Abstract
Built within a context of overlapping colonial rule from the Spanish, French, and British, the National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago (NMAG) acts as a steward for collections that reflect the astounding hybridity of the twin island nation. Predominately representing the country’s African, American, Southeast Asian, and Asian diaspora, the region’s First People’s history too often is represented through the “vanishing Indian” narrative. As a part of an initiative to introduce a collection information system for the museum while serving as an intern in the Summer of 2022, and in conversation with local Indigenous leadership, I facilitated the shift from the term “Amerindian collection” to the “First People’s collection.” Through this change, NMAG corrected nomenclature that previously defined Indigenous presence through an outsider lens that paid homage to a European explorer and a misnomer by those who “discovered” the Western hemisphere. While the preferred term by local groups, this process required confronting the standardization of inclusive languages in museum cataloging, instead, opting for culture-sensitive strategies specific to local realities of heritage. These shifts necessitate ongoing conversations and relationship-building with the communities being represented. This presentation, based on my firsthand experience as a visiting professional and intern at both NMAG (2022) and at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of the American Indian (2023), will contribute to the ongoing discourse in museum cataloging to create respectful and empathetic collections processes for Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups by keeping in mind their respective colonial contexts.
Presenters
Raven Begell LongCollection Information and Asset Management Intern, National Museum of the American Indian, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2023 Special Focus—Museum Transformations: Pathways to Community Engagement
KEYWORDS
Colonialism, Indigenous Studies, Trinidad and Tobago, Cataloging Ethics, Preferred Terminologies
