Collaborative exhibitions built by Native communities and museums often seek to reposition Native peoples as the authors and experts of their own cultures. This capstone project, done for the Museum Studies Graduate Program at the University of San Francisco, explores what measures it would take for a Native community and a small museum who houses Native cultural patrimony to come together in a collaborative effort in order to design and display an exhibit featuring the relationships between Native communities, museums, and the Native American Repatriation and Grave Protection Act (NAGPRA). Topics discussed include the role of NAGPRA, Community Relations, Repatriation, and Exhibit Design.

This study addresses the need to further what can be achieved by collaborative projects between mainstream museums and Indigenous communities. Katsina in Hopi Life, an exhibition at the Autry National Center in 2013, is used as a case study to explore how frameworks for collaboration in museum space can be useful when informed by discussion about contemporary Indigenous issues. Interviews provide insight into the story and inter-workings of the creation of the exhibition, highlighting the relationship between frameworks and goals. To achieve Indigenous-derived goals, an exhibition requires a framework to match; however the relationship works in the other direction as well, and a limiting framework inevitably promotes less creative and productive projects. In working collaboratively on projects about Indigenous content, a more fluid approach is explored in the idea of the hybrid framework, promoting the idea that a one-size-fits-all model for collaboration with Indigenous communities is not productive, nor appropriate.

Museums and Social Activism is the first study to bring together historical accounts of the African American and later American Indian civil rights-related social and reform movements that took place on the Smithsonian Mall through the 1960s and 1970s in Washington DC with the significant but unknown story about museological transformation and curatorial activism that occurred in the Division of Political and Reform History at the National Museum of American History at this time. Based on interdisciplinary field-based research that has brought together cross-cultural and international perspectives from the fields of Museum Studies, Public History, Political Science and Social Movement Studies with empirical investigation, the book explores and analyses museums’ – specifically, curators’ – relationships with political stakeholders past and present. By understanding the transformations of an earlier period, Museums and Social Activism offers provocative perspectives on the cultural and political significance of contemporary museums. It highlights the relevance of past practice and events for museums today and improved ways of understanding the challenges and opportunities that result from the ongoing process of renewal that museums continue to exemplify.

Museums and Anthropology in the Age of Engagement considers changes that have been taking place in museum anthropology as it has been responding to pressures to be more socially relevant, useful, and accountable to diverse communities. Based on the author’s own research and applied work over the past 30 years, the book gives examples of the wide-ranging work being carried out today in museum anthropology as both an academic, scholarly field and variety of applied, public anthropology. While it examines major trends that characterize our current "age of engagement," the book also critically examines the public role of museums and anthropology in colonial and postcolonial contexts, namely in the US, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. Throughout the book, Kreps questions what purposes and interests museums and anthropology serve in these different times and places. Museums and Anthropology in the Age of Engagement is a valuable resource for readers interested in an historical and comparative study of museums and anthropology, and the forms engagement has taken. It should be especially useful to students and instructors looking for a text that provides in one volume a history of museum anthropology and methods for doing critical, reflexive museum ethnography and collaborative work.

The goals of museum collaboration are several, as are its intended beneficiaries. Assuming the success of the practice, local communities can gain the opportunity for self-representation and self-determination, museums can contribute to the creation and dissemination of new kinds of knowledge, and visitors can take home better understandings of cultural difference. While these are the ideals of collaboration, they frequently go unrealized, in large part because, as research indicates, the visiting public fails to recognize the active involvement of communities at museums. This raises the question as to whether, in the absence of this audience awareness, museum collaboration can fully contribute to the realization of the tolerant society that it purports to support. The purpose of this research is to examine the role of museum visitors in achieving the goals of museum collaboration, as well as to consider why this public has difficulty recognizing community involvement at museums and how this may be remedied. "A Partnership of Peoples" is an extensive renewal project underway at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia (UBC), designed to facilitate collaborative research at the museum. It also serves as a case study for my consideration of the relationship between museums and the visiting public as a part of the collaborative process. By speaking with both MOA staff and visitors, I gained insight into the intended goals of the renewal project with respect to the museum's relationship with communities and the general public, as well as visitor understandings of collaboration. With this fieldwork, in addition to a literature review, I found that the significance of collaboration rests in the personal interactions that occur between individuals. As the majority of visitors do not benefit from these interactions during their time at the museum, they are at a disadvantage when it comes to recognizing the engagement of others in the creation o.

Museums, Children and Social Action examines the role that museums play in reaching, teaching and inspiring children as global citizens of the world and, looking to the future, argues that the sustainability of museums will come from strengthening relationships with young visitors. Presenting a diverse range of programs, exhibitions and outreach from museums across five continents, Shaffer highlights how museums are already serving children and making a difference in their lives. Arguing that museums have a unique responsibility to connect this audience with relevant social issues and challenges, such as social injustice, racism, climate change and poverty, Shaffer simultaneously acknowledges that a large number of children are still on the margins of the institution and its mission. Recognizing the ways in which museums are currently serving children, the book also considers what museums could and should be doing as they plan for the future, raising critical questions about core values, community partners and social agendas. Museums, Children and Social Action is essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of museums, social justice and childhood. It encourages museums to make it their mission to educate and serve this audience and their families for the good of children, as well as museums, while also considering what their institutions can do to make a lasting impact on children and their families.

Museums reflect power relations in society. Centuries of tradition dictate that museum professionals through years of study have more knowledge about the past and culture than the communities they present and serve. As mausoleums of intellect, museums developed cultures that are resistant to relinquishing any authority to the public. The long history of museums as the authority over the past led to the alienation and exclusion of many groups from museums, particular indigenous communities. Since the 1970s, many Native groups across the United States established their own museums in response to the exclusion of their voices in mainstream institutions. As establishments preserving cultural material, tradition, and history, tribal museums are recreating the meaning of "museum," presenting a model of cooperation and inclusion of community members to the museum process unprecedented in other institutions. In a changing world, many scholars and professionals call for a sharing of authority in museum spaces in order to engage the pubic in new ways, yet many cultural institutions struggle to find a way to negotiate the traditional model of a museum while working with communities. Conversely, the practice of power sharing present in Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) tradition shaped a museum culture capable of collaboration with their community. Focusing on the Akwesasne Museum as a case study, this dissertation argues that the ability for a museum to share authority of the past with its community is dependent on the history and framework of the culture of the institution, its recognition of the importance of place to informing the museum, and the use of cultural symbols to encourage collaboration. At its core, this dissertation concerns issues of authority, power, and ownership over the past in museum spaces.