ABSTRACT
This chapter maps major theoretical and methodological movements that define the new museum anthropology. I take stock of the current moment, building on themes and issues addressed in Chapter 1. It begins with a discussion of the maturing of the anthropology of museums and critical, reflexive museology since the 1980s. I describe the contours of museum ethnography as both a method for theorizing museums and engaged practice. Just as collaboration with originating communities and processes of indigenization and decolonization have been transforming museums, so too have been new and alternative understandings of the meanings and values of objects inside and outside museums.
