Olga Linares, an anthropologist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, studies changes in rice production and the future potential of the crop. She is pictured here with a Jola family in Senegal.
Photo courtesy of Jola assistants to Olga Linares
- What are the challenges to cultural diversity, and what are the strategies people use to maintain, assert, and represent their cultural identities?
- What do art, music, and other creative expressions around the world tell us about cultural values and important contemporary issues?
With a presence in at least one hundred countries and expertise and collections encompassing the globe, Smithsonian staff—including anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, historians, educators, and folklorists—engage people in valuing and understanding the world's richness. Through their research, collections, exhibitions, and outreach, they build bridges of mutual respect and present the diversity of world cultures with accuracy and insight. In this way, the Smithsonian increases respect for different ways of life and helps ensure that we preserve cultural treasures wherever they are found.
Dan Sheehy (right), director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, interviews Miguel Santiago Reyes, a musician from the Téenek community in Tamaletón, Mexico, during a field visit.
Photo by Cristina Díaz-Carrera, Smithsonian Institution
