Re-assembling The Social Organization: Franz Boas, George Hunt, and the Changing Climates of Collaborative Ethnography in British Columbia. (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Re-assembling The Social Organization: Franz Boas, George Hunt, and the Changing Climates of Collaborative Ethnography in British Columbia.
Author: Aaron Glass
Author: Judith Berman
Author: Rainer Hatoum
Author: Ira Jacknis
Author: Andy Everson
Abstract: In 1897, Franz Boas published what became one of the most influential books in the field of anthropology: The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians. The collaborative product of Boas’s own observations and extensive materials authored by his long-time Indigenous co-worker George Hunt, the text was the first systematic attempt to document all sociocultural, spiritual, and aesthetic aspects of a spectacular Native North American ceremonial structure. This session presents the work of a collaborative project between scholars, Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw researchers, the U’mista Cultural Centre, and international repositories to create a new critical edition of this founding document in anthropology. The goal of the project is to examine the book’s hidden histories and complex legacies in order to re-envision Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw participation in the original research, to reassemble globally distributed collections and fragmented archives, and to create a critical historiography of the book. While clearly articulating the historical and political contexts for early anthropology, we are also recuperating long-dormant ethnographic records for use by the Indigenous families whose patrimony is represented in them. Academic and community team members will discuss Boas and Hunt’s main sites for conducting “fieldwork” (communities in British Columbia, the Chicago World’s Fair, and museums in North America and Europe); the primary media they utilized (museum objects, texts, photographs, and wax cylinder recordings); the conditions of, and the specific participants in, their research; and the legacy and contemporary use of the 1897 book in Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw communities.
Date: 10/22/19
Conference Name: American Anthropological Association/Canadian Anthropological Society

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