Community museums and rethinking the colonial frame of national museums in Zimbabwe

Chipangura, Njabulo; Chipangura, Patricia

doi:10.1080/09647775.2019.1683882

Cited by 14 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Received In terms of materiality and the digital in museums, there is much work to do to break old binaries of representation, systemic racism, and Westernized and imperialist structures. See Lonetree 2012;Fischer et al 2017;Vawda 2019;Chipangura and Chipangura 2020. Rites or rituals are formalized or performed ceremonial acts, arising either from long secular tradition or sacred orders, see Schechner 1993;Bell 1997. 5 UNESCO, 'China and the 2003 Convention'.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radical Intangibles: Materializing the Ephemeral

Kenderdine

Hibberd

Shaw

2021

M and S

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New materialism considers that the world and its histories are produced by a range of material forces that extend from the physical and the biological to the psychological, social and cultural. In recognizing that heritage is not held in objects alone, new materialism discourses echo definitions of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) enshrined in the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. While museums understand the weight of responsibility when engaging with communities of practice, many still restrict the representation of archived ICH material to oral histories, object biographies, video and audio recordings of songs and performing arts. The technical complexities of archiving the ‘live’ perpetuate nineteenth-century museum display conventions, such as fixed-point perspectives and linear approaches to representation. To address this gap, we introduce ‘computational museology’, which brings a systems thinking approach to 'whole of environment' encoding. Such a framework unites, for instance, artificial intelligence with data curation, and ontology with visualization, as well as embodied participation through immersive and interactive interfaces. The implications of such a framework has yet to be fully theorized but it is evident that a new paradigm of materiality comprising ‘radical intangibles’ is taking shape in museums, which signals a break with both Western historiographic orthodoxies and hypothetical paradigms of tangible and intangible heritage. This article foregrounds the emergence of radical intangibles as crucial new digital materialities that are transforming reenacted and embodied practices, which we demonstrate in the discussion of two longitudinal curatorial projects based in China and Hong Kong: the first, 'Hong Kong Martial Arts Living Archive' (HKMALA) in collaboration with the International Goushou Association in Hong Kong, and the second, ‘Remaking Confucian Rites’ (RCR), undertaken in conjunction with Tsinghua University in Beijing. Both of these projects are significant for having taken up ‘technologies of corporeality’ – digital paradigms at the forefront of computer graphics, spatial and temporal modelling, and virtual reality. The powerful tools being developed across the two instances have begun to revolutionize ICH as a practice, a mode of transmission, and an object of study.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radical Intangibles: Materializing the Ephemeral

Kenderdine

Hibberd

Shaw

2021

M and S

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“…The development of the Marange community museum in eastern Zimbabwe should be understood as part of indigenous or community‐driven curatorship efforts towards the remaking, adaptation and revision of colonial museum practices. Here, Rodwell Marange opened the community museum to valorize the Marange Chieftainship with no support from the State and little to no collaborative engagements with local community members (Chipangura & Chipangura, 2019). Initially, Rodwell researched about the Marange Chieftainship and associated cultural practices before mounting an exhibition premised on his findings.…”

Section: “Living Archives”: Un‐packing the Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The community museum showcases many aspects about the Marange people, particularly their chiefs as religious and unifying figures, community festivals and social activities, community history and identity, cultural values, creativity and resourcefulness, customs, traditions and future community aspirations. One unique feature about this community museum is that the people, associated cultural objects and cultural landscapes are always connected and in constant dialogue with each other (Chipangura & Chipangura, 2019). This way, the diverse range of cultural objects are kept active or “alive” both within the community museum and wider landscapes because of their continued use in ritual processes associated with chief burials and rain‐making ceremonies.…”

Section: “Living Archives”: Un‐packing the Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lost and Found Property: Evaluating Efforts to Resurrect and Resuscitate ‘Institutionalised Garbage’ in Post‐Colonial Zimbabwean Museums

Machiridza¹,

Thondhlana²

2022

Curator The Museum Journal

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This article evaluates efforts to bring to life some museum collections in Zimbabwe. Scholars have argued that the removal of objects from their social environments into museums literally kills them. The 'heritagisation' and 'museualisation' processes stand accused of killing objects. On the other hand, indigenous African communities consistently and situationally imbued their landscape with spiritual, political and social meanings. These cultural landscapes epitomise 'living museums' where diverse cultural objects were curated with traditional management systems. European colonialism, however, resulted in the denigration of these cultural practices. Objects which were critical for the well-being of Africans were taken into captivity in colonial museums and eventually became 'forgotten' or 'dead'. Ethnographic museums, in particular, are perceived as places of the dead and evil spirits. They are places to dump 'garbage' that no longer has a function in society. Post-colonial African museums have struggled to attract and sustain local community interest. However, there is still hope to re-ignite and sustain public interest in museum programmes. We invoke the notion of 'living archives' as an approach to decolonise the museum. The article appraises case studies of museum collections that have triggered immense public interest.

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“…Thus, I concur with the view of McCarthy et al (2019) who argue that museum objects cannot be disconnected from the past but rather are enduring symbols that connect the past with the present and future. In short, it can therefore be argued that at the heart of decolonised museum practices is the privileging of indigenous voices, experiences, knowledge, reflections, analyses, paradigms, cosmologies and worldviews (Chipangura and Chipangura 2020). However, decoloniality is more than just ceding power and authority to indigenous communities through collaborative activities as it is also about changing dominant rationalities and practices especially Western scientific paradigms that structured the establishment of museums in Africa during the colonial period (Chipangura et al, 2019).…”

Section: Traditional Shona Dances and Ritual Ontologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Mutare Museum is a product of Western modernity which deployed ethno‐centric approaches in knowledge production. This intellectual tradition complemented by biased museum representation marginalised the knowledge systems of the local populace from where cultural objects were appropriated from (Chipangura & Chipangura, 2020). In 2014, The Mutare Museum received a generous grant from the Beit Trust (UK) to use towards the reorganisation of ethnographic objects in the Beit gallery.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co‐curation and New Museology in Reorganizing the Beit Gallery at the Mutare Museum, Eastern Zimbabwe

Chipangura¹

2020

Curator The Museum Journal

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The Mutare Museum in Eastern Zimbabwe reorganized an ethnographic collection in one of its galleries in 2016. This article will look at the processes by which traditional drums as part of this collection were reconfigured and ascribed new meanings derived from their everyday ritual uses amongst the eastern Shona community. As one of the curators involved in the researching that led to the co‐production of the exhibition I will demonstrate how we utilized new museology and co‐curatorship in integrating multiple perspectives from the community on socio‐cultural uses of traditional drums. The paper will also show connections between the community and the drums which were previously viewed as static and mute objects. Collaborating with the community in reorganizing drums in the Beit galley will be presented in the paper as a strategy embraced in decolonizing the museum practice.

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Community museums and rethinking the colonial frame of national museums in Zimbabwe

Cited by 14 publications

References 26 publications

Radical Intangibles: Materializing the Ephemeral

Radical Intangibles: Materializing the Ephemeral

Lost and Found Property: Evaluating Efforts to Resurrect and Resuscitate ‘Institutionalised Garbage’ in Post‐Colonial Zimbabwean Museums

Co‐curation and New Museology in Reorganizing the Beit Gallery at the Mutare Museum, Eastern Zimbabwe

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