Joshua Bell (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian), "Big Histories through insistent things: Exhibiting the Global Stories of the Cellphone at the National Museum of Natural History"
What is the role of technology in our society? How has the cellphone transformed our world? What is the role of anthropology in a natural history museum in the 21st century? Thinking through the issues bundled up in these questions, within this talk I will discuss a new exhibit Cellphone: Unseen Connections that I curated at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). Cellphone examines cellular technology and its cultural, ecological and social intersections around the world, and is informed by a decade of interdisciplinary and collaborative research on cellular telephony in Washington D.C.. The exhibit seeks to demonstrate how technology is an essential aspect of our humanity, and that natural history is about, and for, everyone.