Gwyneira Isaac (DPhil Oxford University) is Curator of North American Ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution. Her research looks at the intersection between Native American and non-Native knowledge systems and how people mediate these culturally different systems. Central to this is her fieldwork on and ethnography of a tribal museum in the Pueblo of Zuni, New Mexico, and her exploration of the challenges faced by Zunis operating between Zuni and Anglo-American approaches to knowledge. Her research into culturally or disciplinarily distinct knowledges also includes how technology and media are used within the discipline of anthropology for the production and reproduction of knowledge through replicas, face casts, models and 3D printing, and the need for ethical frameworks that acknowledge culturally specific responsibilities towards the use of this knowledge. She is director for the Smithsonian’s Recovering Voices program, which supports Indigenous communities in their efforts to revitalize endangered languages and knowledge, as well as the To Be—Named project, which convenes international scholars around the study of the diverse knowledge systems that shape the politics of language, names, and naming.
