Museums and Memory as Agents of Social Change

Hafner, Diane; Rigsby, Bruce; Allen, Lindy

doi:10.18848/1447-9508/cgp/v05i06/42144

“…Numerous authors have explored a multiplicity of aspects of the museum-indigene relationship. Few, however, have applied theoretical models (Kelly, Cook, and Gordon 2006, Krmpotich and Peers 2011, Onciul 2013, described a case study over time connecting the historical and contemporary aspects of a collection and its communities (Hafner 2010, Hafner, Rigsby, andAllen 2007), compared different cultural perspectives (Clavir 2002) and resources, nor identified the agency of indigenous communities in historical collection development (Torrence and Clarke 2013). Additionally, although online access to museum collection databases has been possible for more than a decade, and developments in Web 2.0 based technologies are ongoing, non-web-based means of interacting with ancestral heritage collections in museums are difficult for groups who are geographically remote from these collections.…”

Section: Relationshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is consensus that longstanding relationships between researchers/museums and indigenous communities have been fundamental to the continuation of partnerships between these groups (Christen 2009, Hafner, Rigsby, and Allen 2007, 91, Krmpotich and Peers 2013. Where these partnerships fail is when longstanding relationships end, through the death or withdrawal of key participants or departure of key staff.…”

Section: Indigenous Community-museum Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Worlds Apart: Indigenous Re-engagement with Museum-held Heritage: A New Zealand - United Kingdom Case Study

Horwood¹

1

0

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<p>For several decades a decolonised museology has been manifest within Western museum practice through, among other things, enhanced indigenous engagement with museums. Even so, indigenous communities still fail to access their cultural heritage housed in museums at distance, when they have no institutional affiliation which can facilitate contact and communication, and because they are often disadvantaged in terms of resources. Furthermore, the museums’ lack of online collection databases, coupled with other practical constraints centred on resources and priorities, inhibits their ability to work with indigenous communities. In post-colonial settler nations the democratisation of museum practice for indigenous collections has been one outcome of the political presence of indigenous peoples and the assertion of indigenous autonomy, as well as the proximity of indigenous communities and museums. Innovative practice has therefore differed from elsewhere as a result of the need for negotiated relationships with indigenous communities and recognition of indigenous authority. This has been the case in New Zealand where Māori epistemological frameworks are acknowledged and there is effective Māori participation within museums. This research addresses this issue of access to indigenous collections when they are held in other countries, and a corresponding gap in the literature, by exploring ways in which Māori communities can negotiate ongoing relationships with museums that hold collections of their ancestral heritage, when they are geographically remote from these collections. Using an analytical framework drawn from assemblage theory, the research has focussed on a detailed, situated New Zealand-United Kingdom case study, and is the first contextualised study over time of a heritage assemblage, comprising a collector and his collection, an indigenous community and a museum. A kaupapa Māori research methodology has enabled the acknowledgement and incorporation of Māori values into the research strategy which is an interdisciplinary approach centred on museum studies, but drawing also on related fields, indigenous knowledge systems and my own professional experience as a curator in a regional museum. The research has also employed methods such as archival research, interviews and hui/focus groups. Through the disassembly of this research assemblage I was able to document the impact of different value systems and epistemologies on access to heritage objects and clarify their meanings for specific communities. A number of entities emerged from this disassembly which were temporally and spatially contingent, and manifest as power, agency and values. Analysis of these entities has revealed their potential for beginning the task of decolonising the museum when power and authority are negotiated within this network and our difficult histories are acknowledged and communicated. Analysis of the data gathered has also reinforced the idea that taonga objectify social relationships in which they are transformed from passive ‘things’ to active actor-entities and as such are capable of enacting relationships prompting contemporary responses from human actors. The research findings show the emergence of an indigenous engagement praxis in which actor-networks are ongoing and reassembling, a process which is visible in contemporary indigenous people’s re-engagement with their museum-held heritage at distance. This praxis combines a range of developments in contemporary museum practice for community engagement which have proved effective in New Zealand and other settler colonies and has potential application elsewhere for community members, academics and museological practitioners when forging relationships based around indigenous cultural heritage collections when distance is a factor.</p>

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“…Numerous authors have explored a multiplicity of aspects of the museum-indigene relationship. Few, however, have applied theoretical models (Kelly, Cook, and Gordon 2006, Krmpotich and Peers 2011, Onciul 2013, described a case study over time connecting the historical and contemporary aspects of a collection and its communities (Hafner 2010, Hafner, Rigsby, andAllen 2007), compared different cultural perspectives (Clavir 2002) and resources, nor identified the agency of indigenous communities in historical collection development (Torrence and Clarke 2013). Additionally, although online access to museum collection databases has been possible for more than a decade, and developments in Web 2.0 based technologies are ongoing, non-web-based means of interacting with ancestral heritage collections in museums are difficult for groups who are geographically remote from these collections.…”

Section: Relationshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is consensus that longstanding relationships between researchers/museums and indigenous communities have been fundamental to the continuation of partnerships between these groups (Christen 2009, Hafner, Rigsby, and Allen 2007, 91, Krmpotich and Peers 2013. Where these partnerships fail is when longstanding relationships end, through the death or withdrawal of key participants or departure of key staff.…”

Section: Indigenous Community-museum Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Worlds Apart: Indigenous Re-engagement with Museum-held Heritage: A New Zealand - United Kingdom Case Study

Horwood¹

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

<p>For several decades a decolonised museology has been manifest within Western museum practice through, among other things, enhanced indigenous engagement with museums. Even so, indigenous communities still fail to access their cultural heritage housed in museums at distance, when they have no institutional affiliation which can facilitate contact and communication, and because they are often disadvantaged in terms of resources. Furthermore, the museums’ lack of online collection databases, coupled with other practical constraints centred on resources and priorities, inhibits their ability to work with indigenous communities. In post-colonial settler nations the democratisation of museum practice for indigenous collections has been one outcome of the political presence of indigenous peoples and the assertion of indigenous autonomy, as well as the proximity of indigenous communities and museums. Innovative practice has therefore differed from elsewhere as a result of the need for negotiated relationships with indigenous communities and recognition of indigenous authority. This has been the case in New Zealand where Māori epistemological frameworks are acknowledged and there is effective Māori participation within museums. This research addresses this issue of access to indigenous collections when they are held in other countries, and a corresponding gap in the literature, by exploring ways in which Māori communities can negotiate ongoing relationships with museums that hold collections of their ancestral heritage, when they are geographically remote from these collections. Using an analytical framework drawn from assemblage theory, the research has focussed on a detailed, situated New Zealand-United Kingdom case study, and is the first contextualised study over time of a heritage assemblage, comprising a collector and his collection, an indigenous community and a museum. A kaupapa Māori research methodology has enabled the acknowledgement and incorporation of Māori values into the research strategy which is an interdisciplinary approach centred on museum studies, but drawing also on related fields, indigenous knowledge systems and my own professional experience as a curator in a regional museum. The research has also employed methods such as archival research, interviews and hui/focus groups. Through the disassembly of this research assemblage I was able to document the impact of different value systems and epistemologies on access to heritage objects and clarify their meanings for specific communities. A number of entities emerged from this disassembly which were temporally and spatially contingent, and manifest as power, agency and values. Analysis of these entities has revealed their potential for beginning the task of decolonising the museum when power and authority are negotiated within this network and our difficult histories are acknowledged and communicated. Analysis of the data gathered has also reinforced the idea that taonga objectify social relationships in which they are transformed from passive ‘things’ to active actor-entities and as such are capable of enacting relationships prompting contemporary responses from human actors. The research findings show the emergence of an indigenous engagement praxis in which actor-networks are ongoing and reassembling, a process which is visible in contemporary indigenous people’s re-engagement with their museum-held heritage at distance. This praxis combines a range of developments in contemporary museum practice for community engagement which have proved effective in New Zealand and other settler colonies and has potential application elsewhere for community members, academics and museological practitioners when forging relationships based around indigenous cultural heritage collections when distance is a factor.</p>

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Museum-Inspired Video Games as a Symbolic Transitional Justice Policy: Overview, Concepts, and Research Directions

Stamou,

Apostolakis,

Ntoa

et al. 2024

ACM Games

3

0

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Video games are maturing as a medium to tell stories inspired by historical struggles and real-life experiences. In this regard, they could work as a mechanism in Transitional Justice pursuit. In this paper, we argue that games can become agents for promoting education, reconciliation and healing. We hence identify means by which museums and video games create empathy, reported in recent literature, and draw inceptive parallels between museum space design philosophies and design choices in modern video game experiences. Finally, we identify in the literature that there is a lack of a framework bringing together experts in memory and heritage studies with game developers, to derive guidelines for developing empathy-inducing games around sensitive topics. Thus, we propose a methodological approach on the creation of such a framework. This framework would instrument a collaborative effort to apply domain adaptation of the strategies and design philosophies for memory and Transitional Justice museum exhibitions to video game storytelling frameworks and mechanics.

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Museums and Memory as Agents of Social Change

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Worlds Apart: Indigenous Re-engagement with Museum-held Heritage: A New Zealand - United Kingdom Case Study

Worlds Apart: Indigenous Re-engagement with Museum-held Heritage: A New Zealand - United Kingdom Case Study

Worlds Apart: Indigenous Re-engagement with Museum-held Heritage: A New Zealand - United Kingdom Case Study

Museum-Inspired Video Games as a Symbolic Transitional Justice Policy: Overview, Concepts, and Research Directions

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