Paul Michael Taylor, a research anthropologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, is Director of that museum’s Asian Cultural History Program, and serves as Curator of Asian, European, and Middle Eastern Ethnology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Taylor is an author or editor of numerous books and scholarly articles on the ethnography, ethnobiology, languages, and art (or material culture) of Asia. These include \u201cArtists of Modern Kazakhstan,\u201d \u201cBeyond the Java Sea: Art of Indonesia\u2019s Outer Islands,\u201d \u201cFragile Traditions: Indonesian Art in Jeopardy,\u201d \u201cSikh Art from the Kapany Collection,\u201d and \u201cSplendors of Punjab Heritage: Art from the Khanuja Family Collection.\u201d His book \u201cThe Folk Biology of the Tobelo People\u201d presents results of his multi-year studies of the language, culture, and folk knowledge about animals and plants among the Tobelo people of Halmahera Island, Indonesia. He produced a major online multimedia publication interpreting a historic 1926 joint Smithsonian-Dutch expedition to western New Guinea, the subject of a workshop on expeditionary databases and websites he held in Almaty \u2013 which led to the development (with the Kasteyev Museum) of a major website on the expeditions of the Kazakh ethnographer Chokan Valikhanov (April 2010; revised\/republished 2022). He has also curated twenty-two museum exhibitions (including five on-line virtual exhibitions). The recipient of numerous international grants and awards, he also served on the Board of Directors of the Association for Asian Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aside from his Smithsonian position, Paul Taylor has served as Senior Consultant for Social and Resettlement Issues for the World Bank Inspection Panel, participating in investigations of social and environmental safeguards on development projects in China, Paraguay\/Argentina, Cambodia, and Papua New Guinea. He also served (1993-2016) as Director of Ethnographic Film Development for Essential TV (Overseas) Ltd., developing twelve documentary anthropological films. During his studies and his work on documentary films, he lived for over four years in small tribal communities or rural villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As director of the Smithsonian\u2019s Asian Cultural History Program, he has worked closely with many individuals and community organizations to establish \u201cHeritage\u201d projects at the Smithsonian. These include Korean, Philippine, Thai, Taiwanese, and other Heritage projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A selection of about 112 of his papers and 32 books, along with various book reviews and other publications, can be viewed at: https:\/\/si.academia.edu\/PaulMichaelTaylor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15212,"template":"","degree":[],"major":[],"people_category":[61,261],"class_list":["post-15217","people","type-people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","people_category-international-artist-advisory-council","people_category-usa"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n