Dr Laura Peers
Teaching and research interests
First Nations/Native American cultural history and material culture; representations of Native American/First Nations cultures; historic artifacts as sites of social memory and identity construction for contemporary indigenous peoples; relationships between museums and indigenous peoples.
Recent projects and activities
As Curator for the Americas Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum as well as a Lecturer in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, my research and teaching focus on the changing relations between museums and indigenous source communities. This change has been one aspect of important shifts within anthropology critiquing its historical development in relation to colonialism, and exploring relations of power and representation with its subjects of study.
1) Relationships between museums and indigenous source communities: theory/praxis
I have focused on creating new forms of access to the historic Pitt Rivers collections for Native American/First Nations source communities, and with scholars globally, to ensure access to collections and generate new research. In response to the extraordinary efforts being made by tribal members in North America to retrieve cultural knowledge and perspectives from historic artefacts to strengthen cultural identity in recent years, I have facilitated ‘knowledge repatriation’, ‘visual repatriation’, and access projects to ensure that tribal members have access to their material heritage. These projects have generated new knowledge about collections and about methodology in museum anthropology, and new relationships to guide future research:
- Blackfoot Shirts Project (Kaahsinooniksi Aotoksisaawooya/Our ancestors have come to visit: Reconnections with historic Blackfoot shirts) (2009-11, funded by AHRC and Oxford University Fell Fund; research conducted with Alison Brown, University of Aberdeen, and Heather Richardson, Head of Conservation, Pitt Rivers Museum): This project involved a loan of five Blackfoot shirts, made in the 1830s and collected in 1841, from the Pitt Rivers Museum to two museums in Alberta, Canada. While the shirts were in Canada, handling sessions were held with over 500 Blackfoot elders, ceremonialists, artists, teachers, and high school students to facilitate engagement and the transmission of cultural knowledge. This project explores issues of social memory and the transmission of cultural knowledge across generations in Indigenous communities; the role of handling in provoking memory and knowledge; and how museums can contribute to the preservation of Indigenous cultural traditions. There is a project website at: www.prm.ox.ac.uk/blackfootshirts/
- Haida Project (‘Haida material culture in British museums: generating new forms of knowledge’; funded by the Leverhulme Trust and Oxford University Fell Fund; 2009-10): This project explores how historic ethnographic collections can become the focus of permanent, mutually beneficial relationships between museums and Indigenous communities. A major Haida delegation to Oxford and London in September 2009 to work with Haida collections, leading to a video (to be released January 2012) about collaborative museum work from Haida perspectives, images uploaded to Flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/haida_prm), and forthcoming publications.
- Kainai visual repatriation project (funded by the AHRC, £78K, 2001-3) involved digitizing photographs in the PRM collections taken in 1925 on the Blood Reserve, Alberta, and taking copies back to the community to explore issues of social memory and the uses of heritage objects (and photographs) for First Nations peoples today. When the project started, the Museum had just one line of information about each photo; we now have transcripts of some 50 hours of interviews, a book-length monograph (Peers with Alison Brown and members of the Kainai Nation, 'Pictures Bring Us Messages/Sinaakssiiksi Aohtsimaahpihkookiyaawa: Photographs and Histories from the Kainai Nation,University of Toronto Press, 2006) and a relationship with Kainai mentors to guide interpretation of collections. In the process, we negotiated the first protocol agreement between a First Nation and a UK museum. We also developed a form of participatory/collaborative methodology suitable for consultation projects based on museum collections.
- Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC): based at Carleton University in Canada and led by Professor Ruth Phillips, this project is trialling a multicultural research team to create an internet-based database of North American artefacts from the Great Lakes region and collaboratively create new knowledge about artefacts. First Nations and university-based scholars are working together on this project; database records will include museum information, provenance, tribal language terms and cultural information, video clips, and commentary by source community members. I am a member of the core research team and am also on the board of governors. The team worked with the Pitt Rivers collections in December 2007, supported by a British Academy grant.
2) Ethics of display and treatment of human remains within museum collections: this work, of recent interest in UK research and museum contexts, has had several strands:
- Project based on Native American children’s hair samples collected in 1925, now in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Conducted with the input of members of the source community, this project revealed local cultural and historical meanings of the hair samples and resulted in a major article (‘Strands which refuse to be braided,’ Journal of Material Culture, 2003).
- Other project outcomes: development of research relationships with Ojibwe source community (visit to Oxford by a member of the source community who advised PRM staff on cultural perspectives in collections care and contributed to teaching in the MAME degree; fieldwork in community; repatriation of copies of photographs and data to tribal archives) and with Minnesota Historical Society (2 research visits to PRM by Chief Curator Marcia Anderson).
- Participation as a member in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport Human Remains Working Group (2001-3), a parallel body to the Retained Organs Commission, which reviewed issues to do with pre-1945 human remains in UK collections and led to a guidance paper; I am also on the follow-up DCMS advisory committee offering support to UK museums in repatriation cases.
- Other project outcomes: I have just published a refereed article which explores the recent ethnography of human remains in the UK; and have given seminars at both Oxford (ISCA) and Cambridge (Garrod Seminar, Dept. Archaeology, 2007) on this topic.
3) New forms of ethnographic curation: theory and practise: Another area of research has involved exploring how new curatorial praxis—including the use of tribal cultural perspectives--can be incorporated into collections management and display within UK museums. This is, again, an important emphasis within museum anthropology relating to concern for issues of voice and power, and my work is about changing practice broadly across the UK museum profession and the field of museum anthropology. Work in this area has included:
- Publishing a reader on changing practices in museums (Museums and Source Communities, with Alison Brown, Routledge 2003)
- Consulting with tribal source community members during research visits and fieldwork (we now receive about 6 tribal visits annually and incorporate them into teaching on the MAME degree and staff development within PRM)
- Changing aspects of museum practice within PRM, such as adding first-person quotes by First Nations/Native American people to displays
- Ethnographic fieldwork, including participant-observation and interviews, with staff at the Museum of Anthropology (Vancouver), Glenbow (Calgary), ROM (Toronto), and MHS (St. Paul, MN) to understand ongoing shifts in curatorial practice
- Facilitating research visits and lectures by staff from these institutions and others (including the National Museum of the American Indian)
- Extending access to loans for source communities: I assisted in the coordination of loans to Vancouver (2006) and Jamestown, VA (2007), contributing specialist curatorial advice which facilitated maximum Native American/First Nations contact with these artefacts during their loans
4) Public history representation of Native Americans/First Nations: A long-term project on the representation of tribal peoples at public history sites in North America has led to working with Colonial Williamsburg on their American Indian initiative, including giving the keynote address to launch that project, and a recent book, Playing Ourselves.
5) Research on historic artefacts in the Pitt Rivers Museum: archival and comparative research on the specific trajectories of historic collections, and their shifting meanings across cultures and time, and issues in material culture theory. I am working on the Shirley collection of 18thC Native American material, the French and Indian War; and on the Dr. Charles A. Pope collection which may include material from a lost collection by William Clark, incorporating items from the Lewis and Clark expedition in America.
- Blackfoot shirt with porcupine quill decoration and painted image of war deeds (Pitt Rivers Museum)
Publications
For a list of publications, please click here.