Whose Idea Was This?—Museums, Replicas and the Reproduction of Knowledge

 The process of reproduction lies at the heart of how knowledge is transmitted and circulated, and therefore controlled, however, we have limited frameworks for understanding how these operate across or between different cultures. Whose Idea Was This? takes a straightforward but effective approach to analyzing the intersection of culturally distinct approaches to knowledge by studying museum replicas and their history in collections in North America and Europe. For example, the Zuni ‘War God’ replica made in 1884 by the ethnologist, Frank Hamilton Cushing now housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford is at the center of a complex and unresolved international repatriation claim between the Pitt Rivers and Zuni. By critiquing current anthropological, historical and representational theories concerning the ‘copy’, this research will develop new analytical frameworks better suited to resolving disputes over the control of knowledge within cross-cultural contexts.