Aloha iā kākou! Nui koʻu mau manaʻo no kaʻu papahana. He mea nui ʻo Hawaii iaʻu. [translation Hawaiian to English: Hello everyone! I have a lot of ideas for my project. Hawaii is very important to me.]
Currently, I have four different topics I'm thinking about pursuing. The first one is displaying intangible heritage in museums; this could include but is not limited to dance, music, and language. I thought of this topic with the Hawaiian culture in mind. Being Native Hawaiian is a huge part of my identity which brings me to another topic idea about the identity crisis of multi-ethnic Americans to discuss the theoretical framework of intersectionality. This proposal leans away from Museum Studies and more towards my cultural anthropology degree. Another idea that investigates multiculturalism is the relationship between museums or collecting institutions and native peoples. This could start discussion about indigenous notions of ownership and libraries as well as decolonizing museums. My final topic idea is Japan in American museums. This could go a variety of ways including misrepresentation of culture, traditional Japanese culture versus Japanese-American culture, the identity of Japanese Americans, Japanese American art from the American Internment camps during World War II, and Japanese immigrants in Hawaii.
All of these ideas are really broad and need to be filtered down a lot more. I'm working on formatting them in the x, y, z, statement from Turabian, Kate L., 2018. A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. 9th ed. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press.
Hi Alana, I think all of your ideas are great and I want to read all of them. I think whichever one you pick will be amazing because of how passionate you sound when you talk about them.
ReplyDeleteHi Alana, I really like all of these ideas, and how they could teach much bigger lessons than simply a museum exhibit. In learning how to display intangible heritage, museums would open themselves to so many more opportunities, and allow themselves to connect with a wider breadth of groups and people. Through this idea, I really like how the majority of your thoughts connect to the broader understanding of partnering with and understanding indigenous peoples. I'm very excited to see which idea you go with, and I think any of them will lend themselves to great discussions of culture and history.
ReplyDeleteHi Alana! I think all of your ideas sound amazing, but I especially love the idea of investigating multiculturalism and exploring the relationship between museums and native people. I think as a Native Hawaiian, there is a lot of perspective you can offer that may not be generally available in these conversations. I also think doing your thesis on Japanese culture in America would be so interesting! Especially when you consider how Americans view and portray Japanese culture with how the culture actually is.
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