Summer Institute of Museum Anthropology

博物馆收藏的人类学藏品被用来记录世界文化，展示研究结论的证据基础，并支持未来的人类学调查。史密森学会的博物馆人类学暑期学院是一个为期四周的强化项目，旨在培训研究生和教师在文化人类学研究中使用博物馆物品。在SIMA期间，参与者学习使用一系列定性和定量方法和方法在人类学当前研究兴趣的背景下分析博物馆藏品。SIMA利用史密森学会庞大的人类学收藏和各组成博物馆的相关资源，允许参与者在个别项目中与博物馆标本一起工作的实践经验，这些项目将导致论文和研究项目以及新的教学课程。SIMA将博物馆视为一个人种学现场，并注重体验式学习，将现场学校的元素与正式的课堂课程相结合。该项目在科学文化人类学方面培养了大量的研究生和教师，并为广泛的学者提供了支持人类学研究的资源。当前文化人类学的趋势激发了人们对人类学对象（人工制品、录音、绘画、静态和动态图像）的兴趣，博物馆收藏越来越被认为是丰富文化数据的来源。然而，许多潜在的研究人员无法有效地利用博物馆的藏品，因为他们缺乏接近或评估这类数据的技能和方法。虽然人类学的理论趋势发生了变化，但这些收集是关键的数据集，可以解决新的研究问题和答案。以博物馆为基础的研究培训很少，而且很少能提供对对象研究至关重要的实践学习。SIMA旨在提高博物馆藏品的有效利用，并允许文化人类学利用前几代人的投资。此外，它寻求促进和参与对这些材料来源的社区感兴趣和有价值的研究，从而证明文化人类学方法对广泛的科学、社会科学和人文学科的价值。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Anthropology collections housed by museums have been assembled to document world cultures, present the evidential basis of research conclusions, and support future anthropological inquiry. The Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution is an intensive four-week program to train graduate students and faculty to use museum objects in research in cultural anthropology. During SIMA, participants learn to analyze museum collections in the context of current research interests in anthropology using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods and approaches. SIMA takes advantage of the Smithsonian Institution’s vast anthropological collections and related resources in constituent museums, allowing participants hands-on experience working with museum specimens on individual projects that lead to dissertation and research projects as well as new teaching curricula. SIMA treats the museum as an ethnographic field site and focuses on experiential learning, combining elements of a field school with formal classroom lessons. This program trains numerous graduate students and faculty in scientific cultural anthropology and generates resources that support anthropological research for a broad range of scholars.Current trends in cultural anthropology have stimulated a revitalized interest in anthropological objects (artifacts, audio recordings, drawings, still and moving images) and museum collections are increasingly being recognized as a source of rich cultural data. However, many potential researchers cannot effectively use museum collections because they lack the skills and methods to approach or evaluate this type of data. While theoretical trends shift in anthropology, these collections are critical data sets that can address new research questions and answers. Training in museum-based research is rare and seldom can offer the hands-on learning that is essential for object study. SIMA is designed to increase productive use of museum collections and allow cultural anthropology to capitalize on the investment made by former generations. In addition, it seeks to promote and engage in research of interest and value to the communities where this material originated, and thus demonstrate the value of cultural anthropology methodologies to a wide range of scientific, social science and humanistic disciplines.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.