Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution

该奖项支持在史密森学会建立博物馆人类学暑期研究所，提供为期四周的强化课程，培训人类学研究生在他们的研究中使用博物馆物品。学生将学习根据人类学当前的研究议程，使用过去25年来发展的一系列定性和定量方法和方法来分析博物馆收藏品。培训将利用史密森学会丰富的人类学收藏品和相关资源，让学生在个别项目中亲身体验博物馆标本的工作。该研究所将专注于体验式学习，将实地学校的元素与课堂/实验室培训相结合。史密森尼博物馆和其他博物馆的人类学收藏品代表着一项巨大的国家遗产，几代人积累起来，记录世界文化，服务于人类学研究。然而，许多潜在的研究人员没有有效地利用博物馆收藏品，因为他们不知道如何处理或评估这种类型的数据，这带来了明显的挑战。研究所将在为期三年的赠款课程中培训36名研究生，使博物馆收藏品研究的研究设计和方法更好，并增加有效利用博物馆藏品的论文和出版物。通过开发和共享课程材料，它将成为一个榜样，鼓励更广泛地教授博物馆人类学的研究方法，并在大学博物馆开展类似的项目。该计划的更广泛目标是更有效地利用博物馆作为生产知识的场所。增加对藏品的生产性利用将使人类学能够利用前几代人所做的投资，并从事对这些材料发源地的社区感兴趣和有价值的研究。

This award supports the establishment of the Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution to provide an intensive four-week program to train anthropology graduate students to use museum objects in their research. Students will learn to analyze museum collections in light of anthropology's current research agendas, using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods and approaches developed over the past twenty-five years. The training will take advantage of the Smithsonian Institution's vast anthropology collections and related resources, allowing students a hands-on experience working with museum specimens on individual projects. The Institute will focus on experiential learning, combining elements of a field school with classroom/laboratory training.Anthropology collections at the Smithsonian and other museums represent an enormous national legacy, assembled over generations to document world cultures and serve anthropological research. However, many potential researchers are not effectively utilizing museum collections because they do not know how to approach or evaluate this type of data, which presents distinct challenges. The Institute will train 36 graduate students over the three year course of the grant, leading to better research design and methodology in research on museum collections and an increase in theses and publications effectively utilizing museum objects. Through development and sharing of curriculum materials, it will serve as a model to encourage wider teaching of museum anthropology research methods and development of similar programs at university museums. The broader goal of the program is to use museums more effectively as sites for the production of knowledge. Increased productive use of collections will allow anthropology to capitalize on the investment made by former generations, as well as engage in research of interest and value to the communities where this material originated.