Description
Book SynopsisHow museums' visual culture contributes to knowledge accumulationSarita See argues that collections of stolen artifacts form the foundation of American knowledge production. Nowhere can we appreciate more easily the triple forces of knowledge accumulationcapitalist, colonial, and racialthan in the imperial museum, where the objects of accumulation remain materially, visibly preserved. The Filipino Primitive takes Karl Marx's concept of primitive accumulation, usually conceived of as an economic process for the acquisition of land and the extraction of labor, and argues that we also must understand it as a project of knowledge accumulation. Taking us through the Philippine collections at the University of Michigan Natural History Museum and the Frank Murphy Memorial Museum, also in Michigan, See reveals these exhibits as both allegory and real case of the primitive accumulation that subtends imperial American knowledge, just as the extraction of Filipino labor contributes to American
Trade ReviewThe Filipino Primitiveis generative and captivatingly relevant amid the current global crises over income inequality, border disputes, and belonging. With fascinating incisiveness, Sarita Echavez See invites us to rethink theft and debt through cultural archives andproductions. -- Allan Punzalan Isaac,author of American Tropics: Articulating Filipino America
An ambitious, necessary, and timely book,SaritaEchavez See exposes the workings of modern racial representation as a site of accumulation and dispossession.The Filipino Primitiveis a crucial read for anyone interested in a critique of the history, structures, and practices of American imperial-racial power. -- Denise Ferreira da Silva,author of Toward a Global Idea of Race
