Ever since anthropology became a discipline, fieldwork and in situ research, combined with the study of material objects stored/displayed in museums, both formed an integral part of the way anthropological knowledge is produced. Scientific/academic collectionism became stocked with theoretical premises and methodological procedures conceived under the paradigm of ‘natural history.' Dealing with this heritage is as important as it is difficult to respond to the post-colonial challenges faced by ethnographic museums wherever they are located. The rebirth of material culture studies played a crucial role in these reorientations and developments and was just as significant as anthropology's ‘literary turn' towards reading culture as a text. The creation of virtual archives of texts can be (and probably already is) a significant element in any documentation of collections.
Acts of Collecting; Collections and Museums; Collectors and Curators; Ethnographic Archives; Memory