Rudenko N., ‘Prostranstvo znaniya etnografi cheskogo muzeya: strategii, tekhniki i reprezen tatsii’ [Knowledge Space of Ethnographical Museum: Strategies, Techniques, and Representations], Antropologicheskij forum, 2017, no. 33, pp. 11–36.

Abstract

In this article, the ethnographic museum is considered a “knowledge space”, that is, a heterogeneous network of people, categories, techniques, and social conventions that underpin the form and content of a museum’s ethno graphic knowledge. The article consists of six chapters. In the fi rst, we point to causes that result in a so-called “spatial turn” in the social sciences, particularly the ideas of T. Kuhn. The second chapter is devoted to interpretations of relations between place (space) and knowledge: physicalist, symbolic, heterotopian, and network. The third chapter develops and compares the ideas of D. Turnbull and J. Law, supporters of the network interpretation. While Turnbull suggest looking at dissemination of knowledge from one place to another using particular practices, Law advocates revealing knowledge space by analysing representations. In the forth chapter Turnbull’s ideas are applied to “The Program of Collecting Ethnographic Objects” — the document that helped to extend the knowledge space of ethnographic museum to far corners of the Russian Empire and mobilized collecting practices. The fi fth chapter is dedicated to applying three analytic methods (linguistic statistics, heterogeneous network, and conceptual schemes of J. Law and K. Hetherington) to printed materials for exhibitions held between 2010 and 2015 at the Russian Museum of Ethnography. Chapter six tells briefl y about what went unnoticed in representations of the printed materials. Thus, two cases were analysed — the program for collecting ethnographic objects and printed materials. We consider these cases as holograms enabling us to see not only the subjective preferences of museum workers and social conventions as the museum acts as a social institute, but also the intersecting and interfering “lines of force” of the knowledge space, assembling peoples, categories of knowledge, techniques, and the boundaries of paradigms.

Content (in russ)