Griffith

Alison Griffith explores the life groups of museums in the 19^th Century as compared to ethnographic films today in the first two chapters of her book, Wondrous Difference. Griffith discussed that the American Museum of Natural History had to find a balance between being scientifically accurate and aesthetically pleasing to spectators. Life groups supported the emerging field of anthropology, but still needed to cater to popular amusement. Life groups were great for catching the eye of museumgoers, but anthropological details were not included in the fantastic displays. The displays needed context, which required spectators to read background about the people and objects displayed. Since most people did not read the context, the life groups were not anthropologically effective. Boas did not find the groups effective because of the distraction from anthropological facts.

The life groups in the American Museum of Natural History made gave those who looked at it a Western superiority. People who went to the museum seemed civilized while the people who were displayed were portrayed as savages. Each life group could be altered to change the way spectators saw other cultures, even when it came to the museum’s designers. Anthropology was especially compromised at World Fairs, where education, popular culture, and commerce had to balance in order to be a part of the fair.

I believe a strength of the reading was the in depth analysis of how anthropology was compromised in museums and world fairs. Anthropology was a new study that needed to be spread to the average person, but pop culture had to be incorporated in order for that to happen. A weakness I believe the reading had was it is a little outdated. It is from 2002, and technologically the world has changed in the past nine years. Griffith talks about anthropology being compromised for the public’s approval relating to ethnographic films, which doesn’t seem true. In today’s times, film doesn’t need to be made for popular culture to be well known because of all the different mediums available, such as youtube. Is the position and way of seeing as skewed for ethnographies of an anthropologist’s own cultural group, now that “the other” is not the only type of anthropological research happening?