Exploring Exhibit Spaces, Content, and the Visitor Experience: An Analysis of Southwestern Archaeological Exhibits

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Museum studies and Archaeology have had an interrelationship in pursuits of knowledge and perceptions of visitors. Different interpretations of Indigenous peoples have also evolved in these two fields, and within the last few decades these representations have affected Indigenous Peoples, Museum institutions and visitors. For museum studies, there has been an awakening of critical analysis into how museum institutions have portrayed biases in past exhibitions. Researchers have studied the type of visitors that are drawn to these areas, and how successful both older and newer displays are in engaging the public. This research project was conducted at the Museum of Northern Arizona within two of its exhibits: The Archaeology Gallery, and The Ethnology Gallery. For my research I have mapped the macro movements of visitors within these two exhibits, analyzed the content/media used within these displays, and conducted visitor intercept interviews with guests. I aim utilize this research to explore possible patterns between the communication of knowledge concerning Indigenous Peoples in museums and the spatial interactions of visitors in these controlled spaces.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36997.0