An Ethnographic Study of the Indigenous Museum Movement of Arunachal Pradesh, India (Provisional Project Title)

The proposed research aims to examine practices of indigenous curation in India's Northeast region of Arunachal Pradesh, with a focus on co-developing policies and methodologies for the management of indigenous cultural material. Focused on the two particular tribal communities, Monpa and Wancho, the research asks what a de-colonial approach to museum collections might look like in this socially and geographically complex region.
Museums and material culture continue to play a crucial role in the struggle for identity and sovereignty in Arunachal Pradesh. During the colonial period, the region was a rich ground for explorers and collectors whose cultural trophies, on display at the British Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum among others, contributed to the imagination of unruly and head-hunting tribal groups. In the post-colonial period, tribal museums were set up as catalysts for the preservation of unique tribal cultures and tribal integration into a new Indian nation (Elwin 1960). However, the post-colonial agents of the museum movement in Arunachal Pradesh were non-indigenous civil servants and anthropologists trained to envision the composite idea of India, with tribes as ethnic 'others' reinforced through museum displays. Today Arunachal Pradesh continues to be the centre of struggles for self-determination as India consolidates a majoritarian politics of Hindu nationalism that seeks to redefine the country as a homogeneous Hindu nation (Longkumer 2020). New war museums are being built to commemorate the 1962 Indo-China conflict, alongside memorials for the 'unsung heroes' of the state who fought against the British empire. While offering new de-colonial narratives, these projects are also unleashing new complex processes of internal colonialism led by the Indian state, fomenting the growing conversion of indigenous groups to Hindu religion. At the same time, new community and private museums are also emerging asserting different forms of indigenous sovereignty.
Since the 1980's a new museum movement has challenged the display of indigenous materials, demanding the repatriation of stolen objects, the overhaul of historical collections and the setup of community museums led by indigenous practices (Guzy 2009; Brown and Peers 2003; Deloria 2018). Research demonstrated the potential of practices of indigenous curation for rebuilding 'truncated histories' (Sarr and Savoy 2018), and empowering communities to imagine their own future. However, there have also been challenges to this empowerment process with complex histories of indigeneity, the fragmentation of community and competing notions of sovereignty (Tilche 2021). De-colonial approaches are even more complex in regions like Arunachal Pradesh, where different forms of external and internal colonialism overlap.
The proposed research seeks to understand the multiple histories and contemporary practices of curating tribal culture in this border region, with a focus on indigenous agency and curatorship. Arunachal Pradesh been difficult for researchers to access due to geographical remoteness and periods of political instability. The proposed fieldwork is therefore necessary to gather first hand material on the historical development of museums in the region; and on contemporary practices of curatorship in state as well as community and private museums with a focus on indigenous agency. In order to achieve research objectives, the researcher will conduct two months of archival research in India and ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in Longding and Tawang borderland districts of Arunachal Pradesh, India.