (and usually cannot be) produced
within the community, but may be supplied with new meanings and adapted to new uses. Ex-
ofacts supply a useful index of the rate of globalization. Metaphorically, the term can also be
applied to ideas.

189|Christian Feest
(including, but not limited to, “art”), raw materials and half-finished products illustrating
steps of production, he arrives at a total requirement of somewhere between 1,000 and
2,000 items for the synchronic representation of the material world of a particular society.
Very few museums can boast of any such collection.
In addition to the sheer size of such an ideal “ethnographic collection”, Sturtevant ex-
tensively discusses the issue of the documentation necessary to contextualize the objects.
This should, for every item, include information on the ethnic affinity of the previous own-
er; the designation of the artefact in the local language (if possible including also terms for
parts and materials as well as data on the local classification of the object); information on
its use by the owner or another user, its functions (including side effects); place, time, dura-
tion, frequency, and occasion of use; the kind of use (body posture, preparations for use,
traces of use); durability (life span); storage; possible substitutes; its construction (materials
and their procurement and value); the tools needed for this purpose; construction steps
(place and duration of manufacture, persons involved, variation); its maker(s), including in-
formation on their specialization, social status, training, and individual variation in manu-
facture; its meaning, including aesthetic criteria, symbolism, associated myths and tradi-
tions; its relationship to the prestige system; historical data, such the traditions of origin
of the artifact, known changes in form or style, and evidence of foreign influences; its local
and regional distribution; its condition of preservation, noting damage or repairs; its fre-
quency in the community, relative quality, and local value.
All this seems very reasonable and helpful for defining the role of objects in their local
social context. However, not only is it obvious that this full range of documentary informa-
tion is probably not available for any single specimen in any ethnographic museum, it is also
clear that the field collector documenting 1000 to 2000 objects in this manner would have
to spend months or even years doing so. Moreover, this does not even include the foreign-
made artifacts, for which the mode of acquisition would have to be recorded instead of the
circumstances of its construction. As a result, the costs of assembling a reasonably “com-
plete” collection would be beyond the budget of nearly any museum.
Once we agree upon the fact that material culture, just like other aspects of culture, is
subject to constant modification and change, the historical representation of any “tradi-
tional society” would require a systematic collection of the same scope and documentation
for every generation.
While we may not expect to find this kind of material and documentary evidence in the
historically constituted collections of ethnographic museums and may not even be able to
provide it in future collections, it is obvious that the quality of ethnographic dis-plays will al-
ways be limited by the degree to which the available data deviates from the ideal. This devi-

Which Ethnography do Ethngraphic Museums Need? | 190

ation is in fact also a function of the interests and abilities of the collector and one of the
reasons why the collections of ethnographic museums are also documents of the culture
of the collector and of the dialogical relationship between the collector and the local
community.
Ethnographic museums certainly do not have the “ideal” ethnographic collection, but
they do have collections that reflect not only the imperfect realities of this world, but also
what is needed to address questions relevant to society.

DO ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUMS NEED ETHNOGRAPHY/CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY?

If ethnographic museums want to stay alive and not become museums of fossilized mu-
seums, there is a constant need for collecting the present. This is not to say that museums
should adopt the presentist orientation of much of contemporary cultural anthropology,
because the present is an extremely fleeting entity. I once curated an exhibition in which
I illustrated contemporary Lakota culture with objects collected just five or ten years be-
fore. It was promptly pointed out to me by a critic that even five years ago was already the
past. This is the problem of contemporary collecting: by the time the objects are brought
to the museum and put on display, they have already become historical artefacts. We must
therefore recognize the historicity of all our collections, and we must make it explicit to
our visitors.
Since the present is the past of the future, ethnographic museums have indeed a re-
sponsibility to collect the present. Compared to prices that museums pay to dealers or at
auctions for old objects of often dubious authenticity and of little documentary value, col-
lecting the present – however random or unsystematic it may be – is both cheaper and bet-
ter in terms of collections development. Sturtevant’s Guide, although setting impossible
standards, is still very useful as a reminder especially of the documentation that should be
obtained together with artefacts. It is less useful in its focus on “traditional” culture because
the privileging of “tradition” excludes from the collection many of the local aspects of glo-
balization, such as the embedding of non-locally made goods and ideas into local contexts.
In this sense, “traditional” culture is only meaningful when seen in its relationship to other
observable aspects of culture. Cultural pluralism is a key feature of “modernity” (however
it may be defined), therefore in order to become a truly “modern” ethnographic museum,
the focus of collecting must be on pluralism. This notably includes contemporary non-West-
ern art, a primary example for the embedding of Western ideas into new settings, leading
to the emergence of multiple “art worlds”. The mistake of some institutions that have been

191|Christian Feest
collecting objects classifiable as “art” was and is to collect them as decontextualized “art”
rather than as “ethnography” with its need for full documentation of their contexts.
Field collecting is a specific form of gathering ethnographic data. If we accept the need
to collect the present, ethnographic museums certainly need “ethnography”. Museum an-
thropologists, however, should not try to copy slavishly the techniques of collecting non-
material information, but develop strategies of their own that will take into account the dif-
ferent nature of their source material. We cannot completely ignore the question regarding
the epistemological status of objects, but once again their nature as materializations
of skills and knowledge and as possible bearers of meaning and value is recognizable pri-
marily through the documentary record associated with each item. Since collecting is based
on selecting from a universe of possible things that can be collected, and what in the long
term remains significant is often difficult to predict, it may be regarded as an art (or skill)
as much as a science. A look at historical collections from the same region and time period
illustrates how different the results can be, even if all the collectors were qualified
professionals.
Another kind of ethnography is needed when dealing with historical museum collec-
tions, where the choices have been made by others, often on less than obvious grounds, and
where the documentation is generally poor or non-existent. Since context is still needed to
interpret artifacts, it is necessary to do “historical ethnography”, i.e. reconstruct the cultur-
al conditions and circumstances for the given time period. Only very few good historical
ethnographies already exist, and I believe that curators of ethnographic museums them-
selves will therefore have to do most of this tedious work. This kind of reconstruction in-
volves the use of anthropological theory as well, and it could even be said that the need for
theory increases with the poverty of documentation.
The need for recontextualization has long been recognized by art museums. Visitors to
the Louvre will find long and detailed labels with every work of art, since very few people to-
day have the faintest idea about their meaning (a striking contrast is provided by the exhibi-
tion of “primitive” art in the Louvre’s Pavillon des Sessions, where contextual information –
aside from name dropping of the famous previous owners – is apparently not considered
necessary). As early as 1896, Franz Heger, then director of the precursor of the present Welt-
museum in Vienna, predicted that in the future art museums would become part of ethno-
graphic museums because works of art were just another kind of culturally constituted ma-
terial document with the same need for contextual information as bows and arrows (Heger
1896, cf. Feest 2007).
The historicity of ethnographic museum collection poses the special problem of double
alterity: not only between “us” and “them”, but also between “now” and “then”. Since “the

Which Ethnography do Ethngraphic Museums Need? | 192

past is a foreign country” (Lowenthal 1985), ethnographic museums not only need to posi-
tion their visitors vis-à-vis spatial, but also very much temporal cultural difference. If muse-
ums are criticized by indigenous peoples for representing them as pre-modern primitives,
this is not only due to the lack of contemporary collections, but very much to “traditional”
constructions of identity in which the past serves to legitimate the present rather than be-
ing regarded as a “foreign country” (Feest 1997). This domestication of the past by the
present is, of course, not limited to traditional societies, but exists in our own society along-
side historiographic practice, and deserved special attention. By contradicting the claims
of tradition, historiography is often perceived as an enemy of tradition, and this enmity (or
the misunderstanding on which it is based) produces a need to reconcile the past with the
present, especially in the context of ethnographic museums.
Another problem arising from the historical constitution of ethnographic collections
derives from the fact that their original selection was based on the needs and ideas (or un-
derlying theories) of the collectors and the collecting institutions of the past. Just as it is dif-
ficult to apply new theories to old data, because the data may not have been selected accord-
ing to the needs of the new theories, it takes some ingenuity to make use of old collections
for present-day purposes such as by the reclassification of “ethnographic” documents ac-
cording to a comparative approach. The fundamental dialogical nature of collected objects
and their associated documentation also provides possibilities to elicit new information and
to convey new ideas. All of this requires anthropological theory, and often of a kind not
readily developed by academic anthropology. While museum ethnography needs to be con-
scious of what is going on in other fields of cultural anthropology, it also needs to develop
its own strength based on the contributions it can and must make to anthropology.
At the same time we must be aware that cultural anthropology has no monopoly for the ex-
planation and (ab)use of ethnographic objects, even though it can be argued that many
of these alternative explanations are not very helpful for a better understanding of cultural al-
terity and difference. The case of the “discovery” of “primitive art” by modernist artists dur-
ing the early twentieth century may be seen as a prime example of appropriation that does not
in any way serve as a better understanding of other cultures, but merely has contributed to the
transformation of cultural documents into high-status commodities, with profits not going
to the descendants of the makers, but to the players in a “primitive art” market. Ethnographic
museums have at times (and mostly unsuccessfully) tried to have their share at least of the
prestige of “primitive art”, but at the price of selling their anthropological souls.
Ethnographic museums must recognize and face this challenge of alternative explana-
tions, but they can only compete with them on the basis of the insights of cultural
anthropology.

193|Christian Feest
DOES SOCIETY NEED ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUMS?
AND, DOES SOCIETY KNOW IT NEEDS ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUMS?

As a cultural anthropologist I have no doubt that our discipline can make the most signifi-
cant contributions to explain the essential role of cultural diversity for the survival of the
world as well as to understand the problems of cultural pluralism in an age of rampant glo-
balization and migration movements, which have become a primary social and political is-
sue in many Western and non-Western societies.
Not so long ago, only a few people had even heard the word “biodiversity”. Today, every
schoolchild knows of its importance for keeping the earth in balance. This example shows
that a convincing argument can be successfully implanted into the public mind, and ethno-
graphic museums whose visitors clearly outnumber the readers of books on anthropology
would appear to be the places best suited for the promotion of some of the major results of
anthropological research. However, contrary to Hans Fischer’s suggestion of 1971 that
museums should replace objects with kinship diagrams (remember kinship diagrams?),
ethnographic museums must learn how to do this primarily by means of their unique stra-
tegic resources: material cultural documents and anthropological knowledge.
The precarious condition of many ethnographic museums suggests that the public is
happily unaware of the possible contribution of these institutions to the well-being of soci-
ety. Since the days of Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict (regardless of what one may think
of their work) anthropology has not been able to reach a broad segment of the general pub-
lic. This is not only a problem of ethnographic museums, but if ethnographic museums fail
to deliver on the promise to help explain the world, they will quickly pass from the present
status of an endangered species into the oblivion already enjoyed by the Pleistocene
megafauna.
Museums (including ethnographic museums) were created as institutions for the pub-
lic, and are (at least in Europe) generally supported by tax money; they are therefore respon-
sible and accountable to the public. Their future largely depends upon how well they are able
to serve the needs of heterogeneous and pluralistic audiences, walking the tightrope be-
tween catering to people’s expectations and educating the public. Museums often complain
about the lack of support they are getting from their respective governments, but they have
to be aware that they are competing with other interest groups (schools, health care, sports
organizations, the disabled, etc.) for limited budgets. It is precisely for this reason that eth-
nographic museums must build a strong case for their central social relevance. If they are
unable to do it now, they may not be able to do it later.

Which Ethnography do Ethngraphic Museums Need? 194 |

 In 1969 the future of ethnographic museums seemed to depend upon their role within
the discipline of anthropology. Today the future of ethnographic museums and of the dis-
cipline of anthropology hinges on their role in society. It is only together that museums and
anthropology can hope to survive.

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195|Christian Feest
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