practice. Shepard Krech (1994, 3) describes this tumultuous process, "Before 1980

most museums were rather stodgy places where little happened but since then they

have become hotbeds of controversy and lightning rods for cultural critique."

Widespread criticism aimed at cultural institutions exhorted museums to realign their

missions away from expired colonialist ideologies and closer to "an ongoing historical,

political, moral relationship ..." with the cultures and communities the collections

represent (Clifford 1997, 192). Consequently, this new perspective led museums to

redefine their collections practices, exhibitions methods, and museum relationships with

indigenous communities and other populations represented in their collections.

Cultural Representation in Exhibits

      The transformation of museum theory by New Museology resulted in some new

methods for representing cultures through museum exhibition. New Museology

proposes that display techniques should be addressed in three distinct areas: 1)

Museums should allow each population to decide how to represent themselves in

museum exhibitions and displays. 2) Exhibitions on heritage need to increase the level

and depth of interpretation on minorities' culture and history. 3) New Museology advises

that exhibits should present multiple perspectives in order to reduce biased

representations of cultural identity (Stam, 2005). As evidence of this museological

catharsis, "neighborhood museums," such as the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum,

emerged during the 1970s. Neighborhood museums arose in the U.S. as a

manifestation of diverse cultural expression after the Civil Rights movement. These