Personal Chair
- About
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- Email Address
- alison.brown@abdn.ac.uk
- Telephone Number
- +44 (0)1224 274355
- School/Department
- School of Social Science
Biography
My research concerns issues of representation, access and cultural revitalisation using museum collections as a focus. My fieldwork has mostly taken place in Canada, where I have worked with the Blackfoot Nations for over 20 years. I have also worked with fur trade collections in Scottish museums and family homes as part of the Material Histories project. Recently completed projects include 'Narrative Objects: The Sakha Summer Festival and Cultural Revitalization', which involved working with Tatiana Argounova-Low (University of Aberdeen) and colleagues at the British Museum and National Museum of the Arts, Yakutsk, Sakha Republic (Yakutiia) to explore the meanings of a carved mammoth ivory model of yhyakh, the Sakha summer festival, and Our Ancestors Have Come to Visit: the Blackfoot Shirts Project, a collaboration between colleagues at the Pitt Rivers Museum and members of the Blackfoot nations of Siksika, Piikani, Kainai and the Blackfeet. My current research extends from the Leverhulme Trust-funded 'Blackfoot Collections in UK Museums' network, which brought together Siksika, Piikani, Kainai and Blackfeet colleagues with staff from the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter to discuss access to Blackfoot ancestral items located outside Blackfoot territory. Our new project (in development) looks at 'virtual visits' and the role of the digital in creating access to Blackfoot collections in Germany and Norway.
I have held curatorial and research positions in UK museums, including the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University, and Glasgow Museums. I am a Research Affiliate at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, and a member of the Smithsonian Institution's Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA) National Advisory Board.
I am co-editor (with Prof. Conal McCarthy) of Museum Worlds: Advances in Museum Research.
Memberships and Affiliations
- Internal Memberships
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MLitt in Museum Studies Programme Director, 2016 -
School of Social Science Director of Research, 2017-2022
- External Memberships
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External Examiner, MA Museum Studies, University College Cork, 2022-2024
REF2021 Sub-panel 22 Anthropology and Development Studies member
Smithsonian Institution's Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA) National Advisory Board, 2018 to date
SGSAH Cultural and Museum Studies Discipline+ Catalyst, panel member, 2018 to date
Future Leader Fellowships Peer Review College, 2018 to date
Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, peer reviewer, 2014 to date
British Council Newton Fund, peer reviewer, 2016-2021
AHRC Peer Review College, 2014 to 2020
External Assessor, MA in the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia, 2008-2012
- Research
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Research Overview
My research addresses the ways in which artefacts, archival documents and images, can be used to think about colonialism and its legacies. This work explores cross-cultural readings of heritage materials, and seeks to develop culturally appropriate ways of researching, curating, archiving, accessing, and otherwise using museum and archival collections. Most of my fieldwork and museum-based research has taken place in Western Canada and Northern Montana with the Blackfoot nations of Siksika, Piikani, Kainai and the Blackfeet. I have also undertaken fieldwork in Subarctic Canada and Northern Scotland in connection with histories of Scots and Indigenous peoples in the fur trade.
Research Areas
Accepting PhDs
I am currently accepting PhDs in Anthropology, Museum Studies.
Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.
Research Specialisms
- Anthropology
- Museum Studies
- Heritage Management
- History of Photography
Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Current Research
Narrative Objects: The Sakha Summer Festival and Cultural Revitalization
This AHRC-funded project will investigate the ways in which historic artefacts are tools for contemplating the past, for remembering collective practices of ethnic identity, and for contributing to cultural revitalization processes, particularly in areas that have experienced political and ceremonial suppression. The regional focus is the Sakha Republic (Yakutiia), Russian Federation, and the centrepiece of the project is a unique mammoth ivory model of yhyakh, the summer festival of the Sakha (Yakut) people, which has been in the collection of project partner, the British Museum (BM), since 1867. During the Soviet era, many Sakha cultural expressions, including yhyakh, were suppressed. Since the 1990s, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, cultural revitalization and attempts to establish political autonomy have generated considerable interest in these expressions and in the intersection of their historic and contemporary forms. Accessing Sakha historic artefacts, now scattered in museums worldwide, is key to these processes. While considerable work has been done in North America to link museum collections with descendent communities, there is virtually no scholarship regarding such projects in Russia. This project will thus be a model for developing inter-cultural relations between museums in the Russian Federation and beyond, and will contribute to better understanding cultural movements in post-Soviet states more broadly.
Blackfoot Collections in UK Museums: Reviving Relationships Through Artefacts
Indigenous people continue to experience the effects of historical processes of colonialism, including loss of land, forced assimilation and subjugation of religious practices. The collection of artefacts was linked to these processes, but today heritage items are the focus of cultural revitalization efforts. This innovative network has brought together Blackfoot people from Canada and the US with UK museums in order to generate and exchange knowledge about Blackfoot artefacts. As few Blackfoot people have had the opportunity to research these historic collections, the network has enabled exploratory discussions about their future care and has developed a model for further culturally-engaged research.
Past Research
Northern Colonialism: Historical Connections, Contemporary Lives
This programme is co-directed by Dr. Alison Brown and Dr. Nancy Wachowich and builds upon existing expertise in Anthropology, Archaeology and History, with support from the Library, Special Collections and Museums, to foster path-breaking research on the processes and impact of colonialism in the Circumpolar North.The programme it is structured around three themes:
- Economies and Polities
- Environments
- Cultural Transformations
By drawing on archival, museum and other material culture sources, and undertaking ethnographic and archaeological fieldwork, affiliated researchers are considering the intersection of colonialism and contemporary social issues in order to generate impacts within and beyond the academy.
Material Histories: Social Relationships between Scots and Aboriginal Peoples in the Canadian Fur Trade, c1870-1930
This project, funded by the AHRC, uses collections in Scottish museums to explore the inter-connected family relationships of Scots fur-traders and Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Beadwork bags, painted coats and other colourful items are the focus for archival research and oral history interviews in Scotland and Canada with descendants of fur-trader families. The research aims to show how artefacts from the past can be used to evoke knowledge and social memories of diaspora relationships, and how the stories told around them can create forms of history that extend beyond those in the written record so as to generate powerful resonances in the present.
'These shirts are our curriculum': artifacts, Blackfoot people and the retrieval of cultural knowledge
This AHRC-funded project brings together UK-based researchers with Blackfoot people in Alberta, Canada, and Montana, USA, to explore the cultural history and contemporary meanings of 5 Blackfoot men's shirts held in the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Collected in 1841, the hide shirts are decorated with porcupine quillwork and beadwork; three, with human- and horse-hair fringes along the sleeves, are ritual garments. There are just two shirts of this age in Canadian museums, and Blackfoot people have had little access to them. However, some cultural knowledge relating to them has been retained, and elders wish to revive traditional practices associated with them. Blackfoot leaders have spoken of the shirts as important for youth and hope that learning about them will strengthen cultural identity. The project will make the shirts available to Blackfoot people and the wider public for the first time, and explore how historic artefacts can be used by indigenous communities to revive, share and transmit cultural knowledge, and how they serve to anchor social memory and in the construction of identity. Through the exhibition of these shirts at Glenbow and Galt Museums in Alberta, and through handling workshops for Blackfoot people, we hope to show how close examination of the shirts can allow for the retrieval, consolidation, and transmission of cultural knowledge embodied in such artefacts. In turn, we hope that the project will inform future museum practice.
Funding and Grants
2017 Canada-UK Foundation (£1000). Travel Award. Parfleche Bags in the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology: A Case of Digital Access
2014 AHRC Research Grant (£556,442). Narrative Objects: The Sakha Summer Festival and Cultural Revitalization.
2014 Foundation for Canadian Studies in the UK. (£3080) for the Scarred/Sacred Water exhibition and film series. Outreach Grant.
2013 Leverhulme Trust (£50,731). Blackfoot Collections in UK Museums: Reviving Relations through Artefacts.
2013 Foundation for Canadian Studies in the UK (£615). Publication grant.
2013 Pasold Foundation (£600). Research Activity Grant.
2012 Carnegie Research Grant for the Universities of Scotland (£1700). Narrative Objects: The Siberian Summer Festival and Sakha Cultural Revitalization
2009 AHRC Research Grant (£183,431). Co-Investigator for “These shirts are our curriculum”: artifacts, Blackfoot people and the retrieval of cultural knowledge. PI: Dr. Laura Peers, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.
2009 Royal Society of Edinburgh Workshop Grant (£9000). To develop international workshop on repatriation and access to museum collections.
2007 British Academy Overseas Conference Grant (£400)
2004 British Academy Overseas Conference Grant (£598)
- Teaching
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Programmes
- Postgraduate, 3 stage, September start
- Postgraduate, 3 stage, January start
Courses
- Anthropology, Museums, and Society (AT403A)
- Publications
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From Mammoth to Miniature: ‘Model of a Summer Festival of the Yakuts’ as a Narrative Object
Journal of the Royal Anthropological InstituteContributions to Journals: ArticlesEditorial: Museum Worlds
Museum Worlds, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. vii-ixContributions to Journals: EditorialsReview of Museums, Societies and the Creation of Value Howard Morphy and Robyn McKenzie, eds. (London: Routledge, 2022)
Museum Worlds, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 228-229Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.3167/armw.2022.100119
- [OPEN ACCESS] http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/21705/1/Brown_MW_Review_Of_Museums_VoR.pdf
- [ONLINE] View publication in Scopus
Model of a Summer Camp: Object in Focus
British Museum Press, London. 64 pagesBooks and Reports: Books- [ONLINE] link to the Book
‘Model of a summer festival’: engagements with a narrative object in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), Russian Federation
Contributions to Conferences: PapersBright Sun Shining: A Siberian Summer Festival
Non-textual Forms: ExhibitionsCo-Authoring Relationships: Blackfoot Collections, UK Museums, and Collaborative Practice
Collaborative Anthropologies, vol. 9, no. 1/2, pp. 117-148Contributions to Journals: ArticlesVisiting with the Ancestors: Blackfoot Shirts in Museum Spaces
Athabasca University Press, Edmonton. 218 pagesBooks and Reports: BooksStoried Landscapes: Enlivening Blackfoot collections in UK Museums
Journal of Museum Ethnography, vol. 29, pp. 29-52Contributions to Journals: ArticlesReview: War Paintings of the Tsuu T’ina Nation by Arni Brownstone.
Museum Anthropology Review, vol. 10, no. 2Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles