Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections

Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections

Author: Tiffany Jenkins

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-12-14

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 1136897860

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An examination of the construction of contestation over human remains from a sociological perspective, this work advances an emerging area of academic research, setting the terms of debate, synthesizing disparate ideas, & making sense of a broader cultural focus on dead bodies in the contemporary period.


A Museum Studies Approach to Heritage

A Museum Studies Approach to Heritage

Author: Sheila Watson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-08

Total Pages: 1269

ISBN-13: 131736130X

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Heritage’s revival as a respected academic subject has, in part, resulted from an increased awareness and understanding of indigenous rights and non-Western philosophies and practices, and a growing respect for the intangible. Heritage has, thus far, focused on management, tourism and the traditionally ‘heritage-minded’ disciplines, such as archaeology, geography, and social and cultural theory. Widening the scope of international heritage studies, A Museum Studies Approach to Heritage explores heritage through new areas of knowledge, including emotion and affect, the politics of dissent, migration, and intercultural and participatory dimensions of heritage. Drawing on a range of disciplines and the best from established sources, the book includes writing not typically recognised as 'heritage', but which, nevertheless, makes a valuable contribution to the debate about what heritage is, what it can do, and how it works and for whom. Including heritage perspectives from beyond the professional sphere, the book serves as a reminder that heritage is not just an academic concern, but a deeply felt and keenly valued public and private practice. This blending of traditional topics and emerging trends, established theory and concepts from other disciplines offers readers international views of the past and future of this growing field. A Museum Studies Approach to Heritage offers a wider, more current and more inclusive overview of issues and practices in heritage and its intersection with museums. As such, the book will be essential reading for postgraduate students of heritage and museum studies. It will also be of great interest to academics, practitioners and anyone else who is interested in how we conceptualise and use the past.


Museums, Infinity and the Culture of Protocols

Museums, Infinity and the Culture of Protocols

Author: Howard Morphy

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-10-17

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 1351339540

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Museums, Infinity and the Culture of Protocols enters a dialogue about museums’ responsibility for the curation of their collections into an infinite future while also tackling contentious issues of repatriation and digital access to collections. Bringing into focus a number of key debates centred on ethnographic collections and their relationship with source communities, Morphy considers the value material objects have to different ‘local’ communities – the museum and the source community – and the value-creation processes with which they are entangled. The focus on values and value brings the issue of repatriation and access into a dialogue between the two locals, questioning who has access to collections and whose values are taken into consideration. Placing the museum itself firmly at the centre of the debate, Morphy posits that museums constitute a kind of ‘local’ embedded in a trajectory of value. Museums, Infinity and the Culture of Protocols challenges aspects of postcolonial theory that position museums in the past by presenting an argument that places relationships with communities as central to the future of museums. This makes the book essential reading for academics and students working in the fields of museum and heritage studies, anthropology, archaeology, Indigenous studies, cultural studies, and history.


Keeping Their Marbles

Keeping Their Marbles

Author: Tiffany Jenkins

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-02-08

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 0198817185

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For the past two centuries and more, the West has acquired the treasures of antiquity to fill its museums, so that visitors to the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan in New York - to name but a few - can wonder at the ingenuity of humanity throughout the ages. However, in the opinion of most people, many of these items are looted property and should be returned immediately. In 'Keeping Their Marbles', Tiffany Jenkins tells the intriguing and sometimes bloody story of how the West came to acquire these treasures. Originally published: 2016.


The Oxford Handbook of Museum Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Museum Archaeology

Author: Alice Stevenson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-08-25

Total Pages: 663

ISBN-13: 0192586750

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This Handbook provides a transnational reference point for critical engagements with the legacies of, and futures for, global archaeological collections. It challenges the common misconception that museum archaeology is simply a set of procedures for managing and exhibiting assemblages. Instead, this volume advances museum archaeology as an area of reflexive research and practice addressing the critical issues of what gets prioritized by and researched in museums, by whom, how, and why. Through twenty-eight chapters, authors problematize and suggest new ways of thinking about historic, contemporary, and future relationships between archaeological fieldwork and museums, as well as the array of institutional and cultural paradigms through which archaeological enquiries are mediated. Case studies embrace not just archaeological finds, but also archival field notes, photographic media, archaeological samples, and replicas. Throughout, museum activities are put into dialogue with other aspects of archaeological practice, with the aim of situating museum work within a more holistic archaeology that does not privilege excavation or field survey above other aspects of disciplinary engagement. These concerns will be grounded in the realities of museums internationally, including Latin America, Africa, Asia, Oceania, North America, and Europe. In so doing, the common heritage sector refrain 'best practice' is not assumed to solely emanate from developed countries or European philosophies, but instead is considered as emerging from and accommodated within local concerns and diverse museum cultures.


Archaeologists and the Dead

Archaeologists and the Dead

Author: Howard Williams

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 486

ISBN-13: 0198753535

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This volume addresses the relationship between archaeologists and the dead, through the many dimensions of their relationships: in the field (through practical and legal issues), in the lab (through their analysis and interpretation), and in their written, visual and exhibitionary practice--disseminated to a variety of academic and public audiences. Written from a variety of perspectives, its authors address the experience, effect, ethical considerations, and cultural politics of working with mortuary archaeology. Whilst some papers reflect institutional or organizational approaches, others are more personal in their view: creating exciting and frank insights into contemporary issues that have hitherto often remained "unspoken" among the discipline. Reframing funerary archaeologists as "death-workers" of a kind, the contributors reflect on their own experience to provide both guidance and inspiration to future practitioners, arguing strongly that we have a central role to play in engaging the public with themes of mortality and commemoration, through the lens of the past. Spurred by the recent debates in the UK, papers from Scandinavia, Austria, Italy, the US, and the mid-Atlantic, frame these issues within a much wider international context that highlights the importance of cultural and historical context in which this work takes place.


Museums and Archaeology

Museums and Archaeology

Author: Robin Skeates

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-06-19

Total Pages: 685

ISBN-13: 1000784665

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Museums and Archaeology brings together a wide, but carefully chosen, selection of literature from around the world that connects museums and archaeology. Part of the successful Leicester Readers in Museum Studies series, it provides a combination of issue- and practice-based perspectives. As such, it is a volume not only for students and researchers from a range of disciplines interested in museum, gallery and heritage studies, including public archaeology and cultural resource management (CRM), but also the wide range of professionals and volunteers in the museum and heritage sector who work with archaeological collections. The volume’s balance of theory and practice and its thematic and geographical breadth is explored and explained in an extended introduction, which situates the readings in the context of the extensive literature on museum archaeology, highlighting the many tensions that exist between idealistic ‘principles’ and real-life ‘practice’ and the debates that surround these. In addition to this, section introductions and the seminal pieces themselves provide a comprehensive and contextualised resource on the interplay of museums and archaeology.


Worlds in a Museum

Worlds in a Museum

Author: Louvre Abu Dhabi

Publisher: Leuven University Press

Published: 2020-09-30

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 9462702330

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Held on the occasion of Louvre Abu Dhabi’s first anniversary, the symposium Worlds in a Museum addressed the topic of museums in the era of globalisation, exploring contemporary museology and the preservation and presentation of culture within the context of changing societies. Departing from the historical museum structure inherited from the Enlightenment, leading experts from art, cultural, and academic institutions explore present-day achievements and challenges in the study, display and interpretation of art, history, and artefacts. How are “global” and “local” objects and narratives balanced – particularly in consideration of diverse audiences? How do we foster perspective and multiculturalism while addressing politicised notions of centre and periphery? As they abandon classical canons and categories, how are museums and cultural entities redefining themselves beyond predefined concepts of geography and history? This collection of essays arises from the symposium Worlds in a Museum organised by Louvre Abu Dhabi and École du Louvre.


The Fate of Anatomical Collections

The Fate of Anatomical Collections

Author: Rina Knoeff

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-09

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1317031938

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Almost every medical faculty possesses anatomical and/or pathological collections: human and animal preparations, wax- and other models, as well as drawings, photographs, documents and archives relating to them. In many institutions these collections are well-preserved, but in others they are poorly maintained and rendered inaccessible to medical and other audiences. This volume explores the changing status of anatomical collections from the early modern period to date. It is argued that anatomical and pathological collections are medically relevant not only for future generations of medical faculty and future research, but they are also important in the history of medicine, the history of the institutions to which they belong, and to the wider understanding of the cultural history of the body. Moreover, anatomical collections are crucial to new scholarly inter-disciplinary studies that investigate the interaction between arts and sciences, especially medicine, and offer a venue for the study of interactions between anatomists, scientists, anatomical artists and other groups, as well as the display and presentation of natural history and medical cabinets. In considering the fate of anatomical collections - and the importance of the keeper’s decisions with respect to collections - this volume will make an important methodological contribution to the study of collections and to discussions on how to preserve universities’ academic heritage.


Collections Vol 14 N1

Collections Vol 14 N1

Author: Juilee Decker

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-08-15

Total Pages: 121

ISBN-13: 1538119951

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Four articles cover archival practices at a small liberal arts college, repatriation of sacred objects, emergence of the African art collection at The Kreeger Museum, and exhibit creation process at The Rockefeller Archive Center.