The Future of Indigenous Museums: Perspectives from the Southwest Pacific

by Nick Stanley (Editor)

Overview

Indigenous museums and cultural centres have sprung up across the developing world, and particularly in the Southwest Pacific. They derive from a number of motives, ranging from the commercial to the cultural political (and many combine both). A close study of this phenomenon is not only valuable for museological practice but, as has been argued, it may challenge our current bedrock assumptions about the very nature and purpose of the museum. This book looks to the future of museum practice through examining how museums have evolved particularly in the non-western world to incorporate the present and the future in the display of culture. Of particular concern is the uses to which historic records are put in the service of community development and cultural renaissance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845451882
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	06/01/2007
Series:	Museums and Collections , #1
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nick Stanley is Director of Research and Chair of Postgraduate Studies at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, University of Central England. He has worked on collections and display within museums of Oceanic materials both in Melanesia as well as Europe and North America. His current work is on the artistic production of the Asmat people in West Papua.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Editorial Preface
by Hirini Mead

Introduction: Indigeneity and Museum Practice in the Southwest Pacific
Nick Stanley

PART I: ISLAND MELANESIA

Chapter 1. Resourcing Change: Fieldworkers, the Women’s Culture Project and the Vanuatu Cultural Centre
Lissant Bolton

Chapter 2. The Future of Indigenous Museums: The Solomon Islands Case
Lawrence Foana‘ota

Chapter 3. Dangerous Heritage: Southern New Ireland, the Museum and the Display of the Past
Sean Kingston

Chapter 4. Memory, Violence and Representation in the Tjibaou Cultural Centre, New Caledonia
Diane Losche

Chapter 5. Tourism and Indigenous Curation of Culture in Lifou, New Caledonia
Tate LeFevre

PART II: NORTHERN AUSTRALIA

Chapter 6. The Journey of the Stars: Gab Titui, a Cultural Centre for the Torres Strait
Anita Herle, Jude Philp and Leilani Bin Juda

Chapter 7. ‘Quite Another World of Aboriginal Life’: Indigenous People in an Evolving Museumscape
Eric Venbrux

PART III: NEW GUINEA

Chapter 8. The Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery as a Modern Haus Tumbuna
Sebastian Haraha

Chapter 9. Moving the Centre: Christianity, the Longhouse and the Gogodala Cultural Centre
Alison Dundon

Chapter 10. Indigenous Responses to Political and Economic Challenges: the Babek Bema Yoma at Teptep, Papua New Guinea
Christin Kocher Schmid

Chapter 11. Can Museums become Indigenous? The Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress and Contemporary Papua Nick Stanley

PART IV: REFLECTIONS ON THE FUTURE OF INDIGENOUS MUSEUMS

Chapter 12. The Transformation of Cultural Centres in Papua New Guinea
Robert L. Welsch

Chapter 13. The Theoretical Future of Indigenous Museums: Concept and Practice
Christina Kreps

Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

“…the most thorough examination to date of museums in the south-west Pacific…The book should serve as a valuable resource for museum studies students, academics, historians, museum professionals and development agencies interested in museums and the cultural heritage of Indigenous people in the south-west Pacific.” ·Recollections

From the Publisher