How Indian cultures cope with the modern world?

Thèmes abordés

Indiancs, Culture, Indian Museum

Résumé du document

The article "Undaunted Director at Indian Museum" is about the nomination of a new administrator, Mr. Gover, to lead the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. The last director W. Richard West Jr., who is charged for maladministration of the museum, had to retire.
More than the financial offence, this article brings to light the museum of American Indian and the symbol that it constitutes of the ambiguity and difficulty to find a place for the Indian culture in our contemporary world.
I will first deal with the way how Indians protect their cultural specificities while their fitting in the "modern world", I will then show the difficulties and danger the Indian culture may face nowadays.

Extraits

[...] Essay How Indian cultures cope with the modern world? The article “Undaunted Director at Indian Museum” is about the nomination of a new administrator, Mr. Gover, to lead the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. The last director W. Richard West Jr., who is charged for maladministration of the museum, had to retire. More than the financial offence, this article brings to light the museum of American Indian and the symbol that it constitutes of the ambiguity and difficulty to find a place for the Indian culture in our contemporary world. [...]

[...] That's an illustration of the American dream, which shows us that some Indians managed to conciliate the opportunities of the contemporary word and the preservation of their cultural specificities. The creation of the museum is also a way to preserve the Indian culture; it's a kind of recognition of it, even if it also may cause problems. * The preservation of Indian cultures through museum, is quite ambiguous and may cause different problems. Indeed the creation of this museum can symbolises the danger preservation of Indian cultures may faces. [...]

[...] It means that some Indian cultures are going to be represented when other won't. That's an important modification of History, some Indian cultures are going to be lost for next generations, when other are going to be over represented compared to their effective importance. Making exhibitions with Indian objects and cultural elements should not be the only goal of such a museum, a huge work must be done to find way to transmit them to younger Indians when requirements of modern societies separate them from their tribes and heritages or when there are trouble to transmit this cultural heritage. [...]

[...] * * * The Indian case shows us that preserving a culture needs a day-to-day work and it may face a lot of trouble. The Indian culture needs a constant compromise and an ability to evolutes in our modern world without loosing its specificities and avoiding problems, such as reinterpretation and partiality. In a word, finding a place in our modern world for traditional cultures - not only the Indians one - but also ancestral cultures or cultures of every minority over the world is more than ever a very current preoccupation. That's a point that must be taken into account by politics. [...]

[...] Current events, far from fading away Indian culture, allow them to revitalize their habits and ceremonial. American Indians included and readapted current events to find a modern way in accordance with their own culture to express and live them. To fit in the contemporary society, Indians had to forget a lot of their daily rituals but they remain attached to the ceremonial, which is still an expression of the strong vitality of their culture. As Mr. Gover said “Only a few things are part of our daily lives. [...]