Ethnological Research

Bruce Huckell
Senior Research Coordinator
bhuckell@unm.edu

Collections Departments
Ethnology Collections

 

The museum's worldwide ethnological collections are especially strong in the New World, Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa, while containing smaller collections from many other areas. For many decades they have represented an important resource of recent and current material culture.

Ongoing research by museum ethnologists incorporates the programs of the Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies, a joint initiative of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology and the UNM Department of Anthropology.

Kathryn Klein, Curator of Ethnology, Adjunct Assistant Professor 
The Maxwell Museum houses a collection of children’s drawings, photographs, and writings, dating from 1920s through the 1950s, that originated from the Zuni Day School.  The collection was put together by the former Principal and teacher Claire Gonzales and was donated to the Maxwell in the 1970s.  The writings and images reveal the continuity of Zuni everyday and ceremonial life from 1920s to present day, and offer a reflection on the dramatic changes in Zuni life.  The drawings and writings by the students represent interesting perspectives of identity and history learned through Western educational practices.  The Zuni Day School collection is being examined by the staff members of the A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center, with overall coordination and collaboration by Dr. Klein.  The collection was scanned by the Museum Photo Archives staff and put into digital formats that can be used within the Zuni community to collect descriptions, narratives, comments, identifications, and biographies.  Another goal of the project is to share the digital images with students at the Zuni Public Schools and create a dialog among students about their elders’ experiences while they were school-age children.  This project will provide the foundation for a community-inspired collaborative exhibition curated by the Director of the A:shiwi A:wan Museum, Jim Enote, to be shown at Zuni and in the Ortiz Gathering Space at the Maxwell Museum.


Inquiries regarding research opportunities should be directed to:
Dr. Bruce Huckell
Maxwell Museum of Anthropology
MSC01 1050
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001