Museum Collections and Metadata: Creating a Plural Approach within a Collections Management System

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The UM Museum of Anthropological Archaeology (UMMAA) is now over 100 years old and curates a materially diverse, global collection. A research-centered mission, as well as an emphasis on processual archaeology, has deeply influenced UMMAA’s collections and associated records. This legacy data reflects norms of the times, curatorial priorities, and a commitment to notions of universality. Understanding both the harm and misinformation caused by forcing Indigenous material culture into rigid, hierarchical structures, my data management explores ways that we can bring decolonization efforts into UMMAA’s legacy data. Aided by the opportunities of a newly implemented Collections Management System, as well as institutional drive for an online collections search tool, I am developing ways the museum’s metadata and interface structures incorporate and, in some cases, prioritize Indigenous ways of knowing their own material culture. Through ongoing collaborations with Native American communities, Filipino culture bearers, as well as museology peers, UMMAA’s collections data is changing to reflect the plurality of the material the museum stewards.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Reckoning with Legacy Exhibits, Data, and Collections   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52136