The introduction identifies the different case studies the book is concerned with, situating these in the context of the relations between the “armchair” phase of museum anthropology and the development of anthropological fieldwork. Questioning accounts that interpret these relations as a rupture between one period of anthropology’s history and the next, the chapter outlines the ways in which the relations among anthropological fieldwork, museum practices, and processes of governing are addressed in each of the book’s main chapters. The study’s object of inquiry is identified as being constituted by the connections between the processes of collecting, ordering, and governing as these were articulated across the relations among the varied sites of collection, the centers of calculation, and the practices of a range of governmental agencies involved in the management of colonized, metropolitan, and settler populations. The book’s three key concepts—collecting, ordering, and governing—are introduced.