To Curate or Not to Curate: Legal, Ethical, and Practical Considerations at the Arizona State Museum

Summary

This is an abstract from the "To Curate or Not to Curate: Surprises, Remorse, and Archaeological Grey Area" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Arizona State Museum (ASM), at the University of Arizona, is the oldest and largest museum of anthropology in the southwestern United States and the largest and busiest non-federal archaeological repository in the country. ASM, as the state's official archaeological repository, is required to accept collections recovered from state, county, and municipal lands in Arizona. In deciding whether to accept other collections, ASM personnel must consider each offer in the context of the institution's legal mandates, the ethical principles that guide the fields of archaeology and museology, and the practical realities of space and funding. In this paper, the decision-making process at ASM is described and illustrated using examples of collections accepted and collections declined. ASM personnel strive for clarity and consistency in such processes by prioritizing optional acquisitions based on the institution's mission, its collecting focus, a collection's (or an object's) research potential, and ASM's ability to provide appropriate care and access in perpetuity.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• To Curate or Not to Curate: Surprises, Remorse, and Archaeological Grey Area

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23487