Collecting the Puerto Rican Colony
Spanish-American War Material Encounters between Officer-Wives and Puerto Ricans
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2289462 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Amanda J Guzmán (0000-0001-7653-0575, University of California, Berkeley) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 76-92 |
| Publication date | 2018-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Museum Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0892-8339 • E-ISSN: 1548-1379 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/muan.12170 |
| OpenAlex | W2792963929 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 13 |
Within a current moment characterized by widespread diaspora and debate about national identities, the American commonwealth of Puerto Rico stands at an economically perilous, politically liminal classificatory intersection as both American and a "cultural other." This article presents an on-the-ground, collection-oriented intervention for documenting and interpreting the origins of the island's complex colonial relationship with the United States. Tacking between objects, texts, and photographs, the historical context of the Spanish-American War is explored through the case study of the Puerto Rican Ethnological Collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). TheNMNH's assemblage reveals previously unrecognized intercultural exchanges between officer-wife collectors (collectors who were the wives of military officers stationed in Puerto Rico) and local makers. The perspectives of these two differentially disenfranchised, yet agential, groups, which formed part of the ideological formation of Puerto Rico within a nationalist museum imaginary, simultaneously reconstruct and complicate Puerto Rican narratives. [Puerto Rico, Caribbean, Spanish-American War, women collectors, miniatures
Asian American and Pacific Histories · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Photography and Visual Culture
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |