The Art of Minorities: Cultural Representation in Museums of the Middle East and North Africa

by Virginie Rey (Editor)

Overview

How are issues related to identity representation negotiated in Middle Eastern and North African museums? Can museums provide a suitable canvas for minorities to express their voice? Can narratives change and stereotypes be broken and, if so, what kind of identities are being deployed? Against the backdrop of the revolutionary upheavals that have shaken the region in recent years, the contributors to this volume interrogate a range of case studies from across the region – examining how museums engage inclusion, diversity and the politics of minority identities. They bring to the fore the region's diversity and sketches a 'museology of disaster' in which minoritised political subjects regain visibility.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474443777
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	05/30/2022
Series:	Alternative Histories
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Virginie Rey is Research Associate at the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She is co-editor (with Stephen Pascoe and Paul James) of Making Modernity in the Middle East: From the Mashriq to the Maghreb (Arena Publications, 2015) and is author of Mediating Museums: Tunisian Ethnographic Museums (1881-2016) (Brill, 2019).

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Engaging with ‘Minority’ Voices: Cultural Representation in Museums of the Middle East and North AfricaVirginie Rey

Exhibiting Minorities

2. The Ethnographisation of Syrian Society at the Azem Palace of Damascus: From Compact Minorities to Toponymical IdentityVirginie Rey and Stephen Pascoe

3. 'The Performance of Servitude': Negotiating Citizenship, Race, and Gender in Local and National Museums in Bahrain and the UAEJohn Thabiti Willis

4. When the Local Population is a Minority: The Case of the Oudaya Museum in Rabat as a Key to Understand Elitism in Moroccan MuseumsFrancesca de Micheli

5. Past Lodges, Present Prayers: Sufism and Museums in Konya and HacıbektaşLucía Cirianni Salazar

Minorities Exhibiting

6. Museums, Migrant Labourers and Ethnic Spatiality in the United Arab EmiratesSarina Wakefield

7. Paving the Way to a Lebanese National Narrative: Empathy at the Armenian Genocide orphans' Aram Bezikian Museum in LebanonRita Kalindjian and Rhéa Dagher

8. Imperilled Objects and Unsafe Ideas: The Palestinian Museum, BirzeitZoe Holman

9. Egypt’s Coptic Museum: From Patriarchal to NationalDina Bakhoum

10. Branding Convivencia: Jewish Museums and the Reinvention of a Moroccan Andalus in EssaouiraAomar Boum

Imagined Museums

11. Is Tunisia Ready for a Jewish Museum? Perspectives on the Current Debates Surrounding the Status of Jewish Heritage in my CountryHabib Kazdaghli

12. Do I Even Exist? Kurdish Diaspora Artists Reflect on Imaginary Exhibits in a Kurdistan MuseumVera Eccarius-Kelly

13. Islamic State’s Archive of the Digital Infinite: Imagined Museums, New Media and Conflict CapitalismAmanda Rogers

14. Afterword: Minoritised Memory and Affect in a Museology of DisasterKatazyna Pieprzak.

What People are Saying About This

University of California Heghnar Watenpaugh

This book applies the cutting-edge issues in museum studies today – questions of representation, inclusivity and ethics – to the study of cultural institutions in the Middle East and North Africa. Timely, innovative, probing and provocative, this volume makes a novel and long-overdue contribution. An essential book for those concerned with global museum studies, cultural rights, and the history of marginalised groups.

Editorial Reviews

This book applies the cutting-edge issues in museum studies today – questions of representation, inclusivity and ethics – to the study of cultural institutions in the Middle East and North Africa. Timely, innovative, probing and provocative, this volume makes a novel and long-overdue contribution. An essential book for those concerned with global museum studies, cultural rights, and the history of marginalised groups.

University of California Heghnar Watenpaugh