Museums and Communities: Diversity, Dialogue and Collaboration in an Age of Migrations 1527516083, 9781527516083

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Part Two
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Part Three
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part Four
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part Five
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Bibliography
Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Museums and Communities

Museums and Communities: Diversity, Dialogue and Collaboration in an Age ofMigrations Edited by

Viv Golding and Jen Walklate

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Museums and Communities: Diversity, Dialogue and Collaboration in anAge of Migrations Edited by Viv Golding and J en Walldate This book first published 2019 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2019 by Viv Golding, J en Walklate and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part ofthis book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any fonn or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior pennission ofthe copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-1608-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-1608-3

ICOM-ICME dedicates this book to all those stil/looking/or home.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ...................................................................................... x Introduction Crossing the Frontier: Locating Museums and Communities in an Age of Migrations Viv Golding and Jen Walklate

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1

Part One: Revisiting the Contact Zone and Travelling Theory

Chapter One Museums and a Progressive Sense of Place Christopher Whitehead and Francesca Lanz

20

Chapter Two How Lombroso Museum became a Pemmnent Conflict Zone Maria Teresa Milicia

42

...............................................................................................

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Chapter Three 61 On the Way Out? The Current Transformations of Ethnographic Museums Ulf Johansson Dahre ............................................................................................

Part Two: Identities, Ethnicities, Objects and Difficult Histories

Chapter Four When Objects of Religious Significance Mediate Power Carsten Viggo Nielsen

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88

Chapter Five 106 How Museums Identify and Face Challenges with Diverse Communities Chi Thien Pham ............................................................................................

Chapter Six The Vanishing Category of "The Others"? Refugees, Life Stories, and Museums Anette Rein

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120

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Table of Contents

Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 138 Divergent Memories for Malaysian Nation-Building Pi-Chun Chang Part Three: Borderlands and Bridges: Engaging Audiences beyond

Nations

Chapter Eight. .......................................................................................... 156 The Remote Local: Travelling Exhibitions and New Practices in China Heng Wu Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 171 Diverse Audiences or a Single Target Public: The Etlinographic Collections of Ghent University in Belgium and its Interdependency with Diverse Ethnic and Cultural Audiences Pauline van der Zee Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 190 The Vietnamese Women's Museum: Social Roles and Human Rights in Contemporary Society Le Thj Thuy Hoan Part Four: The Politics of Belonging: Art, Refuge and Citizenship

Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 204 Sharing Authority: "The Art of Making a Difference" Anna Maria Pecci Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 216 Refugees are in Front of Our Doors! Endeavours by the Slovene Ethnographic Museum towards the Deconstruction of Stereotypes and Prejudice Mojca Ratio and Ralf Ceplak Mencin Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 230 Selfies, Yoga and Hip Hop: Expanding the Role of Museums Maria Camilla De Palma

IX

Museums and Conununities

Part Five: Coming to Our Senses in the Digital Age

Chapter Fourteen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Role of the Museum in the Digital Age Y oshikazu Ogawa, Motoko Harada and Mika Matsuo

.

. . . . . . . . 260

Chapter Fifteen 274 Migration and Cultural Soundscapes Curating the Sounds of Diversity in Oslo, Norway Hans Philip Einarsen .......................................................................................

Chapter Sixteen Indigenous Makers and the Animation of Digital Narratives Heather Howard, Marsha MacDowell, Judy Pierzynowski and Laura Smith

290

Chapter Seventeen Who Were They? Repatriation and the Rehumanisation of Human Remains in Museums in Southern Africa Wendy Black, Catherine e Cole, Winani Thebele, Morongwa N. Mosothwane, Rooksana Omar and Jeremy Silvester

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308

Bibliography

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322

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358

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369

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Contributors Index

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 0.1 "We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again" wall projection at the F. W. Woolworth's diner interactive at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), Washington DC. Photo by Viv Golding, with grateful thanks to the NMAAHC. Figure 0.2 "Menu of movements: sit-ins, freedom rides, bus boycotts, school desegregation, marches, black power, grassroots leadership", interactive table at the F. W. Woolworth's diner interactive at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), Washington DC. Photo by Viv Golding, with grateful thanks to the NMAAHC. Figure 0.3 "Marches organization". Select from conflicting pieces of advice on how to organise your march in protest against voter discrimination following attacks on civil rights activists outside Selma Alabama in 1965, interactive table at the F. W. Woolworth's diner interactive at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), Washington DC. Photo by Viv Golding, with grateful thanks to the NMAAH. Figure 0.4 "Activism", James Baldwin section at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), Washington DC. Photo by Viv Golding, with grateful thanks to the NMAAHC. Figure 1 . 1 Internal view of York Castle Museum, United Kingdom. Photo by Christopher Whitehead. Figure 1.2 Exhibition Local Chats. City-Migration-History at Friedrichshain­ Kreuzberg Museum, Berlin, Germany. Photo by Christopher Whitehead. Figure 1.3 Exhibition Europe Meets the World at the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. Photo by Francesca Lanz. Figure 2.1 Detail of Fontanelle Cemetery. Photo by Maria Teresa Milicia. Figure 2.2 Bricks of Memory of the Two Sicilies Peoples. Ceremony for the Wall of Memory of the Two Sicilies peoples, Gaeta, February 1 1 , 2017. Photo by Maria Teresa Milicia. Figure 2.3 Home Office of Cesare Lombroso. Photo © Lombroso Museum, courtesy of Lombroso Museum. Figure 4.1. Inter-liminality in Museums, Carsten Viggo Nielsen 2017.

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xi

Figures 6.1 and 6.2 March 5, 2016 Celebrating the "International Women's Day" witb refugees from Afghanistan and Irak and the music group from Bridges - Musik verbindet (from left to right with Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff, Ustad Guhlam Hossain, Mirweis Neda. Photos © Anette Rein. Figure 6.3 "Kunst fur Fliichtlinge" ("Art for Refugees"). Photo © Helmut Beier September 2016, Ludwig Museum Koblenz. Figures 6.4 and 6.5 Multaka - a guided tour witb refugees in the Museum for Islamic Art. March 16, 2016. Photos © Anette Rein. Figure 7.1. MPAJA were welcomed by local residents after Japan surrendered in 1945. Photo courtesy Center for Malaysian Chinese Studies. Figure 7.2. News report on widespread support for the Hartal (strike). Photo courtesy Center for Malaysian Chinese Studies. Figure 9.1 Ivory Coast Expedition box. Copyright Ghent University Museum. Photo by Benn Deceuninck. Figure 9.2 Hopi katchina. Copyright Ghent University Museum. Photo by Benn Deceuninck. Figure 9.3 Greetings to katchina. Copyright Ghent University Museum. Photo by Benn Deceuninck. Figure 9.4 Griot Tshitenge. Photo VZW Aksante. Figure 10.1 Display of women selling from bicycles at tbe Vietnamese Women's Museum. Photo by Viv Golding, witb grateful thanks to the Vietnamese Women's Museum. Figure 10.2 Display of women sheros at the Vietnamese Women's Museum. Photo by Viv Golding, with grateful tbanks to the Vietnamese Women's Museum. Figures 12.1 In mid-November 2015, Tanja Rozenbergar, Mojca Ratio, Gregor !las and Ralf Ceplak Mencin carried out voluntary work with refugees and migrants in the Sentilj refugee centre, organised by the Slovenska filantropija. NGO. Photo by Tanja Rozenbergar and Ralf Ceplak Mencin. Figure 12.2 The artistic installation Waiting, 3 December 2015 until 17 January 2016. Photo by Miha Spioek. Figure 12.3 Idomeni refugee centre, 20 March 2016. Photo by Ralf Ceplak Mencin. Figure 12.4 Idomeni on the border between Greece and Macedonia, 20 March 2016. Photo by Jure Rus. Figure 12.5 Basket-weaving workshop. Photo by Jure Rus. Figure 13.1. Castello D'Albertis Museum of World Cultures, Genoa. Photo by Maria Camilla De Palma.

xii

List of Illustrations

Figure 13.2. Captain D'Albertis's perspective on classifying "Others", 1892. Photo by Maria Camilla De Palma. Figure 13.3. Dance Workshop. Photo by Maria Camilla De Palma. Figure 13.4. Sensoriale, 2017. Photo by Maria Camilla De Palma. Figure 14.1 Continuous Education Program Framework to Foster Science Literacy. Figure 14.2. Overview of the Science Literacy Passport � (PCALi) system. Image by Yoshikazu Ogawa. Figure 14.3 "Nomads" and "Residents". Images by Hideto Okuyama, Yoshikazu Ogawa. Figure 14.4 The Role of the Museum in the Contemporary Digital Age. Figure 16.1 Anishinaabe Makers and Apprentices, Meeting in Petoskey, Michigan, August 26, 2017. Photo by Heather A. Howard. Figure 16.2 Wasson (Renee Dillard) at MSU Museum stores with an example of her family's finger-weaving and woven bags May 5, 2017. Photo by Laura E. Smith. Figure 16.3 Yvonne Walker Keshick with her granddaughter demonstrating and teaching quillwork on birch bark at the Great Lakes Folk Festival, East Lansing, August 8, 2015. Photo by Pearl Yee Wong. Figure 16.4 Judy Pierzynowski with a woven cedar mat held in MSU Museum collections (3201CW). Photo by Pearl Yee Wong. Figure 16.5 Hummingbird design quillbox made from porcupine quills and birch bark signed by the maker M. Aguonie, 9" x 3 1/2" dimensions. (MSU Museum collections 2017:24.1 13). Photo by Pearl Yee Wong. Figure 17.1. Photograph showing skulls and bones in western Ovamboland near Mwanyangapo's homestead, a fortified baobab tree, in Ombalantu, northern Namibia in 1917. Photo. NAN 14157 R. Dickman. Figure 17.2. Major Pritchard, the first South African officer to visit northern Namibia, in 1915, inspects a skeleton from the famine III Ondonga. Photo. NAN 14167 R. Dickman. Figure 17.3. The remains of a San child that were on display III Swakopmund Museum (provided by "Native Commissioner" Harold Eedes). The remains were later removed from display. Photo. NAN 20124. Swakopmund Museum. Figure 17.4. One of several photographs showing the body of Ohamba (King) Mandume ya Ndemufayo, being displayed by Southern African soldiers, after his death in 1917, fuelled the belief that he was decapitated and that his skull might be in a museum. Photo NAN 19991. Figure 17.5. A letter from George Lennox (A.K.A. "Scotty Smith") to Louis Peringuey, Director of the South African Museum (dated 19

Museums and Comrlllmities

xiii

November, 1910) describing a collection of "specimens" tbat had been obtained from farmers and described as "Bushmen". Photo courtesy IZIKO Archive.

INTRODUCTION CROSSING THE FRONTIER: LOCATING MUSEUMS AND COMMUNITIES IN AN AGE OF MIGRATIONS VIV GOLDING AND JEN WALKLATE

Introduction We live in an age of anxiety, and museums, as inherently anxious institutions (Walklate 2018; Modest and De Koning 2016), are caught up in this collective unease. Museums and Communities: Diversity, Dialogue and Collaboration in an Age of Migrations appears against a global background of conflict and unrest. Much of that disturbance-the Trump presidency, Brexit-seems to have to do with borders, with locking the "we" in, and locking the "Other" out. This book, on the other hand, seeks to explore and embrace such "frontier" zones (Golding 2016) that are a subject of current concern for rCOM (the International Council of Museums) in general and for rCME (the International Council of Museums and Collections of Ethnography) in particular. rCOM's website states that they are a "unique network of more than 37,000 members and museum professionals" seeking to "represent the global museum connnunity" and "respond to the challenges museums face worldwide" (rCOM n.d.). Museums are not homogenous; they range from tiny local museums with limited resources and staff to vast encyclopedic sites such as the Louvre in France, with its international work in Abu Dhabi. Finding a common language or "shared framework" from which to effectively critique the fundamental differences, values and assumptions that linger from earlier periods is a vital task for rCOM today, as stated by the MDPP's Standing Committee pages (rCOM n.d.b). From all over the world this volume showcases and surveys the wide variety of ways in which museums and communities are traversing their intersectional peripheral spaces, and are pointing a way forward to a place

2

Introduction

beyond strict curator/connnunity divisions (Golding and Modest 2014, 2), beyond us/tbem binaries, and beyond fearful stereotypes. Four concepts lie at the heart of this book: communities; diversity; dialogue; and collaboration. Before we present the contents, it is necessary to define these concepts in this particular context, in order to challenge western dominance and embrace the inclusivity sought by ICME. None of these terms are unambiguous, and all of them are complex and debated; this we acknowledge. But we also acknowledge tbe need for a clarity of stance; Of, at least, a shared (mis)understanding oftelTIls.

Frontier-speak: Communities, Diversity, Dialogue and Collaboration "Communities" is neither a simple nor uncontested word (Watson 2007, 3). Whether considered in tbe abstract or tbe specific, the edges of "communities" are shifting and ambiguous. Community has been efficiently identified as a sense of belonging (Kavanagh 1990, 68); however, belonging is not enough to define community. Sheila Watson argued that communities were formed along two axis: how individuals see themselves, and how tbey are seen by others (Watson 2007). However, the decade since the writing of this definition has seen greater granularity appear in the museological idea of connnunity. Though some of the connnunities in this volume are indeed identified as such by external sources, such identification from the outside is less about a "sense of belonging", and more about clearly defining a demographic within a wider political and philosophical context. Communities and museums exist within intersecting networks that are impacted by contested histories, politics, economics and value systems. Perhaps most importantly, in the global contemporary museums are increasingly seeking to acknowledge historical wrongs and engage in activist practice to address negative legacies such as racism and sexism that impact on the present. To take just one example, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC, which opened on 24 September 2016 and has visitor waiting lists of three montbs, admirably highlights the social role of the museum today. Over five floors, the displays, moving from the earliest horrors of enslavement to the enduring struggles for human rights and social justice, as well as the Sweet Home cafe space, make this an exemplary museum celebrating the resiliance, creativity and diversity of a "community". Founding Director Lonnie G. Bunch III and his tearn have clearly worked tirelessly to ensure there are ample opportunities for visitor

Crossing the Frontier

3

reflection and engagement in the strong themes of resistance and activism on every floor. One exhibition on floor C2 (see Figures 0.1-0.4) considers the time on 1 February in 1960, when four Black stndents sat in the whites' only Woolworth Lunch Counter, Greensboro, North Carolina. They were refused service but continued to sit "for justice" all day until closing time. The next day twenty-five students arrived to sit for equal rights and refused to move despite being spat at and physically threatened. Over six months increasing numbers of students, Black and white, engaged in passive resistance in the diner until the policy changed. Here on C2, the exhibition features an authentic green stool from the period, a projection of activist events over one wall and a huge interactive lunch counter where visitors sit and work in conversation, to decide together what particular periods of this history to explore and what action they would have taken.

Figure 0.1 "We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over

again" wall projection at the F. W. Woolworth's diner interactive at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), Washington DC. Photo by Viv Golding, with grateful thanks to the NMAAHC.

4

Introduction

\ \ , D ,

D , C , 0,

Figure 0.2 "Menu of movements: sit-ins, freedom rides, bus boycotts, school desegregation, marches, black power, grassroots leadership", interactive table at the F . W. Woolworth's diner interactive at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), Washington DC. Photo by Viv Golding, with grateful thanks to the NMAAHC.

Crossing the Frontier

5

Figure 0.3 "Marches organization". Select from conflicting pieces of advice on how to organise your march in protest against voter discrimination following attacks on civil rights activists outside Selma Alabama in 1 965, interactive table at the F . W. Woolworth's diner interactive at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), Washington DC. Photo by Viv Golding, with grateful thanks to the NMAAHC.

6

Introduction

ACTIVIS Figure 0.4 "Activism", James Baldwin section at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), Washington DC. Photo by Viv Golding, with grateful thanks to the NMAAHC.

The importance of taking action across barriers including ethnicity, gender, class and sexual preference is foregrounded in excellent wall text throughout. Two examples illustrate this point: Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to recognise our need of one another (Desmond Tutu). I have not been animate in my life to fight against race and sex discrimination simply because of my own identity. That would mean that one must be south African to fight Apartheid, or a poor white in Appalachia to fight poverty, or Jewish to fight Anti-Semitism (Eleanor Holmes Norton).

It is notable that this attention to activism and human rights does not entail the loss of "scholarship" at the NMAAHC, since Bunch's team share their curatorial authority of with a range of diverse voices to include the knowledges, memories and objects of a community. The NMAAHC vitally emphasises the complexity of this community within a wider

Crossing the Frontier

7

political field. As Cornel West notes, "America . . . needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and re-make it" (NMAAHC wall text). Reimagining the individual and the community may be seen as a key role for the activist museum. If auto-identification is indeed one "essential defining factor" of a community, then any attempt from external bodies to locate and, too often, disparage communities, requires not just observation, but activism and conversation, empowering individuals with the authority to self-define. An individual who appears to the outside observer to have all the characteristics of belonging to any given community may not identify themselves as such in a significant way-or even, at all. As The NMAAHC and others acknowledge, neither do individuals exclusively belong to any single community. Individuals will, at any given time, associate themselves with a variety of different groups, which they may consider to be communities, and which they may move in and out of as their identities continue to shift over the course of their lives. Perhaps it is worth considering communities as kinds of abstracted "spaces", in which people take different positions at center or periphery, depending on commitments, inclination and social factors. Thus communities are not homogeneous and singular, and individual members of communities are always intersectional. This, in tum, points to another oft repeated truism that must be acknowledged. "Communities" is a telTIl that has, historically, been used primarily in the positive-at least, in regard to museums. But, as Viv Golding has identified, communities can also be exclusionary (Golding 2013a, 20). Those who possess some of the attributes of community membership, alongside attributes from Other communities which are considered not to belong may well be exorcised. As a consequence, although an individual then may think of themselves as belonging, the community itself may deny them that choice. The definition of community as "individual belonging" thus faces real-world opposition from demographers and opposition from within communities themselves. We are left, then, with communities as internally heterogeneous, potentially intersectional, and exclusionary on some axis, but held together by the communication of some commonality-whether of history, culture, experience, or personal characteristic. Given such a definition, it is time to turn to diversity. In Valuing Diversity: The Case for Inclusive Museums, the UK Museums Association (MA) defined diversity as "any characteristic which can differentiate groups and individuals from one another." (Turtle 2016, 3). Their definition included not only protected characteristics, but others, such as socio-economic background, values, perspectives, and life

8

Introduction

experiences. Key to developing diversity in the sector was an integration of audience development with that of the workforce (ibid, 7). However, diversity is another of those words which is used in a primarily positive way by museums; and yet it is not unambiguously considered so. For the Inc1useum blog, Porchia Moore wrote provocatively of the need to end diversity initiatives, viewing them as primarily "racially coded" attempts to include minority groups some of the time, whilst still retaining a white majority as the core audience (Moore 2014). This apparently positive act, then, can also become an act of othering in the museum context, and can further cement barriers which exist between different groups. This, Moore writes, is untenable, as society continues to become more complex and multi-racial (Moore 2014). Instead, she suggests museums should move towards a "kaleidoscopic vision" in which individuals feel as invested in other cultures as they do their O\vn, and in which there is a shared "passion for culture and memory" (Moore 2014). Rose Kinsley, who fOlmded the Incluseum, writes passionately about the need for museums to be more inclusive, arguing that it is not a matter of metrics, but of social justice (Kinsley 2016). She suggests that, hitherto fore, efforts at inclusion have failed, " . . . because there has been (1) insufficient attention to demands of recognition and (2) insufficient coordination of redistribution and recognition endeavours" (Kinsley 2016, 475). Using Fraser (1995, 2007) and Fraser and Honneth's (2003) "two­ dimensional theory of social justice", she frames the ways in which museums might succeed in their inclusion efforts through "redistribution and recognition remedies, coordinated and balanced within a scope of radical transformation" (486); that is, redistribution (as something addressing socio-economic injustice) and recognition (as acceptance of non-dominant cultural practices, as non-erasure, and as respect for difference) as acts which dismantle inequitable underlying cultural frameworks (transformative remedies) rather than simply correcting inequitable outcomes without removing or changing the underlying problem (affirmative remedies) (479). It is through the lens of transfOlmation-with affimmtion as a stepping stone-that this book seeks to look at communities, boundaries, diversity, and dialogue. \¥hat is needed, then, is a critical diversity, defined by Cedric Herring and Loren Henderson as a type of diversity perspective which "confronts issues of oppression and stratification that revolve around issues of diversity. [which] . . . challenges hegemonic notions of colorblindness and meritocracy" (Herring and Henderson 201 1 , 632). For true diversity to exist in the museum space, it is not enough to simply seek to recruit more staff from underprivileged/underrepresented groups-what is needed is

Crossing the Frontier

9

radical change in qualification requirements, and routes to success (Kinsley 2016, 482-483). It is this kind of diversity perspective that the editors of this book hold dear, and would like to see represented in practice. Of course, diversity carmot be engaged in without conversation-the dialogue of this volume's title. Dialogue is also a prerequisite for collaboration, the fourth of our telTIls; it is, then, essential that we define precisely what we mean by it here. It comes from the Greek, dialogos, meaning "conversation", and it does not mean a conversation between two people only-the dia in dialogos means not "two", but "across" (etymonline). The -Zogue element comes from -Zegein, "speak", from the ProtoIndoEuropean root Zeg- "to collect, to gather". This idea of speaking across, of gathering, is perhaps reminiscent of the type of dialogues written of in this book; acts of coming together, of gathering, of moving across borders. Even museums are dialogue artefacts; collections, material communication, gathering together across time, and across space. They are, then, a natural place for the perfolTIlance of conversation across cultural, social, and economic barriers, and key locations at which we need, for a more equitable society, to dismantle these barriers, through communication: through dialogue. Conceiving of cultural heritage as a "social construction" and meaning as negotiated, this is precisely the type of action that the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the University of Turin took in their project "Tounge to Tounge"-referred to later in this text by the project coordinator, Anna Maria Pecci-which was part of the MAP for ill initiative ("Museums as Places for Intercultural Dialogue") (pecci 2012, 334). According to the results of the evaluative process, the project succeeded in exploring the connecting function of the Museum and in promoting it as an arena of meanings that generate knowledge, rather than reproducing it. Taking part in the project meant a great innovation for the institution, since it allowed for a renewed interdisciplinary approach towards scientific heritage, in order to see objects not as mere instruments of knowledge but as means for increasing intercultural llllderstanding, thus contributing to social inclusion and cohesion (Pecci 2012, 334-335).

This, then, is the key to dialogue; that it is not monologic, that it does not, in its ideal fOlTIl, telegraph information and meaning-it makes it. This is the key to understanding museums as dialogic spaces-spaces which are about the creation, not the imparting, of knowledge. Spaces of the "contact zone"-perhaps.

10

Introduction

Golding (2016; 2017) employs a dialogical model of learning, engagement and understanding in museums. She draws on Hans-Georg Gadarner to observe the importance of opening oneself to another in the to and fro of conversation, which is never completed but only adjourned, to be picked up again and again throughout our lives. Openness here requires closely looking at the histories and traditions from whence we emerge and the root of our presumptions or prejudices in these. Golding points to an optimistic thesis grounded in decades of practice at the Homiman Museum and the University of Leicester's School of Museum Studies, as well as in ICME. Most importantly she foregrounds Gadamer's rather abstract philosophical understanding of dialogue ni the Black feminist thought of politically aware creative writers such as Joan Anim-Addo, Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde. In this way she views the possibility of future understanding in the fusion of horizons or vie\vpoints that can occur when traditions meet in conversation, while locating this at a political region defmed as the museum frontiers. The dialogic museum requires collaboration, our fmal tenn . Collaboration is, indeed, a nominal cornerstone of the post-colonial and new museologies: we might find examples of it in the work of Laura Peers and Alison Brown at the Pitt Rivers (2003), or with Marie-Pierre Gadoua at the McCord Museum, working with Inuit elders (2014). But the question remains as to where power lies in any of these activities. In 2011, Robin Boast wrote of the need to question the "contact zone" concept, This paper, while being openly supportive of such collaborations in musemns, is nevertheless critical of the use of the contact zone concept. Returning to Clifford's essays, as well as those of Pratt and others, this paper questions why musemn scholars perpetuate only a partial portrait of the contact zone, despite clear warnings about its inherent asymmetry (Boast 2011, 56).

It is not that the ethical work which has been done has been wrong, per se-what Boast wants to destablise is the idea that sits at the heart of much of it: the museum as contact zone. Returning to the earliest papers on the telTIl, Boast points to the imbalances of power which exist within it. Boast quotes the following extract from Mary Louise Pratt, I use this term to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today (pratt 1991, 34).

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The contact zone is not a space of equitable exchange, but a space in which asymmetry exists, and can be perpetuated. Perhaps it is here that we need to return to the conversation on affimmtive and transfOlmative justice, whilst recognising that transfOlmative justice can be traumatic for those whom have been the dominant parties, . . . whites who are so accustomed to accessing privilege also feel discriminated against when they can no longer access that privilege. This feels like discrimination to them, if only because they feel entitled . . . So being denied privilege feels as real as being denied opportunity feels for those people of color who are discriminated against (Herring and Henderson 201 1 , 637).

Enacting truly transfonnative justice is hard; it is easier to take part in what Kinsley calls "affirmative" practice and enact temporary or apparent changes whilst failing to truly engage in structural revolution. Perhaps we need to understand the idea of the contact zone as an affinnative panacea, which to some people appears to produce "appropriate" and egalitarian contact; but which, in point of fact, is a sticking plaster over the wall which prevents the non-dominant from accessing the privilege of the dominant, and avoiding putting the dominant in that position of feeling denied. Boast writes, indeed, that, . . . contact zones are not really sites of reciprocity. They are, despite the best efforts of people like Jim Mason, asymmetric spaces of appropriation. No matter how much we try to make the spaces accommodating, they remain sites where the Others come to perform for us, not with us (Boast 201 1 , 63).

Collaboration, then, is something that museums need to reconsider, when they are-perhaps unwittingly-perpetuating neocolonial structures in their simple use of complex ideas, such as the contact zone. Perhaps we should be thinking more analytically, and perhaps less negatively, about the idea of the museum as "conflict zone" (Clifford 1997, 207). The tendency of museums to see conflict as a bad thing-and at times to actively avoid it-precludes a more critical understanding of this experience as productive. Perhaps it is time to tbink about allowing tbose oppressed by the activities of museums and their institutional partners to have their voice; and that what they say might not be what museums want to hear. Transfonnation does not arise without some form of agitation and disruption: acknowledging tbe conflict zone might be a way to effect real and lasting change.

12

Introduction ***

We've begun to defme, or at least explore, the telTIlS with which we are grappling in this volume. What are we left with? Communities which are both inclusive and exclusionary; diversity which requires a critical reconsideration and transformative trauma; dialogue which is not speech, which is not declamatory, but shared; collaboration which is not as good as perhaps we hope it is. We are left within the anxious space of uncertainty, of the ambiguous, a space which forces practitioners and academics to question even those things we think are good. Welcome to the frontier zone.

Writing at the Borderlands This book is divided into five sections: (1) Revisiting the Contact Zone and Travelling Theory; (2) Identities, Ethnicities, Objects and Difficult Histories; (3) Borderlands and Bridges: Engaging Audiences Beyond Nations; (4) The Politics of Belonging: Art, Refuge and Citizenship; and (5) Coming to Our Senses in the Digital Age. Each paper is selected from one of two conferences-Vietnam 2015, Museums and Communities: Diversity, Dialogue, Collaboration and Milan 2016, Museums and Cultural Landscapes: Curating Peoples, Places and Entanglements in an age ofMigrations, and all engage with a variety of questions which ICME has encountered over a number of years. How is it possible to reinterpret or imagine historical collections? Can we engage new audiences and source communities; and how? Can we collaborate-what does this mean? Can some of this be done using technology, or is technology a distraction, even a danger? Can museums inculcate actual intercultural communication; not simply affirmation, but transformation? Can they deal willi difficult pasts-those they show, and those to which they belong-in order to produce such transformation?

Revisiting the Contact Zone and Travelling Theory The three chapters of this first section focus on "place", how it is laden with conflict and how it is changing in the contemporary world. Museums are understood here as types of place in which conflict, change, and, at best, transfOlmation can occur, and how they can themselves act as symbols for wider conflicts, in wider places.

Crossing the Frontier

13

The first chapter, "Museums and a Progressive Sense of Place", by Christopher Whitehead and Francesca Lanz, offers a potentially transfOlmative reconceptualisation of the idea of the museum place. Here, belonging is centred, and place is understood in Masseain telTIlS as "progressive"; as locations where ideas, beliefs, senses of identity and social relations can converge, and reconnect, and conflict, in this increasingly heterogeneous world. The authors use the work of Doreen Massey to explore how museums might contribute to the development of progressive senses of place, particularly in the contemporary context of migration and increased xenophobia. A "progressive sense of place", they argue, does not mean ignoring historical or contemporary trauma, or pretending that everything is alright. "A progressive sense of place," they write, "involves a necessary questioning of the assumptions behind, and the roots of, situated antagonisms." The second chapter, "How Lombroso Museum Became a PelTIlanent Conflict Zone", by Maria Teresa Milicia, is based on a very situated antagonism-that between the Neo-Bourbon movement and the Piedmontese-which crystalised in the fOlTIl of protest against the opening of the Museum of Criminal Anthropology, "Cesare Lombroso". The conflict between the Northern and Southern halves of what is now Italy, which has existed for as long as the country itself, and probably longer, is articulated through the parties claims of identity, inextricably linked to place, genocide, and repatriation; in particular, the repatriation of a skull, whose original O\vner, Giuseppe Villella, was, depending on perspective, either a brigand and criminal, or a patriot and hero of the defeated Two Sicilies Kingdom. In the final chapter of Section One, Ulf Johansson Dahre takes the idea of conflict and change inside the ethnographic museum, exploring how these institutions have been transformed through politics, governance, and the changing display modes and purposes of museums. He looks not only at the changes themselves, but also at the discussion which surrounds them, highlighting the importance of exploring both perception and actuality. He emphasises that it is impossible-and imprudent-to speak too generally of changes, and that museums-even ethnographic museums-have never, actually, stood still.

Identities, Etlmicities, Objects and DiffICult Histories The second section of the book has four chapters looking at the ways in which difficult, contested and hidden histories can be explored and recognised through museums and their objects. Chapter Four, "When Objects of Significance Mediate Power" by Carsten Nielsen, can be related to our previous discussion of the dialogic nature of objects. In this

14

Introduction

paper, Nielsen looks at a particular time when Lakota came to the National Museum of Denmark to engage with a sacred bundle, in order to desacralise it; to change its nature so that it could be a part of the museum without causing hatm or offense. Nielsen argues that the "adaptation" of such objects, and their transfer from a religious to a secular state, has resulted in a "paradigm shift" in which museums are able to act as liminal places wherein processes of identification and reidentification can occur in an ongoing fashion, and in which authority and agency are not limited to people, but are also given to objects. Chapter Five, "How Museums Identify and Face Challenges with Diverse Communities" by Chi Thien Pham, also uses a case study, The Cabinet exhibition which took place in Hanoi in 2015, which engaged in conversation with a community still not fully understood or accepted in Vietnam-the LGBTQIA+ community. Pham's exploration of the relationship between museums and their communities, and who is serving who, provokes some interesting questions about who, and what, communities are, and who has power when they are engaged with museums. Here, too, objects are understood as powerful communicative agents, with even relatively innocuous objects, as well as more troubling items, able to express the lives and tragedies of the LGBTQIA+ community in Vietnam. Chapter Six, "The Vanishing Category of 'The Others '7 Refugees, Life Stories, and Museums" by Anette Rein, discusses the ways in which difficult histories might be used to allow different cultures to develop an empathic connection with each other, through a shared traumatic past, and how this sharing might be used to help to heal contemporary resentments and socio-cultural wounds. Focusing on Germany, and the practice of Willkommenskultur ("welcome culture"), the paper suggests that the traumatic past of the German people might provide a route to sympathy with migrants and refugees by using museums as a "social resonance platfolTIl" to express and explore common experiences of war and trauma. Finally in this section, Chapter Seven, "Divergent Memories for Malaysian Nation-Building" by Pi-Chun Chang tackles the ways in which the difficult community history of Malaysia, both before and after decolonisation, has been presented, and how an analysis of these modes of presentation might offer some insight into the ways in which identities and cultural relationships are conceived of today. Exploring the Malaysian National Museum and the book Moving Mountains, the chapter argues that whilst museums in Malaysia are national spaces explicating national narratives and the desires of the state, books such as Moving Mountains are able to provide a counter-narrative, and "a voice that is non-dominant and non-mainstream".

Crossing the Frontier

15

Borderlands and Bridges: Engaging Audiences beyond Nations The three chapters of Section Three all explore audiences, and how they can be exposed not only to different cultures, but difficult and different histories within their own geographical context. In Chapter Eight, "The Remote Local: Travelling Exhibitions and New Practices in China", Reng Wu muses on types of audience, and types of community, particularly in relation to travelling exhibitions; those which travel often very long distances from one country to another, and the connections that such exhibitions draw across time, and across cultures. Beginning with a question of what a museums' community actually is, Wu examines the consequences and purposes of exhibitions which have travelled out from China to the wider world-how they have been presented, represented, and how they have been able to engage with the audiences in their non­ Chinese locations: what Wu calls "the remote local" audience. Pauline van der Zee's Chapter Nine, "Diverse Audiences or a Single Target Public" discusses the idea that genuine intercultural understanding comes not from erasing difficult pasts, but acknowledging them: that is, it argues that to cross the frontier zone to make genuine contact, museums and their publics need to be prepared for difficult, painful, and transformative conversations. Using the Ethnographic Collections of the University of Ghent in Belgium, she outlines the changing identities of this collection over history-from academic "non-Western" ethnic art to "World Art"-and how these items, collected originally in what she calls a "Wunderkammer style" for academic connoisseurs, might be used to engage with increasingly diverse audiences, and to begin to produce a "shared heritage". Chapter Ten, "The Vietnamese Women's Museum" by Le Thi Thuy Roan, showcases a museum prepared to have difficult conversations in order to engage diverse audiences with the diverse and sometimes very different people represented in their collections: about women subject to trafficking, who have drug problems, who are dealing with abuse, or who live with HNIAIDS. The Vietnamese Women's Museum, established in 1987, is a highly non-traditional institution, which breaks the museum mold by engaging in ongoing, not temporary, contact with its community, and consistently campaigning for human rights and gender equality, and Roan's paper is a glimpse into the way this unique museum goes about its work.

16

Introduction

The Politics ofBelonging: Art, Rifuge and Citizenship Section Four contains three papers which explore the ways in which museums interact with political and cultural change and diversity. Anna Maria Pecci's paper, "Sharing Authority: 'The Art of Making a Difference'" is our eleventh chapter. In it, Pecci explores a project aiming for increased inc1usivity at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography at the University of Turin-the titular "Art of Making a Difference". Prefigured by the project "Tongue to Tongue", the "Art of Making a Difference" was informed by both art and anthropology, and aimed to foster "participants' cultural empowelTIlent and the institution's social agency". In the chapter, Pecci writes about how "Tounge to Tounge" provided proof that museums could produce, rather than simply reproduce knowledge, and how this spurred even greater efforts towards diversity and inclusion, when the AMD project allowed emerging and outsider artists and educators to act in a fOlTIl of peer education as "both trainers and trainees". Chapter Twelve, "Refugees are in front of our doors," by Mojca Racic and Ralf Ceplak Mencin, details the endeavors of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum to break down the stereotypes and prejudice that appeared when the refugee crisis of 2015 hit Slovenia-though their work with migrants dates back at least 20 years. RaCic and Mencin detail how their museum has worked with other institutions, NGOs and refugees and migrants themselves to stand as a "space of dialogue" during a cultural moment in which historical fears and contemporary xenophobia threatened to emerge: to make a stand for "universal humanity and cultural diversity, and about what unites us more than divides us." Finally, in this section, Maria Camilla De Palma's "Selfies, Yoga and Hip Hop: Expanding the Role of Museums" provides a meditation on some of the consequences of diverse users in museums spaces, and the changing role that the museum faces as a consequence. Through changing uses of the museum-some provoked by technologies, others by changing needs and audiences-she examines questions about museum purpose: "Should museums," she writes, "be places for representation rather than exhibition, and act as interactive theatres where perfOlmances are staged for increasingly diverse audiences?" She asks, too, whether these questions play into capitalist economics, or whether they are a consequence of a "post-disciplinary" museum.

Crossing the Frontier

17

Coming to Our Senses in the Digital Age The final section of the book, "Coming to Our Senses in the Digital Age", has four chapters considering both corporeal and digital interactions inside and outside museum spaces. Chapter Fourteen, "The Role of the Museum in the Digital Age", by Yohikazu Ogawa, Mika Matsuo and Motoko Shonaka-Harada of the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, details a positive response to the changing world. In the PCALi project, museum and scientific literacy was encouraged through the digital Passport of Communication and Action for Literacy (pCALi), which allowed the project leaders to analyse how museum visitors used their museum, and how their types of use changed and shifted over time. They argue that the social role of museums cannot be ignored-particularly in relation to scientific literacy, and the need to discuss issues which are scientific, but also cultural: what they call "trans-scientific" issues. Chapter Fifteen, "Migration and Cultural Soundscapes: Curating the Sounds of Diversity in Oslo, Norway", by Hans Philip Einarsen, explores the ways in which different senses produce a particular sense of place-returning back, in a way, to some of the concerns of the very first chapter. This rather more anthropological paper presents the perspectives of a variety of different people on the unique sound of a particular place: Gmnland. A place of diverse and rich cultures, the noises one hears in Gmnland provoke different responses from different people, ranging from comfort, and a sense of home, to concern and resistance to change. Sound, however, is not the only factor-and Einarsen acknowledges that the unique nature of "Gmnlandsound" is partially due to sight, knowledge, and expectation. This exploration of what some consider to be the very particular "Gmnlandsound" deals with many of the themes of this volume-diversity, difference, sensoriality, place, community, communication. Chapter Sixteen, "Indigenous Makers and the Animation of Material Narratives", by Heather Howard, Marsha MacDowell, Judy Pierzynowski, and Laura Smith brings many of the themes together-sensory engagement, digitality, community building and diversity-in an exploration of the ways in which the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC) is working to "digitally reunite Great Lakes Heritage". The final chapter, "Who were they? Repatriation and the realisation of human remains in museums in Southern Africa", by Wendy Black, Catherine C. Cole, Winani Thebele, Morongwa N Mosothwane, Rooksana Omar and Jeremy Silvester examines the concerted network activities, of the Commonwealth Association of Museums, Iziko Museums of Southern Africa, the Museums Association of Namibia, the National Museum and Monuments of Botswana, ICME, ICOM-Botswana, Namibia

18

Introduction

and Southern Africa, and Botswana University, to develop policy on human remains management, repatriation, reburial and re-humanisation in Southern African countries. This chapter speaks profoundly to the humanist anthropology and activism to address historical injustice that underpins so much thought and practice outlined in the book. The authors present the international historical context of such collection and the contemporary effort to fe-claim not only the individual human ancestor whose bodies, in various ways, ended up dehumanised and turned into "specimens" in museums around the world, but to fe-claim our common humanity and the ties that bind us witout ignoring our differences. Their rich project work involves face-to-face workshops with communities affected, a moving online exhibition that celebrates community voices and poses vital questions for audiences today, as well as dissemination at conference internationally. ***

We hope that this set of papers-from all over the world, and with a variety of different perspectives on the ideas of community, diversity, dialogue and collaboration-will allow readers to reflect on the issues of museums and communities in our fractured and anxious age. The book aims not only to offer examples of good practice, but also to encourage you to perfOlTIl and develop your 0\Vll fOlTIlS of critically engaged practice, to question what it is to be a "post museum", and what it is to be a community, and how the two align for the sake of a more equitable future (Hooper­ Greenhill 2000).

PART ONE REVISITING THE CONTACT ZONE AND TRAVELLING THEORY

CHAPTER ONE MUSEUMS AND A PROGRESSIVE SENSE OF PLACE CHRISTOPHER WHITEHEAD AND FRANCESCA LANZ

Introduction . . . what gives a place its specificity is not some long internalized history but the fact that it is constructed out of a particular constellation of social relations, meeting and weaving together at a particular locus. [ . . . ] Instead then, of thinking of places as areas with boundaries around, they can be imagined as articulated moments in networks of social relations and lUlderstandings, but where a larger proportion of those relations, experiences and understandings are constructed on a far larger scale than what we happen to define for that moment as the place itself, whether that be a street, or a region or even a continent. (Massey 1991, 28)

Thus, against reactionary, ethnocentric, essentialising and static ideas of place, the late Doreen Massey conceived of a progressive sense of place as "not self-closing and defensive, but outward-looking". In doing so she sought to develop an idea of place able to account for a quickly changing socio-cultural context, characterised by an increasingly fluid mobility and-above all-by the interaction and hybridisation of different cultures (1991). The sense of place she proposes is based on the understanding of places as processes, intertwined with the social relations that occur in them; as points of gathering and meeting; as open and extroverted realities where demarcations and borders are contrary to the real nature of place as an ever-forming "location of the intersection of disparate trajectories" (Massey 2004, 6; 1991, 29). Such a global sense of place is also "progressive" not necessarily in the vague sense of the political vernacular, but insofar as it progresses beyond the zero-sum enmity associated with exclusivist place belongings ("we belong here; they do

Museums and a Progressive Sense of Place

21

noC): it can embrace elements of "otherness" without feeling threatened by them, because places themselves can be conceived as having "multiple identities" that "can either be a source of richness or a source of conflict, or both" (Massey 1991, 28). The political and social benefit of this would be "to retain, while refolTIlUlating, an appreciation of the specific and distinctive while refusing the parochial" (Massey 2004, 6). In this chapter we avail ourselves of Massey's ideas and open them out-certainly beyond the scope of her 0\Vll aims-to consider how museums can contribute to the development of such a progressive sense of place through display, without omitting or ignoring situated antagonisms and social divisions. Considering belonging as related to emotional attachments that lead to feelings of being "at home" often in relation to a place, what are, in the present "age of migration", the conflicts between belonging and non-belonging? What if different feelings of belonging converge and compete in the same place? How can these be represented, through objects and displays, in order to create new perspectives for visitors on place and social relations? We explore this in reference to European-funded work we have undertaken on museums and migration.1 Bringing to bear our respective perspectives as a museologist and an architect, we examine museums' explicit and implicit preoccupations with place and the constructions of the social world that they allow, before returning to Massey's ideas to help conceive of museum productions of a progressive sense of place. Over recent decades, one of the most pressing challenges for museums has been to respond to the increasing heterogeneity of their publics and the multicultural nature of societies. This involves attention to the concomitance and interaction-neither always easy nor always peaceful­ of peoples and people with different origins, habits, cultures and religious, political and personal beliefs. The current time has been called "an age of migration" (Basso Peressut and Pozzi 2012), inasmuch as it is marked by intensified movements of people, ideas, capital and wares and by the effects of multiplying intercultural encounters. It has been estimated that in 2015 more than 10 per cent of the ED population, and at least one in seven people globally, were somehow "migrant", including peoples and individuals, legal, "illegal" migrants and refugees, transnational guest­ workers and their relatives, globetrotters, globalflaneurs and international

1 MeLa European Museums in an age of migrations was a four-year research project funded in 201 1 by the European Union within the 7th Framework Programme lUlder the Grant Agreement 266757. \VWw.mela-project.polimi.it.

22

Chapter One

tourists 2 They (we) live and interact with each other within societies that are moulded by cultural exchanges and clashes, and by a status of fluid physical and virtual mobility that is unprecedented. Indeed, although migrations and cultural exchanges have always occurred throughout human history, more recently the complex and multifaceted set of phenomena broadly defined as "globalisation" is making these dynamics faster and, at the same time, magnifying them and their implications worldwide. Migrations are indeed acting in and on economic, political, cultural and social spheres, with local impacts and global resonance, in that they are entangled with current and evolving scenarios as well as with long-duration, rooted, and sometimes underground, driving forces. At the time of writing-to mention just a few issues-we think of the recent "Refugee Crisis", the exacerbating of terroristic attacks and conflicts in Middle East, Brexit, the stiffening and embittering of political discourses in Europe and overseas, the fe-emergence of nationalisms and local regionalisms or the current tensions and frictions that undermine the ED project, all of which are increasingly hinged on place-related "us­ them" arguments. While today it is undeniable that "globalization is not the story of cultural homogenization" (Appadurai 1996, 1 1), and that "cultural conditions . . . are largely characterized by mixes and penneations" (Welsh 1999, 196) it is also evident that the intercultural encounters produced by human mobility and/or their (in no sense "mere") representation and perception, can be destabilising as well as promising, upsetting as well as fruitful. Cultural encounters can become cultural conflicts, migration can tum from supply of human resources into a threat, and it can feel like we have moved from a world interested in dismantling borders and barriers to one interested in building new ones. Arguably the current economic and political crisis of Europe is also a crisis of values and identities: it is a cultural crisis in which constructs of otherness take centre-stage. The entailments of globalisation and multiculture on museums have been widely investigated since the 1990s by a number of scholarly studies and research projects in the field, including our 0\Vll work in the European context}, as well as by exploratory and experimental exhibitions, educational 2 According to the most recent Eurostat data: on 1 st January 2015 there were 34.3 million people born outside of the EU-28 living in an EU Member State and 1 8.5 million persons who had been born in a different EU Member State from the one where they were resident. International Organisation for Migration http://gmdac. iom. intigl0bal-migration-trends-factsheet. 3 This includes the aforementioned MeLa project and other complementary and most recent projects and publications among which the web platform MeLa

Museums and a Progressive Sense of Place

23

and curatorial programmes run by different museums across Europe. This has resulted in a number of publications and other outputs exploring migration from different perspectives in relation to museums' role(s) and social responsibilities, ethics, practices and politics (Karp and Lavine 1991; Macdonald and Fyfe 1996; Macdonald 2003; Bennet 2006; Watson 2007; Poehls 201 1 ; Basso Peressut, Lanz and Postiglione 2013; Lanz and Montanari 2014; Gourievidis 2014; Whitehead et al. 2015; Levin 2017). Questions and arguments about the role of museums in addressing social problems, tensions and divisions are of course not new-in particular in relation to cultural diversity-but they are burning harder than ever now, and involve unprecedented complexities. Our approach to this nest of enquiries is to think through place as the site of encounters through which notions of difference and co-presence are produced. The definition and theory of place is itself contested terrain, and a unified perspective is likely to always be out of reach. Of interest to us are the critical traditions that see place, variously, as a process, historically contingent and inherently multi-layered, social, relational and concerned with memory and identity; as significant space or identified portion of space, a "fragment of the world" (Relph 2015) imbued with human experience, a manifold experience, a "way of understanding" (Cresswell 2004, 1 1-12). Its multifarious characteristics include-but are not limited to-multiscalarity, openness and particularity. Lest we over-detelTIline place as merely mind-matter, or nothing more than an "object for a subject" (Pred 1984, 279), we attend also to material dimensions as they present in the morphology, built environment, and air of named places. To avoid getting bogged down in genealogical and definitional discussions of "place" as concept (as conceived with or against "space", for example) we borrow from Low (2017, 32), among others (Cresswell 2004, Sen and Silverman 2014) to posit place not so much as an a priori reality but rather as "space that is inhabited and appropriated through the attribution of personal and group meanings, feelings, sensory perceptions and understandings". For our purposes here, at its most vernacular, place could be a city or nation state, a continent, a region, named and invested with meanings and characteristics, a neighbourhood, a street. Of course, these are not the only sites of social life, and not the only spaces invested with meaning, but they are prominent in identity repertoires and they are often understood as sites of intercultural encounter, whether peaceful or antagonistic. Moreover, importantly for us, such "places" have high Critical Archive (www.rnela-archive.polirni.it). the online toolkit Thinking through Migration (http://www.thinkingtbroughrnigration.com/). and the EU-H2020 research project CoHERE (https:llresearch.ncl.ac.uklcohere/coherecriticalarchive/).

24

Chapter One

visibility and functional purpose in museum representations, even when they appear to be backdrops. Given this purpose as critical (if sometimes understated) carriers of representation it is important to take place in the museum seriously. As Tim Cresswell (2004, 1 1) comments, at some times and for some people, "seeing the world through the lens of place leads to reactionary and exclusionary xenophobia, racism and bigotry"; '''Our place' is threatened and others have to be excluded" (2004, 1 1). Although we must recognise the relatively limited social influence of museums, how we represent place in museums can have a critical bearing upon the production of social relations, for better or for worse. Doreen Massey's "global sense of place" constituted an understanding of the socio-historical layerings and travels that make place, and of a dialectical co-production of local and global, contrary to some kind of homogenising, zombiefying globalisation acting as unidirectional force "on" local places. To be sensitised or attuned to place in this way means noticing the "inevitable hybridities of the constitution of anywhere" (2004, 6). Although exploring long place histories was not Massey's primary purpose, her argument involves an implicit opportunity to think geotemporally. If we look at a place as it appears to our eyes, we may notice some of the historical layerings that are present now, in the sense that places can be read or understood as palimpsests or material texts (an idea common in urban design and architectural reuse theory and practice and in studies of the spatial dimensions of memory, exemplified in Andreas Huyssen's readings of Berlin (2003)). If we go beyond interpreting merely visual data and engage historically with a place, we can catch a glimpse of, reconstruct mentally and re-present, the many trajectories that make that place by terminating, passing through or pausing there. This is a perspective that can be congenial with global history approaches averse to overly-boundaried accounts of the world in the past. Few places in the twenty-first century are islands of social purity and distinctiveness, and while our sense is that social and cultural mixing is at a good height right now, relatively few ever were. If we know place as "the location of the intersection of disparate trajectories," as Massey encouraged (2004, 6), and if we view this historically as well as in the now, then a particular sense of the social world opens up, and with this the possibility to break up and denaturalise the us-them logics that drive exclusionary politics or make of place­ occupancy an object of contention. A historical view can also sometimes see foundational imbrications of one place in another, or of trajectories between places, that further destabilise or problematise exc1usivist positions on place belongings. For example, the links between Amsterdam

Museums and a Progressive Sense of Place

25

and Suriname (once part-O\vned by Amsterdam), or between London or Liverpool and Kingston Jamaica, help to explain the physical fabric and relative wealth of all of these places, and their demographics and particular hybridities. It is also possible to argue that a thorough knowledge of imperialism and colonial activity is difficult to reconcile morally with the view, by no means limited to the Far Right in European countries, that the descendants of fOlmer colonial subjects in European cities should "go home". (Indeed, in European debates about the ingress of "others", colonialism might have been the elephant in the room had it not been so conspicuously forgotten in public discourse). A progressive sense of place does not need to pretend that all is well and everyone gets on in some fantasy of happy multiculturalism. But it does mean problematising the stories and affects of the melancholic and angry communities (Wetherell 2012, 6-8) who process resentment and disaffection in historical mythologies of "before" and "after": everything, that is, was fine-"we" were fine-before the adulterations and cultural violence effected by new arrivals. A progressive sense of place involves a necessary questioning of the assumptions behind, and the roots of, situated antagonisms. It means problematising-historically-the notion that one group has a legitimate presence in place while some others do not. It means seeing yourself as neither more nor less entitled to place than others. Your occupancy of place is as much an accident of history and circumstance as anyone's. This, if we hope to avoid a Hobbesian dystopia, should open an imperative of civility in and for co-presence. To be sure, it is clear that from the points of view of legality, bureaucracy and more reactionary public discourse fOlmations, places are usually not set up like this, as anyone who has endured troubling border controls, citizenship tests, or racial discrimination will know. But certainly this does not negate Massey's insight, which is about the ontology of place. What should we do with that insight in the context of museums? Ash Amin discusses the "politics of propinquity" (Amin 2002), which derives from the fact that groups marked, perceived and/or identifying as different from one another live in the same "places"-typically (but not only) cities. It is what Massey calls the "necessity of negotiating across and among difference the implacable spatial fact of shared turf' (2004, 6). The key term here is "shared". It is an "implacable" fact because there is no (civil) way around it, but its affective sense is mutable. For some, turf is shared unwillingly and resentfully, producing and reinforcing division and antagonism. Such groups see the obligation to share turf as a violent and unnatural imposition, and in so doing they construct "others" and delegitimise their presence. On the other hand, for those possessed of a

26

Chapter One

relational sense of place the need to share is also implacable, but has a different affective mooring in the implicit idea that propinquity is a natural state; Of, at least, that it is a product of history not reducible to the story of outsiders' pernicious desire to intrude parasitically and to be where they don't belong. Could museums be a site (or the site par excellence) for instilling in people a progressive sense of space, and secondly for managing the politics of propinquity, for "negotiating across and among difference"? This, usually without the Masseyan framing, has been one of the key questions of the recent scholarship on museums and migration. Two problematics pertain to it. Firstly: do museums really have the power and reach to act on the social in this way? If not, how could that power be achieved (and what are its liabilities)? Secondly: how, techincally speaking, do museums use place as a frame for the social, and how might this change in order to constructively complicate people's sense of propriety, assumptions about multiculture and place identities? 'While not underestimating the importance of a discussion of the extent and ethics of museums' power to influence, our main concern in this paper is to address tbe second problematic (itself not fully extricable from the first), and we do so below with analytical descriptions of practice. In particular, we explore the representation of place in museums, with the ultimate aim of outlining possible operational approaches for museums to address contemporary issues related to migrations and cultural diversity in ways that might open up possibilities for forming a progressive sense of place and for tbe constructive and peaceful negotiation of propinquity.

Places on display As mentioned, trying for a comprehensive, widely sharable definition of place might be an endless endeavour, destined to fail. For sure, it falls beyond the scope of this paper, which has two concerns in this regard. One is to appeal to the particular critical traditions that think relationally of place, drawing especially on Massey, and to see how they might tranSfOlTIl representational practice in museums. This is where we want to arrive as a proposition. The second is to look at places in the more vernacular sense as named and meaningful spaces as they are represented in the museum. Here we focus on more explicit references to place, as they occur in museums concerned broadly with representing the situations and/or mobilities of human history in and across "countries", cities, neighbourhoods, global regions and so on. These reductions are not intended to avoid confronting the complex issues at stake when talking about place, but actually to fulfil the scope of this paper, which is to shift the focus of tbe

Museums and a Progressive Sense of Place

27

debate about place, identity and belonging from theory to practice; to explore how these are, and could be, expressed by museums through display. Because of this practical dimension, it is important for us to speak technically about the exhibitionary physicality of place-representation. How then is place "made" in the museum? Certainly, a collection is in one sense an array of provenances, an "undrawn map" (Kirshenblatt­ Gimblett 1998, 132) of what it has been desirable and practical to obtain, in dialectical relations with politics of value, capital and often ideology. An ethnographic collection may be a deposit of a set of trajectories ingrained in the colonial project, and a collection of contemporary art is a complex refraction of the machinations and manipulations of taste and market forces. Each is as much a construction as it is a representation of the worlds of interest. Collections have their geopolitics. More than this, in most cases (but not all, as we will see) the museum is also an architectural box, housing a multiplicity of references to places beyond itself, primarily organised through the media of display. Although some still see the museum as a "mirror", or reflective surface of the out-there, it is now orthodoxy in museum studies to recognise that museums are agents of knowledge construction and the imagined visitors' experience-that is cognitive, imaginative and physical-is designed and "manipulated" (Hooper Greenhill 1992) to frame and prioritise selected concepts and messages. This is to say that museums create worlds (and, indeed, places). Because of this constructive power, the ways in which displays are conceived and designed are political, and warrant critical attention (Macdonald 1996; Luke 2002; Whitehead 2016). This much is a generality. For this paper though, we are concerned with how place is made through being put on display. The physical dimension of place, acknowledged as one of its distinguishing features, and the intertwinement between the becoming of a place and the transformation of the physical world (pred 1984) creates in some cases a structural relationship between the making of places and the making of museums. But so too the psychic dimension of bringing place and identity into relation, of investing place with affects, is a key part of the construction of "identity places" (www.mela-archive.polimi.it; Whitehead et al. 2015). An identity place is a place that is "explicitly and consciously used by individuals and/or groups as a resource for the maintenance or construction of identity, and/or is a place set up, offered or imposed as a resource of this kind through "from-above" representations such as in museums or in the designation of places as heritage sites" (\Vhitehead et al. 2015, 16). A place can be presented as a distinctive source of pride, a site from which to view one's horizon of belongings, a place where

28

Chapter One

"things happened" that are integral to constructions of common identity. Sometimes it is a physical index of and explanation for notional group characteristics (such as hardiness) or the home of entrenched values that are produced in discursive fOlmations with situated historical events (such as the famous calm and pragmatic resolve of Blitz Londoners, which persists mythically over subsequent generations) (Kelsey 2014). This is the tangled relationship between place and its representation. We do not mean that a place carmot exist without representation in the museum, but rather that such representation is one of the authoritative and processual ways of making and remaking place by investing it with meaning, bringing identity into relation with place and constructing iconic situations of belonging. As Margaret C. Rodman comments, narratives of place are not distinct from place (1992, 642). In tum, the museum shores up its authority and purpose through its reference to place as the "real world", because above all the museum must find means to present its knowledge as real.

A brief typology of displays of place It has been argued that place is an "organising theme" an "ineradicable force" in museums that can open up different perspective and possibilities for museum practices as it provides a "literal ground for the geo-temporal contextualisation of object and events, [ ... ] and a modality of representation of people that is an alternative to ethnic or sub-cultural categorisation" (Whitehead et al. 2015, 45-46). However, we can conceive of place as not only an "organising" force within museum representations, but also as a fOlTIl of display superstructure, as manifest in visual and/or other sensory productions that provide a grounding or a setting. Drawing on this idea, we will hereafter propose a kind of typology of nested modes of reference to and evidence of place in museums, to investigate how might museums represent and even foster progressive senses of place and belonging.

When the place is The Place-the place substantiating and reinforcing narration To begin, we might consider "real" places that have been musealised, perhaps adapted but fundamentally little altered. This is, for example, the case for many migration museums recently created in Emope. European migration museums are relatively young institutions. Most of them are devoted to the description of the history of emigration considered as a moment of local history-one worthy of being preserved and transmitted, as part of the common memory of a specific community and in relation to

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its potential relevance in the construction and reinforcement of local identity. Looking at their display settings, we notice that European migration museums have often been conceived in the light of similar examples overseas in North American and Australian contexts, though these latter focus on immigration rather than on emigration. Indeed, considering the displays of European migration museums, it is possible to identify some recurring elements that structure and characterise their exhibition design and narrative, some of which are indeed common to their extra-European counterparts: among these is the environmental and architectural context (Baur 2010a; Baur 2010b; Poehls 201 1 ; Cimoli 2013; Lanz 2016). Migration museums are usually located in places that have a history related to migration, such as port cities, docklands, border or departure to'WllS, and areas which have suffered intense migration flows. Whenever possible, the building hosting the museum is also directly connected with stories of migration and bears itself a memory of migration. This the case of many non-European migration museums such as the widely known examples of the Pier 21 Museum in Halifax, Canada, the Immigration Museum in Melbourne, or the Ellis Island Museum and the Tenement Museum in New York. Looking at European cases, a paradigmatic example is the recently-opened Red Star Line Museum, located in the neighbourhood of the old port of Antwerp, in the former premises of the Red Star Line, a shipping company whose activity was largely based on the profitable transport of emigrants from Belgium to Canada and the United States. The museum comprises three original warehouses, which have been renovated while preserving their original Art Deco architecture and decoration, originally devoted to medical examinations, administrative checks and luggage disinfection. Another telling example is represented by the Museum of the History of Immigration in Catalonia, in Barcelona, where a section of the exhibition is set up in the carriages of the El Sevillano train that were used by migrants who moved to Catalonia from the south of Spain during the twentieth century. The architectural project of these museums usually hinges on the restoration of a disused or abandoned "original" migration place-be it a whole edifice, a dock, a train or a ships-considered as a spatial witness to the migration stories and histories told by the museum itself. This is where significant things happened, and we walk in the footsteps of those who were involved. The act of imagining ourselves into the past is a psychic exercise, and the exhibitionary project usually aims to support this by emphasising the building's symbolic value, enhancing and exploiting its evocative power and the memory it preserves within the overall museum display. This is done, for example, by investing in the conservation of

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specific rooms of the building, which are often included in the visit itinerary as empty spaces and memorials. Other parts of the building might be regarded and treated like museum exhibits, by labelling them or protecting them with glass walls as if in an outsize display case, or integrating them within the exhibition design as scenography and architectural settings for the display of objects. In other cases, a dialogue between building and display is made through the design of passages, itineraries and perspectives. Here, the museum building is not a mere container, but part of the museum collections, an element of the exhibition design, and a resonant framework for the display. In these cases, in a superficial sense, the building has not moved, the place is the place, the map is the territory, except insofar as it has been readied for visitor attendance and consumption. However, the process of musealisation brings with it more or less hidden ontological changes that are tantamount to reassemblage, even if at the physical level there may seem to be little changes between then and now, other than the odd security barrier or the addition of a shop, a cafe, staff, and other museal apparatus. Also drawing on the appeal of "the real" are museums that construct places ex novo, but using the components of historic places, as in open-air museums where historic buildings and other remains (such as fOlms of public transport) are reassembled and placed in new relations to represent place typicality, as well as the ambience and atmosphere associated with places and times. The Ballinstadt Emigration Museum in Hamburg consists of three buildings that are filologico' reconstructions of the original Emigration Halls built by HAPAG (Hamburg-America Line), the shipping company formerly located in the same area. The buildings host several facilities, including an infOlmation centre, shops, a restaurant, a research centre, and a pelTIlanent exhibition on GelTIlan emigration. Another example of this is Beamish Museum in the north of England, sited in a 350-acre valley where, from the 1970s onwards, urban and rural conurbations and landscapes have been produced in the image of historic ones from the wider region. This has meant collecting buildings from outside the museum, taking them down in their original sites brick by brick, to reassemble them in the museum (there are also some replicas). A kind of model of the region is produced, with selections and exclusions. The territorial scale is not 1 : 1, but there is a sense of 1 : 1 scale because the buildings are real ones, as are the trams, even if the staff who work in early nineteenth-century costumes are real humans of today, and some

4 The Italian wordfilologico means to take something back to its original state, or to copy an original directly. Using the closest English term, accmate, would loose some of the nuance.

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have walkie-talkies. The traditionally cooked fish and chips that they sell to visitors are real enough, although the Health and Safety and Food Hygiene controls are of the twenty-first century. But the strong impression of reality is precisely where such museums have to contend with critique-of the sanitized, selective presentations of historical place in which working life is hard but good, community is a dominant and largely positive fOlTIl of social organisation, and multiculture has yet to happen. Another museal fOlTIl that fits within this type is the three-dimensional, apparently 1 : 1 reconstruction of outdoor "real" spaces in the interior spaces of the museum. Common UK examples include Victorian streets, filled with shops, as at York Castle Museum, the Victorian Walk at the Museum of London, or the full-scale reconstructions of the Glasgow Riverside Museum. The same kind of format is also commonly deployed in migration museums. This involves full-scale reconstructions designed to reproduce realistic meaningful spaces related to the migration experience narrated by the museum, such as ships, trains, stations, halls, border checkpoints, with the same aim to provide a perceptual structure and physical framework for the display, even if some of the reconstructions are only sections. These reconstructions are often walkable and resort to theatrical techniques, including original furniture as well as replicas, sometimes complemented by lights, projections, sounds, and even costumed humans, whether there in person or in audio-visual recordings. The architectural structure may be a wooden skeleton covered with papier­ mache mouldings, and the superficies may be replica or real materials (e.g. shop tiles); and walkways and viewing platforms may be cut into the scene. The contents of the various "buildings" (dwellings, shops, workplaces etc.) may be real, such as real dentistry instruments. Compared to an example like Beamish, the interior reconstruction of exterior spaces makes for an unnatural atmosphere (no fresh air, no natural light), that is less likely to induce visitors to complicitly suspend disbelief about the constructed nature of the display even though the approach and drawbacks do not differ that much.

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Figure 1.1 Internal view of York Castle Museum, United Kingdom. Photo by

Christopher Whitehead.

The place evoked--the place synthesising and organising the narration

In a different way, place can be somehow indirectly represented. In this case, a more abstract sense of place is presented through evocative elements that suggest the place by representing some selected distinguishing traits of it. These might include spatial, material or environmental featrnes as well as more intangible featrnes. This can be done by the use of ambient evocations, such as use of theatrical lighting, audio-tracks and colour schemes, and through reference to place's inherent qualities via its material cultrnal objects or intangible heritage. The place is therefore conceptualised, and thus more or less elaborately and abstractly evoked in the display by fragments. In all these cases the meanings of these objective components can be extraordinarily open, leading visitors to very different recollections and interpretations of them.

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At the Museum of London's London Before London gallery (a name that illustrates well the constructive power of the museum), a section on the ecosystemic and social importance of the river Thames is marked by deep blue, shimmering lighting, creating an aquatic atmosphere that links the objects on display to the river in which they were found. This is practice with a history in museum display, and such atmospheric work can be ideologically laden, as with the old practice of pitching African ethnographic collections into darkness. Alongside moody light effects we may find large-scale visual images of landscapes and waterscapes, whether in paintings, photographs or videos, that encourage visitors to "place" collections within the imaginative space of the outside world from which they derive. These may be just "backdrops" and references, or they may have a more immersive character, inviting visitors to take a human-eye view on a scene giving a sense of being able to "enter" it, imaginatively if not physically. A different viewpoint-a bird's eye view-is suggested by the use of two-dimensional plane-surface maps reproduced within the graphics of interior space-frequently on walls but also, increasingly, on the floor, as if visitors could both walk on and in the map. At Duisburg City Museum the medieval perspective map on the floor has a general relation to the objects in cases above, as the grounds upon which they were used and found. This places at a more distanced affective position of surveying from above, even if we do not need to read the map to get from A to B, but rather to connect A to B. In the Ghent city museum, STAM, the chronological narration of the city history is prefaced with by a large-scale walkable photomap of the contemporary city on the floor; on the walls of the room are projected videos and slide shows depicting the urban environment and city life of Ghent today; on one side of the room is a city's 3D model, and, on the other side, a digital display allows exploration of the city history through a comparative, geotagged and interactive catalogue of historical city maps and representations. In this case the scope of the room is to invite visitors to "place" the whole museum narration within the temporal and cultural context of the contemporary city. In the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum in Berlin, the floor of the uppermost gallery is a walkable map of the neighbourhoods, figured by colour-coded, numbered points of experience: arrival, work, eating, belief, suffering, meeting, play, support, conflict, and living. Each one relates to a life story and photographs of the place in question that you can listen to on an iPod. As the categories indicate, not all of these are positive or happy stories of life in places.

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Figure 1.2 Exhibition Local Chats. Cily-Mir;ration-History at Friedrichshain­ Kreuzberg Museum, Berlin, Germany. Photo by Christopher Whitehead.

A final level of abstraction in representing and referencing place is not a result of visual, evocative and atmospheric manipulations, but is constructed through the identification of spatial histories and meanings within objects. This is often developed in museums that take a global or transnational history approach, exemplifYing through certain prismatic objects the movements, migrations and flows of ideas, materials, people and capital (Mason 20 13; Whitehead et al. 2015). This approach uses objects as prisms to refract the mobilities and cultural relations that they can be made to express, as if different spatio-temporal flows and contacts could project outwards from objects. Islamic coins found in Viking hordes, objects that travelled and moved between cultures, foodstuffs, plants and species, possessions that travelled with people and can be mined for hints about the wider geopolitical circumstances that determine our lives . . . From all of these objects, movements between, and experiences of, places can be reassembled. The exhibition 99 x Neukolln develops a committed exploration of place through the display of obj ects, representing the Neukiilln neighbourhood, a Berlin district, through 99 objects belonging to inhabitants or to its material culture. Objects were selected and displayed to represent the sense of place of Neukiilln, its "identity" rather than its

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built environment, through the stories that these objects recount. These are stories of belonging, migrancy, and cultural encounters as well as conflicts and frictions. A red "Halay cloth", used during a traditional Turkish dance at weddings, refracts the presence of Turkish guestworkers in the neighbourhood; their attachment to tradition but also the adaptation of this; the specific flUlction rooms in Neuk611n in which such weddings took place; the couple in whose wedding it figured in 2002; their family histories between Turkey and GelTIlany; and the persistence of marriage traditions in the present. A gauzy tract of red polyester chiffon and glass beads is made to speak of multiple mobilities and relations to place. The connectivity of objects to places can be illuminated through interpretation (in the case of NeukOlln, this comes in the form of a digital interface), but also through scenographic means. The exhibition Europe Meets the World, held at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen in 2012, sought to trace a portrait of contemporary Europe back from its (putative) origins, questioning stereotypes and raising questions. Objects exhibited, all from the museum's collection, were chosen and arranged in the space in relation to their ability to open up different perspectives, and to suggest links among them and from past to contemporary issues. An idea of Europe as continuously evolving, and as ongoing result of cultural exchanges and conflicts through time, characterised the exhibition. The main thread unfolded from ancient Greece to today, chronologically organised into nine thematic chapters. Each historical period was contained in a thematic room created by semi-transparent screens, allowing interactions among them and spatially suggesting the idea of blurring, through enabling sightlines through otherwise contained sections. This stood as a physical instantiation of a historiographical insistence that nothing is thoroughly distinct and discrete, and that just as we might think relationally about place, so we must about the past.

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Figure 1.3 Exhibition Europe Meets the World at National Museum of Denmark,

Copenhagen. Photo by Francesca Lanz. Representing places as processes in museums: orientations for practice

Although these different approaches seem like they could be ranged on a spectrum from the concrete to the abstract, they are often nested together. At the Museum of London, the blue lighting is accompanied by large­ scale, floor-to-ceiling photographs of the prehistoric woodlands of what was not yet London, as if one could step into the landscape that was to become the city we know today. The introductory room of the permanent exhibition at the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum has few objects in the normal museum sense, but videos, models, videos and documents display a rich collection of group histories, pursuing a similar role to Neuk6lln's 99 objects. As forms of representation, the types outlined above, may involve one another, drawing on different affective affordances strategically to move visitors between different registers of response.

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On one hand, immersive settings often embed a certain level of gamification, or the invitation to play with place and project oneself backwards in time with the help of a familiar physical referent. This can result in a fair-like experience, leaving little space for personal and critical reflection, not least because immersion requires a kind of completeness or coherence in the imagination of place that is unambiguously definite and singular. A common problem in such museums is the sanitisation of place, erasing the serious consequences of difference, inequity and prejudice towards others, or indeed divides between "natives" and others, or between social classes and groups, urban and rural people, women and men, adults and children. This is also presented in association with beautiful or picturesque surroundings. Meanwhile, these literal place representations sometimes end up unable to account for today's complexities of our societies, fixing a place in a specific period or year, in a specific perspective, re-marking boundaries. This may unwittingly help to entrench exclusivist positions and foment nostalgias that are easy sites of indulgence for people who want simple answers to today's problems of proprinquity. At worst, they present place in a mythic golden age, before adulteration. This is place that offers the myth of return, as if by expunging the ingress of alien elements we can revert to a kind of isolated hatmony. Otherwise, as with migration museums that rely on a building where migration "happened", there is a kind of isolation of past from present, such that the migrations (to Ellis Island, or wherever) become "historic" and closed; they lose their political connection to present migrations and the suffering and iniquities they involve. On the other hand, indirect place representations seem to be closer to an idea of progressive sense of place. Their level of abstraction empowers them to depict a place as a process, blurring its boundaries and leaving its defmition more open to different interpretations, accommodating multiple feelings of belonging. But the drawback of a too-abstract conceptualisation is to detach from peoples' concept and picture of that place, which is always somehow entangled with its physical dimension and thus become difficult to grasp. Nevertheless, the constructed place that seems most "real" in museums-perhaps one that we can walk in, where we can touch the walls of buildings and smell the odours of cattle and cooking-is not necessarily thus: it presents a pre-scripted engagement that leaves little space for discordant interpretation or critical reflection. Negotiating between the affordances of these concrete and more abstract productions of place may offer some ways through the problem: to create places that are at once tangible as singularities-physical and available to the senses-and multiple as sites of experience. In other

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words, museums let us make place look and feel like it does, with all of the scenographic and display techniques at our disposal. But at the same time we should show its multiplicities and the varieties of life experiences and subject positionings that happen there. Indeed, it is easy to suggest that we should "make place look and feel like it does", but a place may look and feel very different to different people and groups. In museum practice we might consider ways of experimenting productively-at the scenographic level-to present single places as having multiple atmospheres, looks and feels. Place has always been multiple. This can be shown through representing the trajectories that make place, not just as abstract and "dead" lines on a map but in ways that seem alive and relatable, for example through characters' stories. The National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam manages this well, telling the stories of a number of characters through video walls triggered by floor sensors. These are fictional but historically typical characters: an English ambassador, an urchin, a young female slave from the colonies who serves a rich household, all of whom have their own narratives of being in place, with differing levels of privilege and agency. Something human and something physical is needed for affective purchase, and in this case something dramatic to touch people. Arrows on a map, showing the movements of people between territories and over oceans and seas, are rarely sufficiently affecting for this. Critically, at the Maritime Museum, as we reach the end of the circuit we find that not all of these life stories end well: characters are differently able to manage their fates, and iniquities occur. People's experience and ability to negotiate the conditions and vicissitudes of place is not the same. This brings out understandings that place can be a site of suffering and non-belonging for some. Ideally this should rankle after the visit and remind us that place is not equal ground. We do not all thrive equally in place, and there are reasons for this embedded in the history of emplaced social relations that can be opened to scrutiny, hopefully with the effect of mitigating the simplistic antipathies held by some of those who count themselves as autochthons. Personal stories such as these can provide different windows onto the same place. In Rodman's layered notion of "multilocality" we can track the way place can signify differently for different people and/or groups in a synchronic fashion, expressed through multivocal assemblages. We see this in the real stories of being in place that are mapped at Friedrichshain­ Kreuzberg Museum. Here a commitment to avoiding a sanitization or happy fiction of place is important in capturing the social politics of propinquity. We might also show that place is an emotionally invested

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property, and explore the different investments made in it by different (sometimes competing) groups. For intercultural phenomena-whether they are bitter race relations or hybrid fOlTIlS in musics, cuisines, visual culture, talk and so on-the museum has special power to explore historical roots of contemporary antagonisms and of cultural hybridities, and to provide a long view of difference as a fact of life. Or, to invert this into ideal viewpoint, precisely by presenting the historical contingencies of difference, the museum may promote a collapse of difference, enabling visitors to question "the apparent 'given' of a world in the first place divided into 'ourselves' and others" (Gupta and Ferguson 1 992, 16; Rodman 1992, 646). This is to take a diachronic view, which is harder to marry with the imperative to represent places "as they appear/ed" in snapshot synchronic fOlTIl in the museum. But it is in the nature of the snapshot to appear frozen, completed, settled and hermetic rather than processual and becoming. We might think instead of more complex blends of diachronic and synchronic, even if these puncture the illusion of stepping into place/time setting. We need to ask: how can the affective qualities of immersion be married to the opening of longer perspectives of change and process? For example, what might augmented reality or time-lapse video do to help here? Or, as at the Maritime Museum in Amsterdam, what is the effect of a narrator who provides an unsettling epilogue? How can we display the multiple layers of time, experiences, memories that overlap in places? How can place as a process, as a palimpsest of ongoing superimpositions, be represented in the museum through display? Even in a strictly synchronic mode, senses of multilocality and multiplicity can be achieved. Massey showed the way here with her virtuoso passage about Kilburn High Road in London marked by presences and links with elsewhere in the fOlTIl of clothing, shops, graffiti, religious and visual culture, interpellations, advertisements, music, car and airplane traffic and roadways . . . (Massey 1991, 28). These were synchronous presences encountered within the space of her short walk. It is suggestive for museums, where walking or visitor locomotion is also a way of organising experience and the presentation of infolTIlation. Through the careful design of routes of apprehension, museums can encourage visitors to reassemble a cumulative sense of a place's multiplicity and to develop a way of seeing that can be exported beyond the museum walls, sometimes through supported itineraries. In further pursuit of this, displays that relate one place to another in historical relations of contingency, for example in relation to colonialism, can bring out the senses in which places connect to and co-construct one

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Chapter One

another historically. These are possible dimensions of displaying place to de-essentialise it and discourage the making of myths of splendid isolation. This is a complication of the local to show, as Rodman suggests, how it is "predicated on connections, on the interacting presence of different places and different voices" in various geographical, cultural, and historical contexts (Rodman 1992, 647). In the museum context this may serve to frustrate any sense of place as bounded and complete-within­ itself. If we show that landscapes can be "listening posts" to somewhere else (Rodman 1992, 644), and to other lives, emplaced elsewhere, then our senses of self and belonging in place and time might be less liable to parochial exclusions. Today we find ourselves in the difficult process of oscillating between two worldviews: one that focuses on territories, and one that focuses on the movements between them. This is not because the movements are new. Territory, as a zone of resource (space, fertile land, mineral deposits, water, etc.)-something that can be inhabited, O\vned and dominated-has always had political primacy over mobilities, as a "zone of experience". That is, until motilities come to the foreground as a potential resource (as in the "Four freedoms" at the basis of the establishment of European Single Market) or as a problem for territorial resources (as with the Refugee Crisis). But territorial thinking is not going away, and place identities-sometime divisive ones-attach to this. Our argument is that the world of territories and the world of arrows can be fused in museums that promote a global sense of place in the Masseyan sense. One critique of Massey's argument and call has been to suggest that people need to invest in the fixity of place, and their own relative fixity within it, for their feelings of rootedness (Cresswell 2004, 74-75). This may be one of the reasons that place representations in museums are so common and seem so popular. A challenge for museums is to help cultivate a sense of place that is both extroverted and anchored, that sees no threatening opposition between place as home and place as process, as stable and yet forever changing. This has a bearing on the all-important contest for belonging in place. Belonging exists in representational fOlTIl in museum displays as implicit or explicit projections of group identity, including banal and strident political content (Whitehead 2015). Museums may represent and even foster senses of belonging. However, they may, intentionally or unintentionally, create boundaries of belonging and therefore foster the exclusion of certain peoples or histories. In contradistinction, by stressing connections between, within and in places, museums can enable multi­ geographical perspectives that constructively open up, problematise and render the complexity of place identities, place histories and cultures,

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potentially contributing to the development of an "extroverted" sense of place liable to discourage exclusive actions and mythic narratives of once­ pure places corrupted by outsiders.

CHAPTER Two How LOMBROSO MUSEUM BECAME A PERMANENT CONFLICT ZONE MARIA TERESA MILICIA

Introduction On the 27 November 2009, the Museum of Criminal Anthropology "Cesare Lombroso" opened to the public after almost 80 years of institutional neglect (Giacobini, Cilli and Malerba 2010)1 One month before, as soon as the press launched news of the inauguration, the Neo­ Bourbon movement, together with a cartel of Southern political parties located in Naples, began to plan a smear campaign against the opening of the Museum. On the 2 of November the Apulian newspaper La Gazzetla del Mezzogiomo dedicated a banner headline to "The mass grave of Southern brigands", the patriots devoted to the last Bourbon King of the Two Sicilies who, in the view of protesters, lay still unburied in the Lombroso Museum (Ingrosso 2009)2 A few days later, the new display, which was still closed, was positioned through the social media as an intentional racist offense towards the Southern Italian peoples as well as a violation of the dignity of the Two Sicilies martyrs' remains. The increasing protest converged with the public debate of the counter­ narrative against Risorgimento and the then imminent celebration of 150 years of Italian unification (17 March 1861-2011)3 Neo-Bourbon historical 1 On Cesare Lombroso and his Criminal Man see the English edition (Gibson and Rafter 2006). 2 The current online version misses the journalist's crude comment on the "Lack of respect to the Southern dead who fought for the South freedom" published in the printed version. The Apulian newspaper was the first supporter of the print media campaign against the Musemn (Ingrosso 2010). 3 I will just give a few references (mainly selected for English readers) of the huge controversial debate on Garibaldi, Risorgimento and Italian nation-building within

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revisionism is built on the central ideas of the colonial conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the consequential "genocide" of Southern people perpetrated by the Piedmontese army. The campaign against Lombroso Museum was an extraordinary opportunity to achieve public visibility and call on other political actors in the arena of Neo­ Southern (Neo-meridionalista) activism. On 8 December 2009, the activists of the Neapolitan political movement Insorgenza Civile, created the Facebook group I meridionali contro il museD lombrosiano di Torino. The trend of the smear campaign against the Museum is exemplified by the report of the visit to the exhibition posted by Gianluca Bozzelli, one of the leaders of the movement, in which he divulges "first hand" infonnation about Cesare Lombroso: The Savoys granted him permission to perform experiments on the large catalog of Southern criminals available from the many jails of the Kingdom, autopsies of men still alive, mmders for scientific purposes, and more (Bozzelli 2010).

Alongside Insorgenza Civile notable protestors included Duccio Mallamaci, a Calabrian engineer, who taught mathematics and physics at a high school in Turin for many years. In charge of the local Neo-Bourbon Committees of the Two Sicilies, Mallamaci created the Facebook group Lombroso and Fenestrelle to sustain the protest against the Museum. He fueled an unwavering anti-Semitism reinvigorating the nineteenth-century theory of the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy against the Two Sicilies Kingdom that, in his view, is the agent of the reopening of the "Jewish Lombroso" Museum to lead the racist attack against the Southern people (Mallamaci n.d., 2016). After five months of mobilisation on social media, on the 8 May 2010 the "No Lombroso" cartel of the Southern political movement flocked to Turin to protest over the opening of the "Horror Museum" which became a symbol of Southern Italy's violent annexation into the Piedmont-Sardinia Kingdom of the Savoy house. The protesters marched the different scholarly and populist waves of revisionism, which was saturated with his public use and supported by the editorial marketing in the wake of the 150th anniversary of Italian unification (Riall 1994, 2007, 2009; Patriarca and Riall 2012; Lupo and Marmo 2010; Banti 201 1 ; Isnenghi 201 1 ; Lupo 201 1 ; Macry 2012; Casalena 2012; De Francesco 2013; Janz and Riall 2014; Meriggi 2014). On Southern Question revisionism: the discoveries of orientalist Mezzogiorno (Riall 2000), the recent Italian "postcolonial turn" (Romeo and Lombardi-Diop 2012; Dal Lago 2014; Giuliani 2017) and, earlier, the revisionist effort of jOlll1lal Meridiana (since 1988) and other scholar's contributions (Lupo 2010, 2015; De Francesco 2012).

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on the site of Lombroso Museum shouting slogans at Giuseppe Garibaldi who had turned from the hero of Risorgimento and Italian unification into the "villain" responsible for Southern colonisation4 Many of the participants waved, as a barmer, the book TeJToni: Tutto quello che e stato Jatto perche gli Italiani del Sud diventassero Meridionali, published in March 2010 and written by the journalist Pino Aprile (Aprile 2010, 2011) who became a key protagonist of popular anti-unitarian revisionism and a prominent supporter of the No Lombroso movement (ll Brigante Osco 2010). The demonstration in Turin marked a turning point of the mobilisation against the Museum. The leaders of the organisation walkout moved quickly off the scene. The baton passed to the hand of the No Lombroso Technical­ Scientific Connnittee founded a few days after the demonstration in Turin where the protesters signed the first petition to close dO\vn the Museum. The new online headquarters, 'WWW.nolombroso.org, centralised the propaganda machine that would gather momentum in a broad range of strategic activities ranging from the gain of public supporters to territorial expansion as well as to promotion of legal actions5. The long-lasting campaign to close down the Museum has two pivotal requests: The repatriation of the skull of Giuseppe Villella, who was, in the view of the claimants, the Two Sicilies patriot who defended his home country Motta Santa Lucia in Calabria from the Piedmontese invasion. On the other side, Villella's skull is the principal object of the craniological collection of Lombroso, exhibited as a "scientific relic" in the actual Museum display. In the narrative about the foundation of Criminal Anthropology, the theory of "criminal atavism" was inspired by the discovering of an anomalous shape of the median fossa in the occipital bone of Villella's skull. The second request is the burial of all the unknO\vn human remains of Lombroso Museum in the cemetery of Fontanelle in Naples, the famous site of the popular cult of the unknown dead, recently converted into a Museum exhibition (Sanita 2016).

4 There is an interesting similarity with attacks on Cristoforo Colombo during the celebrations of America's "discovery" in 1992 (Schmnan, Schwartz, and D'Arcy 2005). 5 The No Lombroso Committee gained the adhesion of the Calabria Regional CmUlcil (May 10, 2012) with the powerful support of the councilor for culture Mario Caligimi, elected in the right-wing coalition (2010) and Romano Pitaro, head of the press office of the Calabria Regional CmUlcil, who personally sustained the No Lombroso campaign against the Museum as director of Calabria on Web, the official magazine of the Regional Council (Pitaro 2010, 201 1 , 2012, 2015; Iannantuoni 2012). The political change produced a climate conducive to the gambit of Villella's repatriation case.

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Figure 2.1 Detail of Fontanelle Cemetery. Photo by Maria Teresa Milicia.

The claim for repatriation of Villella's skull to be buried in Motta Santa Lucia is sustained by the mayor Amedeo Colacino, who is still in charge in the local council since the spreading of the protest. The intervention of the municipality plays a key role in the court battle against the Museum6• This chapter is concerned with the complex political entanglements of the mobilisation against the Museum that involves many social actors and is strengthened through an effective communication strategy in the new 6 On the 16 May 2017 the comt of appeal of Catanzaro ruled in favor of the Museum. The committee and the mayor appealed to the Supreme Court of Cassation, Italy's highest comt (Milicia 2017). The case is far from resolution, as the conclusion of this chapter implies.

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technological landscape of social media. My ongoing ethnographic research began in 2011, when, while visiting the Museum in Turin I became aware of this repatriation movement from the South of Italy. I gained an in-depth knowledge of this case study through multi-sited fieldwork in Motta Santa Lucia, in Lombroso Museum and in the No Lombroso Facebook group within which I spent eighteen months from September 2012 until March 2014. The archival research in Lombroso Museum, in the civil and parish registers of Motta Santa Lucia, Catanzaro, Lamezia Terme and Decollatura allowed the historic identification of Giuseppe Villella. Before my fieldwork, he was nothing more than the name of a specimen, who then became the fictive symbol of Southern "insurgence". My purpose here is to present an overview of the focal points which stem from the embedded processes of the mythologising of history, political branding and the production of locality. Furthermore, the "deep mediatization" (Couldry and Hepp 2016, 53) of communication practices gives the leadership of the protest the power to fuel the mobilisation into the online environment, where the activists relaunch everyday the "racist reality" of the Museum. This serves to delineate a kind of "structure of the conjuncture" that could explain how the Lombroso Museum became a pelTIlanent "conflict zone" or, more precisely, a "war zone".

The "genocide of Meridionali" and the Neo-Bourbon Two Sicilies Kingdom Let us go back to the early nineties, in Naples, when the actual grOlUldwork of the mobilisation against the Museum was laid. In September 1993, Gennaro De CrescenzO', teacher of history in high school, founded the Neo-Bourbon Cultural Association in Naples. As president of the association, De CrescenzO' likes to give an anecdotal account of the effort to create the first group of the Neo-Bourbon movement by scrutinising the letters sent to the local newspaper II Mattino to get in touch with Bourbon-sympathetic authors. In reality, it was largely Riccardo Pazzaglia, well-known TV shO\vrnan, writer and close collaborator of the newspaper, who took part in organising a counter-demonstration of the celebration for Garibaldi's entry into Naples (7 September 1 860) that served to gather those nostalgic for the Bourbon Kingdom for the first time in the public arena. De CrescenzO' and the Neo-Bourbon movement had another effective mentor: the politician Angelo Manna, an outsider intellectual who was elected deputy of the right-wing Movimento Sociale Italiano-Destra Nazionale. On September 1991 Manna founded Il fronte

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del Sud (The Southern Front) which participated in the 1992 Naples election, without a favourable outcome. In his passionate speech at the first party congress, the core argument was the quest for the "revelation of historical truth" that would have given back to Neapolitans and the Southern peoples a sense of pride in belonging to the great Two Sicilies Kingdom (Manna 1992). The slogan "We have to be Bourbon to become Italians" strengthened their aim to overturn the increasing political consensus of the Northern League that was basically achieved through the racist campaign against the Southerners7• In those years there had been a dramatic change in the Italian political system after the legal investigation "Mani Pulite" (Clean Hands) and consequential dissolution of the traditional parties of the first Republic. At the same time, the structural aid programme for Southern economic development "Cassa del Mezzogiorno" was dismantled, while European funds were going to be the new financial instruments based on local competitive plarming. The new election brought to Naples governance the mayor Antonio Bassolino, a left-wing leader, who inaugurated the "Neapolitan Renaissance": One of the administration's priorities was to harness the city's cultural and architectural heritage [ .. .]. Historical monmnents were restored, piazzas and streets were repaved and closed to traffic, and a plethora of open-air events were organized to draw people back to what were considered neglected public spaces (Dines 2012, 9).

'Who was the main creator and custodian of this immense cultural heritage if not the Bourbon dynasty? The idealistic impetus of Fronte del Sud seeded the later Neo-Bourbon movement. The primary agenda of the Association's activism is the revitalisation of the glories of the past Two Sicilies capital, as well as the restoration of "historic truth" about the peace and prosperity during the Bourbon Kingdom which was destroyed by Italian Unification. The Neo­ Bourbon quest for truth faces up to the hotly controversial Southern Question-the recursive meta-narrative of Italian political history-which they interpret as the consequence of Piedmontese exploitation of the great richness of Two Sicilies and its dramatic transfOlmation into a colonised land. The scholarly production on the Southern question is rejected as a result of experts' intentional falsification of Italian history perpetrated 7 The Northern League party, originally the Lombard League, was constituted in February 1991 in force of an alliance with other authonomist parties in the North ofItaly. They supported a secessionist programme.

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against the South and moreover against the Bourbon Kingdom: "Never has history been so maliciously falsified as it has been with this king and with this dynasty" (Movimento Neoborbonico n.d.). The Association successfully pursued the goal to restore the public reputation of the Royal House of Bourbon Two Sicilies. Prince Charles first came to Naples in 1994 for the exhibition dedicated to Francis II, tbe last king of the Two Sicilies, curated by the Baron Roberto Maria Selvaggi, who was involved with the Neo-Bourbon movement while being the secretary of tbe Bourbon Royal House (Gull n.d). The prince has been actively engaging the Movement in the aim of promoting the cultural, artistic, historical and spiritual identity of Southern Italy, as he declares on the official website of the Royal House (Royal House of Bourbon Two Sicilies 2015a, 2015b)8 By the time of his return to Naples, tbe revitalisation of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, as a non-profit organisation, had resulted in the sustaining of important charitable activities first in the past capital of the kingdom and in recent years also in Calabria (Royal House of Bourbon Two Sicilies 2015c). The process of cultural and political branding of the Neo-Bourbon movement had also been running parallel to tbe marketing strategy of the Bourbon Royal House tbat greatly benefits from the successful brand launching of Caffe Borbone (www.caffeborbone.it). The Neo-Bourbon affiliated scholars turned on the huge documentation and data sources of "brigandage" accumulated for more than a century and half, to be employed for the purpose of recovering the "concealed" memories of the vanquished: Thousands of heroic citizens of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies died on the battlefield. In the same way, thousands of men, women, and children were shot in the campaign against Southern Italy they were called "bandits" or "brigands", but they were, in fact, the last soldiers and defenders of a history, a tradition, and a culture that would die with them forever (Movirnento Neoborbonico n.d.).

The activists of the Movement worked hard to produce a mythical narrative about the Two Sicilies Kingdom tbat became popular through public performance and rite of institution (Bourdieu 1991, 117) oftbe new sites of memory. The enduring effort to ritualise symbolic practices to construct a new Southern collective memory would have successfully authenticated the "true" history of the Two Sicilies patriotic resistance. 8 I want to emphasise that the Royal House never took part in any kind of activity or public assertion against Lornbroso Museum.

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Neapolitan right-wing intellectuals were disseminating a popular narrative on the resistance to the conquest of the South, written in the genre of "fictional history" (Ginsburg 2012). Literary production in the 1960s (Alianello 1963, 1972) (De Antonellis n.d.) inspired the screenplay of a popular TV series L 'erediM della priara (1980) and the movie Li chiamarana briganti (They call them brigands, 1999), directed by Pasquale Squitieri, with the above-mentioned Baron Selvaggi as historical consultant to the screenplay (Marmo 2011). Another key protagonist of tbe political and cultural climate that impacted tbe re-opening of Lombroso Museum is Captain Alessandro Romano, the present director of Rete d'informazione del Regno delle Due Sicilie (www.reteduesicilie.it). A descendant of the Bourbon army sergeant Pasquale Romano, who fought until his death in 1863 around the Apulian town Gioia del Colle, Alessandro received the honorary title of captain from Princess Drraca of the Bourbon Two Sicilies, as he himself declares in interviews (Abate 2011). After he joined the Neo-Bourbon movement, Captain Romano produced an itinerant exhibition on brigandage which is the principal subject of his historic passion. The exhibit Brigands. Heroes or criminals? has been traveling Italy, mostly to schools and Neo-Bourbon commemorative events. From tbe reduction of the complex multifaceted "brigandage" phenomenon to a fOlTIl of memorial storytelling emerged a misleading portrait of Lombroso and his Museum. We Southern, victims of this criminal precmsor of the worst Nazi executioners, have the duty to go beyond the actual news of official historiography and illmninate some really horrifying circmnstances of one of the most brutal acts of violence enacted deliberately against om people from the worst architects of Italian Risorgimento. Despite many attempts and requests to reopen, the Musemn is still closed do\Vll. Maybe there is the fear that someone could recognize a missing relative among the pile of severed heads? (Romano 2004)

The "mass grave" of the Two Sicilies patriots is the concluding statement that follows those assumptions. "Brigand" is the offensive label attached to all patriots who defended the Two Sicilies Kingdom against the Piedmontese invasion. Cesare Lombroso was a criminal-physician who collected war trophies for his Museum. It was in the year 2004 tbat we saw tbe beginning of the expansion of the Neo-Southern network of counter-infolTIlation into the new technological environment of internet communication. Before the creation of the Neo­ Bourbon website (http://www.neoborbonici.it) in 2005, many ofthe activists'

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articles were posted on the pioneering website eleam.org (2000) opened by the MalXist intellectual Nicola Zitara, a Southern left-wing "dissident" who strongly supported the secession of the South from Italy. Despite the fact that he was not a monarchist, Zitara expressed sympathy for Neo­ Bourbon revisionism that would enable the Southern peoples to recover consciousness and sense of pride in belonging to the past glory of the Two Sicilies Kingdom'. "Neither to Right nor to Left but to South" is the populist call for the project of Southern identity politics. The attempt to allow such different ideologies to converge into an alliance for achieving a unified Southern connnunity was looking for strong symbols to share and attract public consensus. The reappraisal of the past of the lost Kingdom provided to give public visibility to the places of resistance of the Bourbon army until March 1861 as well as of other infamous massacre in the bloody civil war that went on until 186510. Gaeta-the city where king Francis II took refuge, that was besieged for three months until February 13, 1 86l-Civitella del Tronto, Pontelandolfo and Casalduni-where the retaliation against the massacre of an Italian alTIly squad caused an unspecified number of civilian victims-are all sites of the Neo-Bourbon reappraisal of the contested history of Italian unification. Fenestrelle Castle in Piedmont is the most famous but controversial Neo-Bourbon site of memory, reevaluated since 2008 (Izzo 1999; Di Fiore 2005; Montaldo 20l2a; Barbero 2012; De Crescenzo 2014). Popular revisionism claims the castle to be the first concentration camp of European history, where the Piedmontese extelTIlinated and dissolved in caustic lime more than 40,000 soldiers of the Bourbon anny. This process of "branding atrocity" (Muhr and Rehn 2014) has been a successful trend in publisher marketing about the years of the l 5 0th armiversary of the birth of the Italian nation. In fact, it was turned into a huge manipulative part of the epochal rhetoric on the North-South divide that has combined the Bourbon legitimation chronicles of the time with the fresh topic of "genocide". 9 In his last interview he sustained the autonomist radicalism to the point of seeking for a totalitarian leadership to free the South from the colonial exploitation of Italian State, possibly with the help of a foreign country (Zitara 2010). 10 The definition of civil war (Lupo 201 1 ) does not refer to a North-South ethno­ racial divide, but to an internal political divide between Unitarian patriots and anti­ unitarian or Two Sicilies patriots. The idea of ethnic cleansing has flowed in some accounts that take in a shallow way the many but rigorous scholarly perspectives of Italian revisionism that never use the category of genocide or ethnic cleansing to talk about the Unification.

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The journalist Pino Aprile, since the publishing of tbe above mentioned Terroni (2010) and tbat of tbe sequel Carnefici (2016) with the meaningful subtitle Fu genocidio: centinaia di migliaia di italiani del Sud uccisi incarcerati deportati torturati derubati (Executioners. It was genocide: Hundreds of thousands ofSouthern Italians Murdered Imprisoned Deported Tortured Robbed), is the most popular and representative of tbis editorial trend tbat divulged tbe equation of Piedmontese witb Nazis. In this frantic attempt to institute the living memory of the Southern Italian "genocide", all human remains are likely to become evidencell. The Lombroso Museum provides the "body of proof' of tbe genocidal intent of the Piedmontese invaders and tbe skull of Giuseppe Villella is the relic of tbe forgotten hero waiting to be buried at home, in the Motta Santa Lucia memorial that mayor Colacino was plarming to create. It begins to be clear how the display of Lombroso Museum could be turned to use in tbe public arena regarding tbe reclamation of the forgotten memories of the Two Sicilies martyrs.

Motta Santa Lucia. The invention of the site of (post)memory On 20 October 2009 the president of the Neo-Bourbon association, De Crescenzo, made a telephone call to infolTIl la\V)'er Amedeo Colacino, recently elected mayor of Motta Santa Lucia, that tbe skull of tbe "famous brigand" Giuseppe Villella was about to be exhibited at Cesare Lombroso Museum in Turin. 'When the Neo-Bourbon president realised that mayor Colacino had never heard of the "famous" brigand in Motta Santa Lucia, he received the stark confirmation that "official history" had succeeded in erasing all memories of the Two Sicilies heroes' deeds. The mayor was as excited to learn that his home to\vn had such an important hero as much as De Crescenzo was to recapture a site of memory in Calabria, a silent zone in the Neo-Bourbon politics of memory as well as a strategic location for the Southern "reconquista". Political instinct encouraged the mayor to join the smear campaign against the Lombroso Museum, instead of seizing the opportunity to get in touch with the staff in Turin, more than a month before the date of inauguration. This decision was fraught with consequence. In fact it 11

In 1980 thousands of skulls and hmnan bones were discovered into a crypt of the 1 5th century chmch of Annunziata in Pontelandolfo. Those remains were recently attributed to the massacre of 1 861 (Di Fiore 2015, 274) without any kind of investigation.

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prevented the Museum staff from promoting any kind of cooperation or negotiation with the representatives of the Motta Santa Lucia community. Moreover, it prevented the staff from collaborating on any archive research in the "brigand" homeland which could effectively be compared with the Museum's records, revealing the historic identity of the remains and the existence of any descendants. Despite this lack of basic information, the mayor decided to publicly declare that he was the great grandchild of Giuseppe Villella, never missing a chance to lalUlch on the press the heartfelt appeals to restore the patriot's remains to his mourning family. The prejudicial refusal of the mayor to attempt any kind of negotiation with the Museum went on, even when my archive research documented a very different historical reality. There was a clear intention to transfonn the little town into a "Two Sicilies" site of memory that would attract funding for touristic projects, which I will tum to later. After nine months of activist mobilisation on the web, the manifestation in Turin, and the foundation of the "No Lombroso techno-scientific committee", on July 2010 mayor Colacino finally went to the Museum with the official parliamentary visit guided by Onorevole Scilipoti. In the middle of the media parade, while posing in the Museum for a photo beside the skull of his great grand-father, that was posted hundreds of times on his Facebook page and in the local press, the mayor was seeing the materialisation of the dream of making the small country in Calabria a shrine for the commemorative events of the Neo-Two Sicilies homeland as well as the leading place for the strategic alliance of Southern political parties. Motta Santa Lucia could become the "Southern Pontida", as, on 28 May 201 1 , the newspaper La Gazzetta del Sud reported, quoting the foundation site of the Northern League in Lombardy: "And if the Carroccio is the symbol for Umberto Bossi's party, for the Southern League it could quite easily be the skull" (Leonetti 201 1 ; Onda del Sud 2011). The close collaboration between the mayor and the president of the No Lombroso committee Domenico Iarmantuoni shows how effectively propaganda resulted in visibility for Motta Santa Lucia as well as for themselves. The engineer Iannantuoni, a native of Apulia who came to Milan with his family in the late 1950s, founded the Two Sicilies Cultural Association (AD SIC) in 2000 (Di Giacomo 2003), and in 2004 the Party for the South (Per il Sud). On the 2006 Election Day, Iannantuoni was an unsuccessful candidate for the Senate in Lombardy and for both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies in Calabria. The Party for the South flags were waving at the demonstration in Turin where the engineer began to collect signs for the petition to close dO\vn the Museum. The strenuous efforts of

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the No Lombroso Committee gave the mayor the strength to undertake legal action against the Museum, in spite of the indifference, if not the opposition, of his fellow citizens. On the 3 October 2012, the judge Gustavo Danise of Lamezia TelTIle Court issued an executive order for the restitution of Villella's remains to the Motta Santa Lucia council that made the request (Montaldo 2012b). Comparing the skull to a living prisoner, the grounds of the order is the "wrongful imprisonment" of Giuseppe Villella's remains in the Museum because the Lombroso theory of criminal atavism is outdated, thus denying the historic and cultural value of the collection's exhibit (Garlandini and Montaldo 2016, 323). At the same time the judgment does not attempt to answer a moral dilemma possibly caused by differences in cultural sensitivity for the deadl2 In the word of judge Danise This right to the moral redemption is the fmmdation of legitimacy and interest to act by Motta Santa Lucia mlUlicipality which could gain social prestige from the recovery of the bones of a character who had such importance to Criminal anthropology and was rehabilitated today. Not only this; the to\Vll could become a destination for tomists and the curious who want to see the remains and/or the grave of the man who o\Vlled the shape of the typical occipital fossa of Southern criminals, according to the theory of Lombroso, defmed by many voices as racist [ . . . ] The request made by the Motta Santa Lucia council unwilling to comply with a material interest in the burial of an individual but to realize the collective interest of restoring prestige to the local commlUlity13.

The No Lombroso Committee also requested [COM Italia for an opinion on the grounds of article 4.4 of the [COM Ethics Code about "the request for return of human remains or material of sacred significance 12Perracuti and Lattanzi argue that "feelings ofpietas for the dead" is at the core of the protest which was "a trailblazer of the condenmation of Lombroso and of claiming the \\'fongs suffered by the South" (Perracuti and Lattanzi 2012, 60). Moreover, they \\'fite that the Comt relied on the precedent of the restitution of the brain of anarchist Giovanni Passannante from the Criminology Musemn in Rome to Savoia di Lucania on May 2007. The judge Danise didn't mention this case which never carne to trial. Though apparent similarities, the repatriation story of Passannante has profound differences with Villella's case that I cannot address here. On 2003 Ulderico Pesce (http://www.uldericopesce.itJ) \\'fote and played the theatrical piece "The sprinkler of Passannante's brain" divulging the repatriation debate on the anarchist who made an attempt on King Umberto's life on 1878 in Naples. 13 Despite the irreducible vulgate, Lombroso attributed the occipital fossa to the universal "specimen" of criminal man.

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from the originating community" (rCOM 2013). The example cited to corroborate the legitimacy of the demand for repatriation is, not by chance, the repatriation case of the 20 skulls of Namibian warriors from Germany that testifies to one of the worst acts of colonial violence. Some days after the court judgment, rCOM rtalia come out in favor of the Museum (rCOM 2012, 2014; Garlandini and Montaldo 2016). They emphasised that Giuseppe Villella was an Italian citizen, and thus the notion of originating community was meaningless in the context of Italian history. This historically grounded interpretation of "originating community" that implies an ethnic or religious group, even with the colonial legacy of unequal relationships with museum institutions, is a hot topic for museum studies. In this case, for the claimants, who consider the Italian Unification an illegal act of colonial conquest, Villella continues to be a subject of Two Sicilies Kingdom. The insurgence of Southern identity politics, while producing the resurgence of "brigand" Villella, would tum a part of the Italian territory into an "indigenous community" that claims its own post­ colonial redemption. This skillful blend of Two Sicilies nationalism, post­ colonial claims and anti-racist rhetoric, has enabled the Committee to gather a combined consensus in the attack on the Museum (Pandolfi 20l4a, 20l4b). On 8 January 2013 the Court of Appeal of Catanzaro accepted the opposition of the University of Turin (on whom the Museum depends) to the restitution of the Villella's remains. In the four years spent waiting for the appeal court's ruling, which at the time of writing in 2017 is finally about to be issued, the process of the "production of locality" (Appadurai 1996)-involving Motta Santa Lucia as a leading site of the new geopolitical configuration of the Southern "First Nation"-empowered through socialised practices of various perfOlmances, representation and political action (Appadurai 1996, 180). In 2013 the mayor obtained the first reward for "The site of memory of brigand Villella" thanks to resources allocated to the rntegrated Territorial Project (p.I.T 14) from European Regional Development Fund. The first work to be carried out was the monument dedicated to brigand Villella which the mayor had already shown on his Facebook page in September 2012, while he was awaiting the judge's ruling on repatriation [fig. 2]. In April 2014, when the monument was ready to be installed, the citizens of Motta Santa Lucia opposed the fake narrative about "the patriot who fought against the Piedmontese invaders to defend his homeland" that would have been carved on marble for future memory (Comune di Motta Santa Lucia 2014). They had long been aware of the manipulation in place on the identity of Villella, and the public attack at my Lombroso e il brigante. Storia di un

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cranio conteso (Lombroso and the Brigand. History of a contested skull), before its presentation in Motta Santa Lucia, confinned the fraudulent strategies ofthe No Lombroso leaders (Novelli 2014, Montaldo 2014). Nevertheless, on I I February 2017, for the Two Sicilies Memorial Day in Gaeta, the Neo-Bourbon Movements, with the active participation of Pino Aprile, organised the ceremonial display of the bricks that will be part of the "Wall of Memory". The name of Motta Santa Lucia, imprinted on one of the bricks, thus has officially entered into the monumental memory of the Two Sicilies Kingdom (Rete di Inforrnazione delle Due Sicilie 201 7a, 20 1 7b).

Figure 2.2 Bricks ofMemory of the Two Sicilies Peoples. Ceremony for the Wall

of Memory of the Two Sicilies peoples, Gaeta, February 1 1 , 2017. Photo by Maria Teresa Milicia. The mediated construction of the online Memorial No Lombroso

On 23 May 2010 the Technical-Scientific Committee of No Lombroso opened their online location. The emphasis of the self-appointed "technical and scientific" committee was to claim for itself the orthodoxy of the

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scientific discourse aimed at correcting the malicious distortion of Cesare Lombroso representation in the Turinese Museum. The visitor entering the No Lombroso Committee website is embodied in a communicative space construed by the illocutionary force of the utterance: "Look at the havoc", "The Museum Cesare Lombroso is obscene, inhuman, racist... the absence of God!". Those words activate the magic performativity through which Lombroso Museum turns into the mass grave of the Two Sicilies' patriots. Thanks to the digital repatriation of human remains from the Lombroso collection, the visitor can look at the images-all taken when the Museum was still closed-labeled with captions that describe the evidence of the "crime against the South": ... Two Sicilian soldiers and peasants were captured, tortured and decapitated for Cesare Lornbroso (who is still considered scientist only in Italy) and his studies . . . . .the remains of the southern soldiers, called "Briganti", are still exposed like trophies. There is no scientific reason for this obscene show. . (Comitato tecnico-scientifico "No Lombroso" n.d.)

As in a horror tale, the criminal scientist becomes the instigator of the Piedmontese massacres to stock up on corpses. The visitor goes dO\vn creepy routes seeing "Southern soldiers' skulls", "insurgent sectioned skulls", "brains of insurgents and/or criminals", "the skull ofM!. Giuseppe Villella", as well as the dramatic "pile of insurgents' skulls"14. This emblematic image of the "mass grave" of Southern people is actually a photo published by Giorgio Colombo in 1975 to document at the time the state of disorder and neglect of the craniological collection (Colombo 2000, 76; Garlandini and Montaldo 2016, 321). The symbolic manipulation strategy produces the shared vision of an obscene common ossuary of war heroes which is profaned by public exposure: "...you can find Two Sicilies Kingdom's soldiers exposed like horrible war trophies" (Comitato tecnico-scientifico "No Lombroso" n.d.). When the visitor finally decides to sign in support of the battle against the Museum-for the return of Villella's skull to the mourning relatives, for the burial of the "martyrs' remains" on the sacred soil of Fontanelle in Naples, for "the removal of his theories from textbooks and any street or road name memorial and museum on behalf of Cesare Lombroso"-the equation 14 On May 2010 while presenting in Milan the pamphlet Terroni, Aprile told the audience that the Museum exhibits the Southerner's heads with the caption "Southern Criminal" (Aprile 201Oa).

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Lombroso-Mengele and Piedmonteses-Nazis has clearly been implanted in the mind: The Museum, evidently inaugurated by the descendants of Piedmonteses-Nazis, is an accomplice to a war criminal. The No Lombroso website is actually the site of the permanent struggle to bring the genocidal racism of the Museum into existence, allowing the recognition of the status of victim to the Southerners. The perfOlmative statements on the online "Horror museum" which seek to bring about what they state (Bourdieu 1991, 225), deactivate the category of the history of science that frames the Lombroso Museum exhibition. At the same time it increases the power of the representative leadership to act in the public sphere through slogans against the Museum and accusations of genocide at the Northern conquerors of the Two Sicilies Kingdom. The perfOlmative efficacy of the mediated construction of Lombroso and his museum, as an enemy agency which celebrates genocidal intent, produces the symbolic resources for a pelTIlanent conflict that is functional for the mobilisation of Southern identity politics. The online reality of the "No Lombroso" Museum which annihilates the physical reality of the Lombroso Museum is located in the digital enviromnent of post-meridionalisti movements. This "mediatized collectivity" (Couldry and Hepp 2016, 172) encompasses websites of political parties and associations, and YouTube channels that are all closely interrelated with activists blogging. The flow of the communication content is captured and shared within the activists and supporters network on Facebook. The data collected during my participant observation on the No Lombroso Facebook group indicate that many users of Facebook became politicised online, after the widespread mobilisation against the Museum (Milicia 2014b, 266). The participants of the No Lombroso network interact as a "Web communitas" in the everyday ritual practices of instituting the collective memory that sustains the transition to the state of self-awareness of belonging to the Two Sicilies historical and political identity. The liminal phenomenology of "communitas" (Tumer 1969) is expressed through the acquisition of a new name, often the nickname brigante or brigantessa, as well as through the photo profile taken from the iconographic repertoire of brigands. This reinforces the perception of the suspension of social status distinction and, thus, an egalitarian position within the group is acquired. The construction of the "Web communitas" works through the creative process of selecting narrative motifs, textual, visual and musical citations, which focuses attention on the everyday memento of violence, exploitation and deception against Southern people, thus favoring a shared common experience of trauma and a unified perception of the reality of "genocide" (Milicia 2015a). As many scholars

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argue, the Holocaust became a "universal trope for other traumatic histories and memories" (pinchevski 2011, 262), "the deep structure of contemporary depictions of trauma, loss, and suffering" (Frosh and Pinchevski 2009, 5). The book Terroni and the movie Li chiamarono briganti, are the leading source of the aesthetic perfOlmances of this post-memorial work (Hirsh 2012, 33). The film sequences have been dismantled, trimmed and rearranged, spliced and joined together to become visual commentary of the mobilisation propaganda. Hundreds of videos that tell the massacre of the people of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (per il Sud 2010), often with soundtracks from songwriter supporters, go viral into the Web communitas. Here is the heart of the technological replicability of the living memory where the neophytes experience the initiation to the status of witness and to the identity of victim (Brand 2009, 198; Giglioli 2014).

Conclusion: The last word on Giuseppe Villella Giuseppe Villella has had a historic existence as well as many different discursive existences. The discursive existences are first related to the writings of Lombroso that belong to the two different registers of scientific and popular communication. The seven articles on "The median occipital fossa in the skull of a criminal man" from the first on 12 January 1871 until 1874 are strictly intended for the academic circuit (Milicia 2014a, 2015a). As Lombroso clearly states in those scientific articles, in 1870 he examined only Villella's skull without performing an autopsy. The contradictory descriptions of physiognomic signs and biographical information suggest that Lombroso never met Villella while he was detained in Pavia prison. In the article of 1 874 further information about the criminal conduct of Villella (from the King's Prosecutor in Catanzaro) confinns he was a recidivist thief who had nothing to do with political brigandage. After 1906, the scientist, at the peak of his career, forged the foundation myth of Criminal Anthropology (Renneville 2009). In the popular magazine L 'Illustrazione Italiana Lombroso divulged the illuminating discovery of the atavistic sign in the skull "while I was performing the autopsy of a Calabrian brigand in the Pavia prison" (Lombroso 1906, 302). The year after he stated that Villella's skull is "the totem, the fetish of Criminal anthropology" (Lombroso 1907, 502). His daughter Gina, the first biographer of Lombroso, contributed to the myth of the "famous brigand Villella" that illuminated the mind of the scientist to theorise the born criminal (Lombroso and Lombroso Ferrero 1911, XN; Lombroso Ferrero 1921, 130).

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Like any myth worthy of respect, the origins are often obscure and mysterious. Lombroso never revealed the date of death of the "brigand" which was hidden in the inscription inside the cranial vault. After making the skull cast, he kept the original in a glass case on the desk of his horne studio, away from prying eyes. The glass case entered the Museum collection together with the fumiture of the studio, gifted by the scientist's heirs in 1947.

Figure 2.3 Home Office of Cesare Lombroso. Photograph © Lombroso Museum,

courtesy of Lornbroso Museum

As a sure sign of lack of interest in the collection, the skull disclosed its secret when it was examined for the first time in 1985 before the exhibition "La scienza e la colpa" at Mole Antonelliana in Turin. The death date of 1864, seven years before the first article of Lombroso on Villella (Villa 1985, 248), corresponds to the date in the first register of the Lombroso craniological collection in Pavia, found by Silvano Montaldo while working on the new Museum exhibition in 2009. In the light of the death date of Villella, it was possible to grasp the importance of popularising narrative for the construction of the origin myth of Criminal anthropology (Renneville 2009; Milicia 201 5b). As I have outlined in this chapter, Neo-Bourbon mythologising of the "Two Sicilies patriot" re-appropriated the Lombroso mythologisation of

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the "famous brigand". The fetish of Criminal anthropology is now the fetish of the leaders who hope to profit from this symbolic capital of Southern identity politics. In August 2012 I found the death certificate in a dusty repository of the ancient records of Motta Santa Lucia that provides the certain registry identification of the man who died in 1864 at the Civic hospital San Matteo in Pavia. The historic existence of Villella is fixed in the trace of the archives that draws the chronological sequence of births, marriages and deaths of him and his relatives, and the documents of two trials for theft. In 1 844, before unification, he was convicted of thieving cheese and goats. The 1863 document of juridical proceedings confirms the recidivism for theft, excluding any involvement in politics as well as criminal brigandage (Archivio di Stato di Lamezia Terme 1844, 1863)15. Giuseppe was a poor man who suffered the dramatic social economic inequality of the epoch, when thieving was a kind of redistribution of wealth, sometimes the only way to feed large families. Though mayor Colacino knows the historical evidence of Villella's identity very well, he supports the fake identification that is divulged by the No Lombroso committee in publications and even in the trial against the Museum. In September 2016, the intervention in the trial of the closest living relative of Giuseppe Villella risked upsetting the political plan of the No Lombroso leaders, since that could reveal the true history of the man whose skull went into the Museum collection. 'While waiting for the sentence, the No Lombroso supporters on Facebook, who blindly trust the version of their leaders, invoke the DNA test. Perhaps, in a twist of fate, once agam the "malign" science will say the last word on Giuseppe Villella.

15 The 1863 docmnent is lUlfortunately incomplete: there is only the accusation but not the final sentence.

CHAPTER THREE ON THE WAY OUT? THE CURRENT TRANSFORMATIONS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUMS ULF JOHANSSON DAHRE

Introduction: From cultural heritage institutions to social arenas This chapter has two major aims. Firstly, it aims to analyse the discussions on the current transformation of ethnographic museums, especially in Europe and North America and to some extent in Asia. Secondly, it aims at analysing, at a broad level, what the transfOlmations of these museums actually consists of. Since the 1980s there has been a widespread discussion in anthropology and elsewhere on the political and social role of ethnographic museums. The debate started with the "post-colonial turn" in the 1980s. Today, when issues like globalisation and concepts such as multiculturalism, new public management and experience economy are added to the debate, it appears once more as if the whole idea of maintaining ethnographic museums is challenged. Nevertheless, the present debate is, in many aspects, a continuation from the 1980s and the 1990s, when observers like James Clifford (1988; 1997) deconstructed ethnographic museums and challenged the existence of them as such. From that time we can also recall the provocative question posed by the French anthropologist Jean Jamin (1998, 62-69) who bluntly asked: "Should museums of ethnography be burned?" Even if the question of the future existence of ethnographic museums is still lingering, the critique today usually takes directions little different than the earlier ones. Now questions raised by museum staff, cultural policy analysts and researchers are often: What is the social role of ethnographic museums in multicultural nations? What events should be held at the museums? How does one attract new and more target (visitor) groups?

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In relation to the current debate on the transformation of ethnographic museums, I attempt to raise three more concretely targeted questions, in an effort to put the whole discussion in a wider political and social context. Firstly, what does the current political and social transfOlmation of ethnographic museums consist of? What are the necessary changes that so many observers, policy-makers, and people in the museum sector are talking about? Secondly, why are these transformations occurring? What are the ideas and forces that underlie the claimed transformations? The third and last question to be addressed is: what are the consequences for the ethnographic museums of these transfOlmations? Maybe none of these questions is new. However, only a few attempts, like the large EU-funded project RIME, concluded in 20131, have been made in recent years to take a broader and more general look at what is going on in the contemporary world of ethnographic museums and what the future consequences of the changes will be. Another difference from earlier discussions is that my conclusions, more in line Nicholas Thomas (2016a) recent argument that "We need ethnographic museums today­ whatever you think of their history", differ from the ones that argue that the ethnographic museums are on the way out, are dead or should be burnt. Whilst most earlier analyses concluded that ethnographic museums had to be transfOlmed into social arenas, with social inclusiveness, events and edutainment as guiding principles, I argue that a better way to go would be in relation to research and education on one hand and art and history on the other. My argument is based on the general image that the current transfOlmations of ethnographic museums, "from temple of the muses to temple of amusements" (Friedman 2001), is more political than an effort to maintain ethnographic museums as knowledge generating institutions. That is, the current debate, as I analyse it, is not so much on how to interpret or discuss objects and collections, but to put the museums as such in a new political ideological context. One might also argue that different ethnographic museums develop in different directions. Some museums show less of this development, while others are moving faster. There are always problems inherent in generalising as far as museums, or anything else for that matter, are concerned. I nevertheless propose that there are some grounds to advance the argument that underlies this analysis, i.e., even if the museums are different in funding or approach, there are some structural properties and roles that are similar and shared.

1 Reseau International de Musees Ethnographie. This EU-funded project finished with a conference at Oxford in July 2013.

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It is also important to be reminded of tbe fact that this is not tbe first time that ethnographic museums have transformed. They have been part of general political and social processes since their establishment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and, not the least, they have been and still are important parts of state politics and cultural policies (van Beek 2012, 151-155). But, as Sharon Macdonald (2006a, 2) argues, tbere is something new and distinct occurring today, which she calls the politicisation of museums. Macdonald notes that there is a general development and emergence of the "new museology", which focuses on the overall social purposes and contexts of museums. This observation is certainly relevant for tbe study of etbnographic museums (2006a). According to Macdonald this means that museums as social and political phenomena is of more interest now than during the era of the "old museology" when focus was on the inside work (collecting, conservation, research) and the handling and knowledge of collections (2006a). A similar perspective on the current transfOlmations is taken by Camilla Pagani (2013, 163) who argues tbat ethnographic museums "are becoming ever more meeting places . . . ". The aim of becoming a meeting place, or a social arena, is part of the attempted future for many renewed ethnographic museums, as will be sho'Wll. From this introductory discussion, one may conclude that the current transfOlmations of ethnographic museums are not only about technological developments or related to new substantial ideas of visualisation or interpretations of collections, exhibitions and objects as such. The transfOlmations are structural, changing the social and political role of ethnographic museums, the funding, the relationship to its visitors, and what visitors should encounter when visiting the museums. One might argue that ethnographic museums are once again becoming political ideological arenas and not so much about dissemination of knowledge of the cultures of the world. This observation was also made by Sally Price (2007) when analysing the construction of the new Musee Quai Branly in Paris, which, according to Price, was a realisation of the fOlmer president Jacques Chirac's dream of a world cultural monument for France and, not the least, for himself. Therefore, one can also suggest that there are at least two central characteristics of the current transformation of ethnographic museums. First, there is a strong focus on giving these museums a more outspoken role in current political, social and cultural affairs. Ethnographic museums have always played important political and social roles, so this is in principal nothing new. However, today the museums should to a lesser degree be about collections and cultural heritage. Many observers and

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policy-makers argue that these museums instead should be social arenas. Visitor policies and ideas of social inclusion and events are adopted. Secondly, ethnographic museums are being transfOlmed from public custodians of cultural heritage into corporations, and thus, I argue, privatised custodians of world cultural heritage.

Doing Fieldwork in the World of Ethnographic Museums: A Note on Method This chapter is based on fieldwork which has been ongoing since 2008. r am still working on it, so this is what could be called a work in progress. The field, that is, the small world of ethnographic museums, mainly in Europe, North America and Asia, is analysed through participating in observations at museums, international ethnographic museum conferences and interviews with current and former staff and directors of these museums and not the least with other researchers. The ethnographic museums this chapter refers to are the ones established in these regions with collections that emanate from societies and cultures outside of these particular countries or regions. That is, they were once part of the colonial enterprise of collecting, analysing and exhibiting world cultures. The museums included in this project so far are located in: Aarhus, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Hanoi, Helsinki, Honolulu, Gothenburg, Oslo, Paris, Seoul, and Singapore. I have also participated at the International Connnittee on Museum Ethnography (rCME) conferences in Jerusalem 2008, Seoul 2009, Hanoi 2015, Milan 2016, and Washington DC in 2017. At the International Conference of Cultural Policy Research in Jyvaskyla, Finland in 2010, r presented a preliminary report on the ongoing research. r also took part at the RIME Conference at Oxford in July 2013. This is not an analysis of museum policies, per se, but more an attempt to critically discuss the ongoing transfonnations of ethnographic museums. The main ideas on the themes elaborated in this article emerged wInle r was head of the Ethnographic Collections at the National Museum of Denmark, in Copenhagen. The discussions I had there and with other museum directors were the basic sources of my arguments initially. In 2008, many ethnographic museums in Europe, North America and Asia found themselves in processes of rapid change. Budgets were heavily cut, staff dO\vnsized, new ideas on the role and meaning of ethnographic museums were adopted, and most of these museums had changed, or were in the process of changing, their names to Museums of World Culture, or something similar. At the same time old taboos in the museum sector were

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being broken. The tradition at most museums was that museum staff should not value objects economically unless for insurance reasons. Another change was the introduction of new public management ideas into a world previously more or less contacted by ideas of economic efficiency and market ideas. This was both surprising and not, because these were the very same ideas, which for some time had transfOlmed states from welfare to market states. Economic crisis was not something new to these museums. But, that the cultural heritage sector, in general, was so ripe for market ideas astonished staff, not only in Denmark, but in many countries where I did interviews and talks on the relation between the state and the ethnographic museums.

Ethnographic Museums and the History of the State Ethnographic museums represent a particular aspect of the museum complex. Their contents are cultural treasures that have been ranked much lower than the commercially valued products of ancient civilizations and western art. However, they are still seen as representatives of the conquest of the world, the reproduction of global differentiation within the global centers. They have been re-discoursed several times in the past because of changes in the culture and theories of the research community: from evolutionism to relativism, from racist preconceptions to post-colonial ideas and lately the turn to multiculturalism. These are not only shifts in theoretical perspective but also reflect shifts in the structure of the world order. The latest shift to globalisation and neoliberalism has given rise to an increasing attempt to reorder the ethnographic museum project once again, now into what can be called multicultural social arenas. I propose that this shows that ethnographic museums have a significant relation to the constitution of state power, even if activities within the museum have lives of their 0'Wll. In light of the transfOlmations of the state during the last decades, it is no surprise that the role of the ethnographic museum is challenged. The museum institution in general can be understood as an historical extension of the nation-state display of self­ identity, as shown by Tony Bennett (1995). Even if the ethnographic museums debated in this article mostly display foreign cultures, that is, non-Western cultures, they have been an important part of the construction of the Western civilized mind in contrast to so-called primitive ideas and peoples found in other places in the world. In light of that construction state transfOlmation has had direct effects on the ethnographic museum and its social and cultural role in society.

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The current general transfOlmation of the state, in the West and in some countries in Asia, from what is sometimes called a nation-state to a market-state, has been identified by a number of social researchers with different theoretical backgrounds, like Philip Bobbitt (2002), Bruce Kapferer (2005, 2010), Jonathan Friedman (2003), Susan Wright (2005) and Michel-Rolph Trouillot (2001). In brief, these observers argue that the state is transfOlming from a structure of welfare nationalism to a market state, driven by neoliberal new public management ideas. Therefore, it is not only the museums that are transfOlming, but also most state funded activities (Wright 2005, 2-3). For instance, David Harvey (2005, 64-86) in analysing the character of the current neoliberal state argues that this "new" state promotes globalisation, corporatisation, and individualisation and in line with these concepts, free markets and trade. In this endeavor, the neoliberal market state has also adopted several theoretical and practical strategies that often create political and social tensions and contradictions. And in this chapter I attempt to analyse how these tensions and contradictions, identified by Harvey, play out in the field of ethnographic museums as questions of public versus private ownership, public and private funding and whom the museum should target. The transformation of ethnographic museums from institutions of cultural heritage depositories to social arenas is expressed in the project to transfOlTIl them in such a way as to reflect the emerging globalised cosmopolitan identity of political, economic and cultural elites. This is part of a larger global process linked to multicultural politics and a wish to make ethnographic museums more interesting and contemporary. Many of the current discussions about the new ethnographic museum are engaged by the fact that a new world seems to be emerging. Previously, ethnographic museums were sites of world collections, involving the accumulation of objects not only of the distant past but also of the ethnographic present. The latter were once presented as the representatives of an evolutionary scheme of social and cultural development, or of the world's cultural plurality. \¥bile this was not only a colonial enterprise, it depended upon the existence of colonialism. Objects were transported from the peripheries of empires, from conquest, and from warfare. Krystof Pomian (1978), among others, has analysed the way in which collections of artifacts have changed in political significance throughout history. The emerging nationalism of the state in the nineteenth century transformed royal and other private ethnographic collections, in cabinets of curiosities, in such a way that they became part of the national heritage of the democratic state. Pomian's analysis highlights how collections reflected the formation of political identity and the symbolic establishment of

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political power via geographical centering. During the nation-state era the ethnographic museum was as much about enhancing national identity of the state as the preservation of cultural heritages. In the present era of the market-state, museums are also part of the emerging experience-economy, such as, cultural branding, multiculturalism, and social events. The emergence of the current transfOlmations of ethnographic museums can be traced back to the 1980s. Since then there has been a massive critique of this type of museum as representative of Western power, of confiscation, racist conception, of misrepresentation, and of objectification of the Other. This critique is also part of the general challenges of Western ideas and values. This is no coincidence. Ethnographic museums have always been elite projects and have been instrumental in the identification of dominant political powers in their efforts to collect cultural differences. The transfOlmation today is about making ethnographic museums relevant for a new political and social context, which is often called the multicultural society. Ethnographic museums have been seen as important instruments, as strategies, for the construction of the inclusive multicultural state. Museums are not mere representations of the state or the social reality; they are also political and social projects. In ethnographic museums it is not the world that is represented, but interpretations of the world. The present transfOlmation of the ethnographic museum leads to conflicts in which new elites are opposed by fOlmer elites or museum personnel who refuse to submit to the new interpretations or ideas. There is of course a problem in reducing museums to the realm of ideology and to indicate that museums are simply political projects of state representation. It should not be forgotten that ethnographic museums, and probably all other museums, produce an internal dynamic of their 0\Vll as centers of research, discovery and knowledge production. Due to their dependency upon university recruitment, ethnographic museums used to be integrated into the general development of research strategies, especially in social anthropology. In this sense, ethnographic museums are more than instruments of the political power. It is a world of researchers and museologists who have, with varying degrees of success, provided a significant input into changing approaches to our understanding of the world. The current contradiction, between the old and new museology of the ethnographic museum, can also be illustrated by the political and institutional construction of the Musee Quai Branly in Paris, which was introduced by the social anthropologist Maurice Godelier. According to the early ideas of Godelier, the new museum should re-organise and centralise the ethnographic collections in Paris and in part totally change the functioning of the museum. This was to be achieved by introducing a

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strong research-orientation whose purpose was to tum the museum into an extension of modern social anthropological practice, including all of the debates concerning multiculturalism that have been going on at these museums during the past decades. Godelier's proposal was to establish a post-colonial museum, reflecting the current situation of the institution with respect to its O\Vll collections. However, this idea was later abandoned. The new museum was instead transfOlmed to a museum of ethnographic art equivalent to an art museum (Friedman, 2001, 256). The museum itself was a project initiated by President Chirac and was part of a long tradition of French presidential monumentalism (price 2007, 5-10). The preliminary result of that discussion was, in spite of protests from the anthropological community, that the new ethnographic museum was to be named Musee des Arts Premiers, a more subtle way of saying "primitive art". One of the effects of this apparent equalisation of ethnographic art and other art is that the market for the former has catapulted into the economic stratosphere of the latter. This can be contrasted to the post­ colonial project proposed by Godelier, which sought to maintain and even increase the research capacity of the museum while incorporating a perspective on the museum itself that exposed its place in the larger imperial world in which it developed. This would have maintained and contextualised the display function and-while one might debate the degree to which the exhibitions need to reflect more clearly the global context of the artifacts-the project was engaged in an approach that was clearly at odds with the project of the political elite (Friedman 2001, 2561).

Ethnographic Museums and the Governance of the State When Western states were starting to transform in the 1970s and early 80s, observers started to look at all parts of the state governance including the role and function of ethnographic museums. Soon two arguments surfaced in the debate and they have been in the forefront since then. First emerged the idea that ethnographic museums did not represent the whole spectrum of social groups in society today (Svensson 2000; Harris and 01Ianlon 2013). It was said that museums used to be elite projects, racist, and enforcing images of a global social hierarchy. Besides this, museums had social and political strategic functions as projects of national representations. However, it was argued, it is not the world that was represented, but particular perspectives of the world. The criticism of ethnographic museums according to this argument was that the idea that the society, and thus the state, had changed, and correspondingly museums had to change to be relevant and able to reflect the emerging new

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multicultural world. The second argument emerging in the early 2000s was that in order to respond to these global social changes ethnographic museums had to become attractive (Svensson 2000; Van Beek 2012). The museums had to adapt to a new situation in the world, it was argued, a world increasingly globalised and multicultural. To meet these challenges the museums should be restructured into social arenas, where people could have meaningful experiences at different social events. According to the museum directors in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Gothenburg, Aarhus, and others, this is seen as being in contrast to the fOlmer museum, which was archaic, nationalistic and boring. This development is a paradox, as there is also a strong general trend towards developing a global knowledge economy and lifelong learning processes, where museums, at least sometimes, are said to play an important role. The consequence of this transformation of museums is that they try to attract wider audiences in order to exist. In line with these efforts, museums often develop experiences and events at the cost of knowledge and public cultural heritage preservation. One might argue that this logic does not necessarily contradict the earlier purposes of the ethnographic museum. One can even argue that edutainment (experience, entertainment and events) is a better way of enhancing knowledge among the public. "Visiting a museum should be like getting a hit on the head", as one museum director argued. However, I argue that many museums, new and old, focus on spectacular expressions, ranging from the architecture of the buildings to the design of exhibitions in order to meet the requirement to increase visitor numbers and to be attractive in the growing experience economy. Visitor numbers are of course important, however it sometimes appears that in this transfOlmation process, knowledge development tends to be forgotten. Another property of the general relationship between the museum and the state is that museums are part of the governance structure (Bennett 2003). The relationship between the state and the museum is not only about cultural institutions as such. For a long time social and political thought were dominated by the idea of the state being in the center of political power. The state was analysed as a functional organisation aiming at centralising, controlling, regulating and managing people and resources. During the last couple of decades, many analysts have suggested that political power in modem systems of governing depend on complex relations between state and non-state actors, upon infrastructural powers, networks and activities and actors who are not fOlmally part of the state apparatus (Kapferer 2005, 286; Trouillot 2001, 5).

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That museums are related to power and discipline, hence governance, is not a new argument. In the essay "The Museum in the Disciplinary Society", Eilean Hooper-Greenhill (1989) argued, with obvious influences from Foucault, that all public museums were shaped from the very beginning as institutions with two contradictory functions: on the one hand "that of the elite temple of the arts and on tlie other hand, that of an instrument for democratic education" (Hooper-Greenhill 1989, 63). Hooper-Greenhill also argued that a third function was later added: that museums became instruments of the disciplinary society. Public museums extended the arms of the state in the governance. Adding to tliat, a fourth function can now be suggested, which is an extension of the third function suggested by Hooper-Greenhill: museums are agencies of governance as social arenas, with its link to the experience economy in the corporate­ market state. The museum institution emerged from the Enlightenment and contributed to the creation of new truths and rationalities. The emergence of the museum was to a large extent part of what Foucault called tlie political rationality, which he saw connected to modem fOlTIlS of government. These modem fOlTIlS of government can be traced through its technologies which aim at regulating the conduct of individuals and populations in institutions such as the prison, the hospital, the asylum, and, the museum. But the museum represents a softer governance structure than Foucault analysed in the asylum and the prison. The museum, despite the connotation of soft power, is an instrument of governance through its cultural meaning constructions in relation to knowledge, education and classification of cultures, history and values. As such, the museum is characterised by its O\Vll specific rationalities ranging from museum building architecture, over the division between producers and consumers of knowledge, its assumed target groups, to the definition and classification of cultural history and social relations. The new ethnographic museum and its close relations to design, commerce, market, visitor numbers, events and social activities is part of a growing global event-and-experience economy. In the general striving to attract the public, the museum has to be amusing and entertaining: "No one wants to read a text anymore", I was told by a museum curator at the ICME conference in Seoul, 2009. I am not sure that this is at all true. But if we take this statement into consideration, we see that the argument re­ represents the museum: the museum is not linked to an intellectual activity anymore; it has entered the world of edutainment. For instance, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, organises "sleep overs" at the museum in order to make it "more fun for young people to visit", I was

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told by a curator from the museum at the IeME conference in Hanoi, October 2015. It seems like the museums have become an arena for personal emotions and experiences. This is arguably the essence of governance through the freedom of meaning construction. "People just get tired by reading", the curator fmished our conversation, and "they [the visitors to museums] want to have experiences they can remember". Sally Price observes the same tendencies at the Musee Quai Branly in Paris: "For most visitors, it seemed that contextualization (whether geographical, historical, or ethnographic) had not been a top priority. Objects floated in space, separated from each other like estate homes in a gated community" (Price 2007, 60). There were no explanations, according to Price; the ethnographic objects were turned to pieces of world culture. The post­ colonial effort became a post-human display of materiality. A similar way of deconstructing its 0\Vll collections were taken by the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg, when they decided to put all their collections in storage at the tum of the new millennium (Lindberg 2015, 75-79). The argument was: "The collections were too boring".

Understanding Current Ethnographic Museum Transformation Transfonnation of the political significance of ethnographic museums is not something new, but as noted earlier, has occurred throughout its history. Today ethnographic collections are often said to represent old and outdated nationalism, confiscation, colonialism, racism, misrepresentation, or objectification of the ethnic Other. When the ED funded research project RIME was launched in 2008 one of its aims was to encourage ethnographic museums to "redefine their priorities", because, as the project program stated, they have to adapt to "an ever more globalizing and multicultural world" .' Gosewijn van Beek (2012, 149) who may be even clearer on the present status of the ethnographic museums, bluntly states that it is on the way out, because, "the legitimacy of ethnographic approaches and collections has become precarious . . . ". A similar view was expressed in an article by Clare Harris and Michael O'Hanlon (2013, 8) both at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, when they declared, in a seemingly provocative way, that: "the ethnographic museum is dead". More specifically they explained, "It has outlived its usefulness and has nothing more to offer. . . ". The main reason for the present status of 2 In this project, 10 of the major ethnographic museums in Europe participated. The project ended in July, 2013.

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ethnographic museum, according to Harris and O'Hanlon (2013, 12) was that there is a mismatch between the demographics of contemporary Europe and these museums. In this critique a model was presented of what the current and future purpose of ethnographic museum should consist of. The theoretical underpinnings in this critique reflected some general ideas that the world was national once, and so was the representation of the ethnographic museum. Now when the world and state is multicultural, these museums should reflect this changed social fact. Van Beek may be the most outspoken critic, while Harris and O'Hanlon were trying to save what is left of the notion of ethnographic museums, as they argued for a future role for them as "places for discovery and dreaming, for memories and meetings" (Harris and O'Hanlon 2013, 12). Van Beek on the other hand, argued quite vigorously and seemingly with a tone of indignation, that the relevance of ethnography at museums is diminishing and that this is a good thing. He saw several deep undercurrents as to why these museums are not relevant anymore. Firstly, the exoticism that used to be the attraction is now a firsthand experience of the so-called target groups for this kind of cultural heritage. Nowadays people travel themselves. In the past museums provided the public with a window to the cultural heritage of the world. Now the public provide their own windows. Secondly, van Beek argued that ethnographic museums are losing relevance and connection to contemporary debates about cultural heritage. That is to say that ethnographic objects do not anymore reflect the societies where the object is situated. The third problem van Beek saw was that the collections themselves had become a burden due to their fragmented and contradictory nature. Ethnographic museums have become historical institutions rather than reflecting the contemporary world. The fourth and last point made by van Beek was that many collections are tainted with disputable moral and ideological backgrounds. They are historically linked to colonialism, and, as he implied, to racism. This historical continuity has to be dismantled, according to van Beek. \¥bile there is nothing new in this critique it is still necessary to comment upon it. The multicultural approach to ethnographic museums emerged in the 1980s primarily through James Clifford's (1988, 1997) efforts to deconstruct the colonial basis in many museum collections. Clifford's interpretations sought to develop an approach in which social lives, social structure and politics were highlighted. It had an enormous effect on the world of exhibitions, and, not the least, the museum institution itself. It led to the idea that ethnographic museums instead should reflect current social and political landscapes in former nationalistic state settings. To accomplish this aim, it was argued that the

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museums should be more reflexive, diverse, inclusive, and entertaining. Two major instrumental concepts emerged during the 1990s in this transfOlmation. In the first decade of the new millennium these two concepts have certainly matured in all parts of the cultural heritage world. Firstly, ethnographic museums should become inclusive social arenas characterised by dialogues and encounters, and secondly, the ethnographic museum institution, in order to reach the first goal, should be transfOlmed into a corporation. In relation to both these goals a whole new vocabulary entered the arena of world cultural heritage. Museums and their collections should now be inclusive, meaning that ethnographic cultural heritage should reflect all social (target) groups in the multicultural society. The inclusiveness, based on new visitor policies, should consist of meetings and discussions at the museum. It was in this context that the ethnographic museums in Europe, due to their identity crisis, started to change their names and dismantled old exhibitions. From now on, it was argued, the museum should not be repositories of old colonial collections of cultural heritage reflecting nationalistic and chauvinistic pasts. Museums should instead invite new target groups and reflect current social and cultural issues (Lindberg 2015, 75). In recent years, declining public budgets have added to tbe transformation. This has led to a series of crises. At many museums more and more research and exhibition staff are hired on a project-by-project basis, while pemmnent staff in many cases have been eliminated and replaced by flexible contracts requiring external project funding. This has led to many museums now functioning on the same premises as universities and many universities today, in fact, are functioning as corporations (Wright 2005, 1 1). This may be a politically desirable aim, but one has to be clear that the concept of ethnographic cultural heritage is also transformed in tbis structural process. Not all museums are actually calling themselves "corporations", but much of the vocabulary and logic is reflecting this transfOlmation.3 Directors are often called "managers" (see also Price 2010, 17); collections are considered to be "capital" as tbey are economically valued, and in some cases objects are actually sold by museums in order to pay bills; curators have become "professionals"; and visitors are "target groups", which is a proxy telTIl for customer. In addition, not the least, the knowledge and education element has been transfolTIled into art, edutainment and tourist attractions. The display function of the museum has become its main function opening the door to more direct political-ideological intervention. \¥hen Denmark had a bad 3 See for instance the Rautenstrauch-Ioest Museum in Cologne, Germany, which is one that actually calls itself a "museum corporation".

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marketing situation in the Middle East due to the so-called "cartoon crisis" in 2005, the government ordered a goodwill exhibition on Islamic art at the Museum. In concrete telTIlS it has also meant that besides being political ideology, ethnographic objects are largely turned into art, as art, in contrast to ethnography, is considered sexy (van Beek 2012, 152). Once again, this may be a desirable aim for many decision-makers and museologists, but it must be clear that the concept of the ethnographic museum is also transfOlmed.

The Field of Misrepresentations Key telTIlS frequently used in the current world of ethnographic museums, such as experience, social arena, inclusion or excellence, may have several meanings, which are dependent on its particular context. That the meaning of concepts may be transfOlmed from one context to another without disclosing the change of meaning, was what Pierre Bourdieu (1990, l l S) called a process of "misrecognition". This means that people refer to the very same concept without realising they attribute different meanings to it. When talking about an ethnographic museum one might reveal different meanings today. Some museum staff still define their museum as a repository of knowledge about ethnographic cultural heritage, while others see possibilities in becoming a multicultural social arena. This may be an explanation of why there has been a lack of wider open opposition against or evaluation of the introduction of new concepts at museums. The consequences of adding new meanings to old concepts have not been obvious, because concepts as experience, visitors, meeting-place and target group are all familiar to the staff at museums. But in a new policy context they all mean something new. New museum policies have been spreading at least across Europe and North America for the last couple of decades and have mainly been informed by two concerns. First, concepts of economy, efficiency and effectiveness have been introduced. These concepts are not special for the museum sector, but have been introduced into all sectors of state funding. Second, as museums traditionally have been part of the national identity project, governments now direct museums to be part of reflecting the diversity of the society, or to be part of solving social problems. Following the argument that the museum sector is reflecting the state, this is logical, as one of the characteristics of the market-state is the emergence of the ideas of individualism and multiculturalism (Bobbitt 2003, 225). Museums are therefore often directed to activities that are useful in this respect. For instance, ethnographic museums and their forerunners, the royal cabinets

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of curiosities, were not grounded in grassroots social settings, but represented elite ideology and projects. And also other type of museums has been instnunental in promoting the dominant ideology and identity in the state. This has been a strategic policy for museums. Museums are not representations of the state in a mirror-sense, but they are projects, as interpretations of the world and as socialization and governance of the population. At a museum conference in Demnark in 2008 called "Enlightemnent vs. Experiences", the general direction of museums in the global experience-economy was the subject of discussion. The conference was held because, according to some opinions in the museum sector, it is necessary to realise that the world today is more individualised and that people are acting within a global experience-economy, whether it is at rock-concerts, amusement parks, meeting-places or museum exhibitions. It was argued that the knowledge production at museums has to be part of this growing experience-economy. In short one can say the message of the conference was that visitors to museums want experiences and entertainment. This new vision of the museum has already been implemented. "We used to be part of knowledge development and cultural history preservation", a curator at a museum in Antwerp said, somewhat disillusioned, to me. "Now we are an exhibition hall and the curators had to leave". "This is the same in my museum", another curator, from the Netherlands, told me. At the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. many of its staff had to leave during 2008-2009. I talked to one of them at the ICME (International Committee on Museums and Collections of Ethnography) conference in Seoul, Korea, October 2009. Many curators and others that worked on the collections and exhibitions were laid off. The picture became clearer. Not only are the financial resources diminishing, the very idea of what a museum is is changing. There is talk about attracting: "the large crowds, by events, fun activities for everyone, and stimulating social encounters". At the same conference in Seoul I also talked to other former curators about being "between jobs". After a controversial discussion at the ROM in Toronto about racism and representation of the other, they are now hosting discos and sleepovers.4 The general answer to my "why is the museum transfOlming-question", besides the lack of funding, was "there is no longer an interest in developing institutional knowledge at the museum". And moreover: "It's all about visibility and attraction, because both government agencies and private foundations prioritise projects that are visible to the public, like design of buildings, restaurants, exhibitions that attract large crowds, or publications, but not the invisible work that is 4 Conversation, ICME Conference, Hanoi, October 2015.

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going on behind the scenes in all museums" (like; conservation, registration, collecting, and research). In this context, it is, of course, rational to contract freelance exhibition designers and researchers employed in projects. It makes sense to tranSfOlTIl museums to social arenas where events are held. This general transfOlmation of museums has also been reported by Joelle Seligson (2009) who observed the consequences of the general financial and staff dO\vnsizing at U.S. art museums, because: "There is no one left to do the job". When I was head of the Ethnographic Collection in Copenhagen I was approached by many freelancing exhibition designers who wanted to use the museum as an exhibition hall. Often they presented interesting ideas and concepts, but they were rarely related to the collections of the museum. This also means, according to several of my informants that "museums are becoming galleries or exhibition halls". And it also means that the museum loses its "institutional knowledge", which is generally based on their specific collections. FurthelTIlore, some curators argue that "we do not have resources to take care of objects, to do our 0\Vll research or exhibitions". In one museum in Hamburg, Germany, the regional government demanded that the museum put economic value on all objects in the collection, not for insurance reasons, but for reasons unkno\Vll, at that time, even to the director of the museum (visit to Museum fur Volkerkunde, Hamburg May 2009). Setting economic value on an object used to be a taboo subject in the world of museums. Today it is about taking care of the cultural heritage capital. Once again, I wish to assert that I do not see all things new as necessarily bad. However, I argue that it is necessary for us to contemplate the consequences of these transfolTIlations for museums. In the following, I will elaborate on two major transfolTIlations that not only are changing the political and social role of museums, but also the actual work and activities inside the museums. Looking at the current transformation of museums, one might argue that the museum is becoming an event corporation with the concept of the social arena as its major capital.

The Ethnographic Museum as a Social Arena The idea of the socially inclusive ethnographic museum was elaborated by James Clifford in Museums as Contact Zones (1997). The idea of the contact zone, according to Clifford, is about challenging the role of the museum and how it represents culture. Traditionally museums have been focusing on national identity fOlTIlation and social relations to the Other. In the current multicultural setting, it is argued by Clifford that museums need to represent all social groups. The transfolTIlation of the state in the

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globalisation era has meant that museums must adapt to the new multicultural situation in the world. A major idea in this transfonnation is the introduction of concepts such as "meeting-place" that visitors experience as welcoming, engaging and meaningful, which are said to be in contrast to earlier concepts of museums as enhancing national history and identity. Other new concepts that have challenged the authority and meaning of museums are "cultural diversity", "intercultural dialogue" or "social arena". It is often proposed that multiculturalism is a natural part of the current world, and just as museums a hundred years ago participated in defining the nation, museums today must be part of redefining the multicultural state. In the end, multiculturalism is about relations between people, about "us" and "them" and whom we include and exclude. Another argument is that museums should not be about telling stories about the past, but should be part of defining the contemporary and future society and the instrument is social inclusion. This is what can be called the democratic purpose of museums. Democratic social inclusion means collaboration between the museum and social groups in exhibitions or events. Anette Rein (2010, 47), with influences from Arjun Appadurai's (1986) The Social Life of Things, moves even further in elaborating this idea when arguing that the museum "might be re-conceived as a collection of social relationships-rather than as a collection of objects". The museum should, through this, reflect the new culturally pluralised state. But there is a wide discrepancy between the current ideas of the inclusive museum and Clifford's idea of contact zones. \¥bile Clifford challenged the narrow representation of social groups at museums, the idea of the inclusive museum as a social arena, is focused on bringing groups, i.e. museum visitors, together. Moreover, cultural differences have to be managed through visitor management policies and studies. The introduction of visitor management policies in the 1990s was therefore a logical step in this direction (Frey and Meier 2003). The logic was the following; if only few people visit the ethnographic museum, why should taxpayers' money be invested in it? To be efficient, tax money should only be spent wisely, that is, on things people want to see, do or enjoy. As the former Director of the Swedish Museums of World Culture in Gothenburg, Thommy Svensson, declared some years ago at an international conference on the future necessary role change of the museum: "they [the museums] need to be restructured into meeting-places . . . " (Svensson 2000, 7). However, there is nothing new in this. Ethnographic museums have always been meeting-places, but the question today should be why people want to meet at these museums when there are so many alternative meeting-places? Within this context, it is also argued that museums have

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to change their role in order to attract more visitors in order to play a role in a changing social and cultural environment. Museums have to leave the research and educational arena, because, as Svensson further declared: "The museum must no longer be content to see itself simply as a fixed and unchanging repository of knowledge and artifacts" (Svensson 2000, 7). Ruth Levitt (2008), reflecting on changing museum policies and structures, argues that museums have adopted instrumental policies to promote social goals, such as greater social cohesion, security, human rights, or public engagement. Consequently, one of the new aims of the museum is that it should attract more visitors and new target-groups, not only in the physical museum environment but also at the digital version of the museum. Besides trying to be more attractive, some museums have argued for and implemented free admission as part of the objective to increase visitor numbers. Also other measurable milestones and targets have been introduced, such as external funding of projects, and "production of visibility" such as exhibitions and publications, as several of the infOlmants told me. Of course, there is nothing bad in this, but because it is complicated to measure quality and visibility, is there a strong focus on quantity. And this leads to certain consequences, as Levitt argues: Requirements upon museum managers and staff to demonstrate measurable results against prescribed indicators have become the nOlm (Levitt 2008, 224). When these new winds started to blow in the world of ethnographic museums, the question immediately emerged: How does one attract more visitors to its events? At the National Museum in Copenhagen, for some time, the visitor numbers were each month calculated and sho\Vll on a white-board in the staff entrance. Numbers were compared on a monthly and yearly basis. Evaluations were sent to the minister of culture -"Just so they know how we are doing", as it was explained by the museum directors. In addition, in order to be able to evaluate the changes, visitor management policies were adopted. These policies generally consist of three parts: Visitor management becomes a core activity (see also, Hooper­ Greenhill 1997,1-3) Social inclusion is a goal, that is, identification of target groups and especially underrepresented, and so-called vulnerable or marginalised groups, and, Bringing in the "users" (a New Public Management concept for visitor or consumer) in the planning of exhibitions (see also, Frey and Meier 2003).

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The conclusion is that the museum, in order to attract more visitors, has to offer major "experiences", or at least reflect what people themselves have expressed interest in seeing or knowing more about. Maybe it goes without saying that historically too many exhibitions, at many museums, were unattractive, but the current shift of policy, signals not only a wish to make content interesting, but to make the design interesting and educational in itself. In many parts of the world, a great deal of money has been spent on museum-buildings, like Musee Quai Branly in Paris, Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg, or the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum: Kulturen der Welt in Cologne, with spectacular architecture, views, cafes and bookshops. It may be that this development is not opposing educational or cultural historical aspects of the museum. It may actually mean it is argued by some that the museum can still be part of giving the public educational experiences and at the same time be a meeting place and entertaining. In this sense, "edutainment" can be seen as an educational method. However, as this transfOlmation of meaning of the museum implies, the shift of purposes and expressions are not only about new designs of the exhibitions. It is a structural change, which is bringing more than new education methods.

The Ethnographic Museum as a Corporation The next area of the current transfOlmation of museums is the corporatisation. This does not necessarily mean that museums are organised as corporations, are called corporations or that all museums are being commercialised. Rather it means that many of them function as corporations due to their internal economic logic. The changes can most visibly be seen in the concepts introduced at all levels of the museum. The collections that used to be part of the preservation of cultural heritage, are now often being referred to as "capital". Some museums have to sell parts of their collections to manage budget problems. The collections are in some instances being economically valued, as in Hamburg. Museum directors are turned into managers or strategic leaders, curators have become professionals, and visitors are thought of as target groups, consumers and tourists. Museums might be part of the tourist-industry rather than the university knowledge-industry. Also, the activities within museums have changed. Largely, activities have changed appearance from

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knowledge and education to matters of connnerce, market and entertainment, a development also noted by Macdonald (2006a, 6) 5 The current transfOlmation of museums came with the general transformation of the state in the 1990s due to globalisation processes, a period when many states found themselves in economic crisis. With globalisation and neoliberalism came new management ideas and ideas of what museums should do. The public services in many states were found to have stagnated, and it was proposed that New Public Management (NPM) be introduced to solve the financial problems of states and its diverse branches. The idea of introducing this theory in public services was that it could enhance and make public services more efficient in times of shrinking budgets. As one of the conceptual founders, Christopher Hood (1991) said, it is "A Public Management for All Seasons". NPM developed as a management philosophy with the aim to modernise public sector services. The main ideas were that more market orientation in the public sector would lead to greater cost-efficiency for governments, without having negative side effects on other objectives and considerations. What the NPM ideas brought to the world of museums were key concepts such as economy, efficiency and effectiveness with more stringent targets, perfOlmance indicators, audits and inspections. This development was highlighted by some participants at the Stockholm-conference in 2000, when the future of the ethnographic museums was outlined: "It is necessary to adopt a more market-related and strategic way of thinking and to reconsider the organizational structure of museums" (Svensson 2000, 8). And as a research report concluded some years ago: "[Museums] have changed from being predominantly custodial institutions to becoming increasingly focused on audience attraction" (Gilmore and Rentschler 2002, 745). Declining public budgets have led to a series of crises that in many cases have eliminated pemmnent exhibition and research staff and replaced them with increasingly flexible contracts requiring external funding through projects. This means that many museums today are functioning on the same premises as universities. And we know that most universities today actually fimctions as corporations (Wright 2005). The overall effect of this has been that the visibility function, exhibitions and publications, has become the museum's main or only function which has opened the door for even more political-ideological interventions in museum life. Museums are becoming part of the political games played in international relations between states, but are also, as in the cases of the 5 See, Rautenstrauch-Ioest Museum: Kulturen der Welt, in Cologne, Germany, who have established a "rnuseumgesellschaft", that is, a rnusemn corporation.

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Musee Quai Branly in Paris and the Guggenheim museum conglomerate, expressions of political show, economic and symbolic power in what Kapferer calls the "oligarchic state" with its privatization of former public services (2005, 289). 'What this means is that museums are under pressure to become part of the global experience-economy, and to become more entrepreneurial and business-like, argues Ole Strandgaard (2010). For museums, being part of the growing experience industry is pivotal. First one has to attract more visitors. Second, tourism is a fast growing industry, in which museums need to participate. Third, the existence of ethnographic museums is being challenged as 1) they are not seen as knowledge and education generators anymore, or 2) that the displayed nationalism is outdated due to ideas of multiculturalism. This means that museums are competing in attraction with amusement parks, rock concerts, theme parks, etc. It is said that knowledge also can generate experiences, but few museums have so far showed, I argue, how this can be done in practice. At the same time the funding from governments is becoming less important for the overall budget of the museum. In practice, cuts in the government core funding force museums to look for alternative funding from business, private funds and citizens. Despite less core-funding, the government still maintains control of the museum, responsibilities and tasks are maintained, and higher visitor outputs demanded. And moreover, private foundations that are sponsoring museums also wish to see higher visitor output on their investments. While the old ethnographic museum has been declared dead, the new one is flourishing all over the world with new buildings in avant-garde design (Giebelhausen 2006, 223-244). Interest in art, cultural and natural history seems to be reaching wider and larger groups and has also influenced the directions taken by ethnographic museums to become museums of world art and history. At the same time the economic reality has had a deep impact on museums. Some art museums in the United States, as reported by the New York Times (2010 and 2011), had to sell parts of their collections to pay bills. One article indicated the new reality of museums: "The pemmnent collections may not be so pelTIlanent anymore?" European museums are cutting budgets and the number of staff is rapidly declining, making the institutions into what fOlTIler staff telTIl exhibition halls filled with events and experiences. In Korea the National Museum and other state-run museums, like the National Folk Museum, will be playing a more social integral role, attempting to reach out to new target groups of visitors, in improving the country's "brand image", a NPM term for national identity (see also, Korea Times, October 19, 2009).

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Director Choe Kwang-shik argued that museums have moved from being committed to consolidating national identity to becoming a main player in promoting "the national brand". And a brand should be marketed as there is a competition with other brands. Brand, Of, should one say, appearance, is also in focus as Ioelle Seligson (2009) reports: "when the budget cuts hit the museums in the U.S., most museums tried to maintain the appearance and the visitors became the top priority, because if there are no visitors there are no arguments for keeping the institution as such". Museums, therefore, cut everything but security, maintenance and visitor services (Seligson 2009, 52). Policy-makers who need to take credit for a wide use of the publicly funded investment in the "national brand" may be impatient and are therefore tempted to encourage "whatever it takes", as one museum director in Germany told me, to increase the statistics and the economic value of the museum and its objects. More visitors mean a better argument when the funds for the cultural sector are being negotiated and distributed by governments or private foundations.

Consequences of the Transformation What are the implications for museums with this transfOlmation of financial and governmental contexts; when attracting commercial sponsorship becomes not only the icing on the cake, but necessary to sustain the institutions; when maximizing visitor numbers becomes a priority, and the relative amount of exhibition space declines in relation to the museum shop, cafe or other meeting places? For instance, when looking at the Danish Museum Act, which still stipulates five core activities for government-funded museums (collecting, exhibiting, conservation, curating, and researching) and comparing this policy to the reality of declining budget for these activities, during the last decades or so, one can easily see that the policy does not correspond to reality, when only half, or less, of the staff is left to do the sarne amount of work. At the same time there is a pressure for museums to attract more visitors and new social groups. There are at least three major consequences that the current transfonnation is bringing to the world of ethnographic museums. The first can be seen in the introduction of visitor management policies. 'While government core funding of museum activities is cut, responsibilities are not. In facing closures and cancellations, museums are still tasked with upholding their missions and preserving visitor experiences. They have thus had to get creative with what is left. As with most museums facing budget cuts, maintaining appearances for visitors sake has become the top r

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priority. The visitor management policies are therefore introduced to maximise visitor numbers. The reason for this value-for-money idea is that, in order to attract government and/or sponsor funding for its activities, museums have to be more visible to the public. Governments and private sponsors are willing to fund activities as long as the museum and its activities are made visible to the public through spectacular architecture, exhibitions or publications. Invisibility, on the other hand, like much of the core work at museums, such as collecting, conserving, and storage is under-funded as it is not spectacular, that is, "not bringing in the crowds to the museum", as one curator argued. Some museum conservation departments are therefore increasingly seeking funds by becoming more entrepreneurial and reaching out to private markets in order to be able to maintain competent personnel and to create time for museum object conservation. The second consequence, which is closely related to the first, is that museums are increasingly defmed as leisure activities and tourist attractions, that is, part of the global experience economy. Delclaux and Hinz (2009, 3) argue that this relationship is crucial and that "museums have a leadership role to play" in making better tourism. The third consequence is that museums no longer are primarily institutions of education and preservation of cultural heritage. They still partly are, but heritage preservation is only one of many other activities. And, when the staff is downsized, the knowledge about the collections diminishes. Further, exhibitions and displays are not necessarily connected to the collections of the museums, which make them into gallery halls. Exhibitions and research are project-based which means that more often than not the knowledge, which is generated in the projects, leaves the museum after the project cycle is finished. There is clearly a loss of what was previously considered the core of the museum, its institutional knowledge of material and visual culture in general and in particular its own collections. And another striking thing with the contemporary ethnographic museum scene is that objects are increasingly exhibited as art, as art is considered to be sexier (van Beek, 2012, 152).

Conclusions: Do we still need ethnographic museums? I sought to discuss three issues in this chapter. The first was to underline the close relationship between states and the transfOlmation of ethnographic museums and how this has consequences for the social role of museums today. The second question was to identify why ethnographic museums are changing. The reason for this was found in the transfOlmation of the

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state, declining budgets of museums and a general understanding that the old ethnographic museum is on the way out or even dead. In order to deal with this museums have to adopt new strategies and activities to be more attractive and entertaining. The third issue was to look at the consequences of the transfOlmatioll. Two major aspects in this transfOlmation were identified: first, ethnographic museums are becoming social arenas, and second, museums are becoming corporations. 'When seeing the current transfOlmations of museums to corporations and social arenas, one must ask what the consequences are. And as Sharon Macdonald (2006a, 6) argues, matters of commerce, market and entertainment will be further developed in what she calls "the expanded museum . . . ". Much of the shift in the world of ethnographic museums are linked to what was said about the shift in the state from being a national cultural identity project to a corporate social arena and branding project. Is this change of the social role of museums a problem, a challenge, or an opportunity? Is it not good that museums are transformed to something more contemporary, being more accessible, becoming institutions that are linked to diverse social groups, and, not the least, that museums are more entertaining? The answers to these questions depends on how we wish define the museum. Perhaps the museum should be a social arena for entertainment experiences? On the other hand, if museums seek to have closer contacts with research and higher education, which is sometimes called the lifelong learning process, and which post-industrial societies warmly speak about, one might have to question whether this new development is leading in the right direction. The museum community has long debated whether museums primarily should be educational or part of the expanding experience-industry. Or should museums try to do both? I have argued that the recent and ongoing changes in fundamentally new directions are resulting in a new role for museums. The raison d' etre of the museum used to be identity construction, cultural heritage preservation, and education. Museums should, of course, provide experiences, based on educational efforts. However, the change now consists of giving experiences an educational touch. There are certain consequences in arguing that museums should reclaim their educational basis. If museum education is more than just particular tasks assigned to some of the staff of the museum, then we have to realise that the museum as an institution is doing educational activities. This is, of course, an important and wide responsibility. It seems clear that steps should be taken to move closer to the universities, once again, in order to ensure the development and expansion of the museum as an institution that provides educational activities, rather than the steps being

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taken to re-define the museum in terms of the leisure/edutainment! experience sector. Finally, as Nicholas Thomas (2016a) argued some time ago: " . . . museums of ethnography and world culture now have more to offer than ever before".

PART Two IDENTITIES, ETHNICITIES, OBJECTS AND DIFFICULT HISTORIES

CHAPTER FOUR WHEN OBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE MEDIATE POWER CARSTEN VIGGO NIELSEN

Introduction In the mid 1980s Lame Deer, a "medicine man", visited Denmark as a religious representative of tlie Nortli American Lakota People. He had come to know tliat a sacred bundle of the Lakota was being stored in tlie Danish National Museum, and that its inherent sacred power had not yet been freed. According to traditional Lakota religion, such sacred bundles possess a powerful sacred potential, which may only be addressed by tlie ritual leaders, the medicine men, in their interaction with the deity Wakan Tanka. Typically, a Lakota sacred bundle is rather plain; it consists of a bundled piece of cloth filled with soil, feathers, stones and other symbolic objects (Standing Bear 1933, 186). Among several Nortli American Native Peoples tliey are regarded as powerful tools to be used by dedicated ritual leaders, who, among other things, use them to maintain the proper relationship between the profane and the sacred. However, neither the bundle nor its contents are of particular ritual significance. The inherent power conferred on it is, though, in its perceived interaction with the intermediary; the religious leader living on earth (Deloria 1979, 34-35). The Lakota consider tliis power to have originated from Wakan Tanka. And because of their dual function as both healers and ritual leaders, the intelTIlediaries are said to have a special relationship with the divine, Wakan Tanka (DeMallie 1984, 81). Thus, through ritual practice, it is tlie task of the ritual leader to return this power to Wakan Tanka when, for instance, one would want a bundle desacralised. And that was precisely the case regarding tlie sacred bundle stored at tlie National Museum of Denmark. According to Lame Deer, power from Wakan Tanka still pelTIleated the bundle and therefore it was necessary to desacralise it in

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order for it to be accepted as a mere museum object. Thus a ritual was conducted lasting several days and the process was documented and broadcast as a television documentary.l The documentary follows Lame Deer as he enters the storage facility containing the sacred bundle, through the following days where he performs a variety of rites, partly in the storage facility and partly by the beach at the western shores of the Danish peninsula of Jutland, in order to gradually desacralise the bundle so that it could be included in the museum's collection again without danger of incurring divine displeasure. The next sections will refer to the rites perfOlmed as they were depicted in the television documentary as well as Lame Deer's ongoing comments. It will be argued that when religious rituals are perfOlmed under museum auspices, the ritual "adaptation" of the object can be regarded as an exchange of religious and secular authority that is happening between the representatives involved-an authority exchange made possible through ritual activity. Furthermore it will be asserted that this authority exchange takes place in a collective liminal state, whereby pemmnent museum as well as religious structures are repealed, converted, connected and incorporated into new constellations. This practice, as will be contended, has resulted in a paradigm shift-particularly in ethnographic museums. 'While several research papers relate to rituals performed in museums, the subject has received little attention in the field of religious studies. For instance, to my knowledge there have been no publications on the transfer of ritual authority under museum auspices, and this chapter addresses this gap in the literature. In the main, analysis is carried out from either an anthropological or curatorial perspective. Often themes such as the aftemmth of colonialism and, in this regard, the adoption of the Repatriation Act in the United States in 1990 (NAGPRA 1990), are recurring. Amongst other publications, one may refer to the anthology Utimut (Gabriel and Dahl 2008), which is the result of a conference on international repatriation practice based on the (official) termination of the Danish colonial era in 1979, and the subsequent return of Greenlandic cultural material. In this interdisciplinary work the historical, social and academic pitfalls in museum repatriation practice are discussed, alongside positive experiences and a desire for consensus on a timely and useful repatriation practice in mutual respect and in which the involvement of all stakeholders is prioritised. Although a broad range of stakeholders were involved in this

1

The documentary "Watowe the Sacred Bundle" (original Danish title: "Watowe helligblUldet") was aired by The Danish Broadcast Corporation in JlUle 1987.

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project, it should be noted that the comparative study of religions was not represented. As a result of an increasing degree of repatriation of museum objects and the ensuing cooperation between museums and ethnic or religious representatives, there has been an increased need for exchange of experience regarding appropriate and sensitive, or "proper," curation of ethnographic material. This applies to both the religious and, in the museum, the ethical curating of the objects. This issue is addressed by, amongst others, the Norwegian anthropologist Per B. Rekdal, who quite humorously portrays museum representatives' often somewhat unreflective tendency to either over or underestimate their O\Vll abilities to respect and accommodate the ritual needs of "the cultural others" (Rekdal 2003). With regard to scholarly publications crossing the fields of comparative religions and museum studies, the British historian of religions and museologist Crispin Paine's Religious Objects in Museums - Private Lives and Public Duties (paine 2013) is notable. His work questions the sometimes one-sided (re)presentation of such objects and how they are likely to be experienced by museum visitors. Yet ritual practices relating to the museum objects themselves are not addressed.

Post-colonialism and paradigm shifts The perfOlmance of religious rituals is a growing phenomenon in Western museums, where religious objects of peoples near and far have been taken from their original context to be exhibited and interpreted as museum objects. Growing understanding of these objects' overall historicity or cultural context, and a desire to make museums more inclusive in their interpretation of the exhibited objects' implicit narratives, together with an increased awareness of the museums' not always noble requisitioning practice, has paved the way for the presence of religious representatives in museums. To a great extent this has increased the need for mutual understanding between representatives of museums and representatives from religious or ethnic groups from which objects originally came. In particular, this need was actualised after the US adopted The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act NAGPRA, in 1990 (NAGPRA 1990). NAGPRA enabled direct descendants of the Native American populations to make claims on those human remains as well as objects of religious significance that had originally belonged to their communities, but were presently stored in museums or government institutions. It transpired that if museums agreed to meet certain wishes for placement and treatment of the objects, the representatives of the

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Indigenous Peoples would often give permission for the objects to remain in the museum for research and sometimes even exhibition. This development, where the museum world increasingly takes culture-specific wishes into account, entails a need for rethinking concepts of conservation, maintenance and the use of these objects. For example, several American museums have created special storage facilities where the staff were taught to carry out relevant religious rituals, i.e. the burning of specific plant materials (RekdaI 2003, 266-268). This brings us to my hypothesis that the museums' handling of religiously founded queries or demands after NAGPRA can be regarded and analysed as more than polite interest and conciliatory gestures. The museum rituals may provoke a kind of liminal state in which all representatives involved put aside their usual status respectively as scientists and religious experts. This may in turn form the basis for restructuring the religious and the secular authority, as the liminal state can temporarily (or even permanently) cancel established power structures and provide a fulcrum for generating new ones. The framework for museum practices and religious practices merges. But what kind of special authority is it that museums as secular culture bodies possess which the religious representatives may draw on? And what is the purpose of the transfer of such authority? These questions will now be examined.2

Repatriation and cooperation It is well known that a large number of museum objects with religious significance were not acquired by the museums from volunteer donors, but as part of European colonisation of the affected areas. After decolonisation, in the aftermath of World War II, Indigenous Peoples have increasingly expressed a desire for cultural autonomy and control over their 0\Vll heritage (Gabriel 2010, 1 1-12). This has led to a political process still under development in which a trend to distance oneself from past practice prevails and the wishes and requirements set forth by the descendants of the objects' original O\Vllers are increasingly recognised by museums. In 1986 The International Council of Museums (ICOM) prepared and adopted the internationally recognised and normative instructions, knO\Vll colloquially as "ICOM's Code of Ethics for Museums". Regarding the

2 The adoption of NAGPRA marked the culmination of a long process that subsequently echoed throughout the international musemn world. However, Lame Deer's desacralisation ritual at the National Musemn of Denmark took place prior to the adoption ofNAGPRA.

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exhibition of so-called "sensitive material," clause 4.3 of this regulatory framework detelTIlines: Human remains and materials of sacred significance must be displayed in a manner consistent with professional standards and, where kno\VIl, taking into aCcOlUlt the interests and beliefs ofrnernbers of the community, ethnic or religious groups from whom the objects originated. They must be presented with great tact and respect for the feelings of human dignity held by all peoples (ICOM's Code of Ethics for Museums 2013, 8).

The reOM regulations accommodate curatorial as well as religious interests, and provide input to the individual museums to makes assessments of an ethical and practical character. Thus, in each given situation, a case-by case basis for ad hoc assessment is suggested, rather than an established or fixed conduct for practice. However, it carmot be expected for everyone within museums to unreservedly welcome a process that requires them to leave the traditional role of "objective" secular institutions, and engage as active participants in a political globalisation and decolonisation discourse (Gabriel 2010, 12). Now that we are about to examine a particular ritual collaboration between Lame Deer, a religious representative and to some extent a ritual authority of the Lakota Nation, and the National Museum of Denmark, it is important to keep in mind that this collaboration exemplifies an unfinished historical process of emancipation where ethnographic objects in the museum's custody play a central role in the balance of power between the various representatives.

Wakan Tanka as the White Buffalo Woman The Lakota are a sub-group of the population usually referred to as the Sioux. Until 1850 the Sioux inhabited the land which is the state of South Dakota and large areas of the surrounding states today (DeMallie 2001, 71 8-719). The first written records on the Lakota, the Western Sioux, written by Catholic missionaries Louis Heooepin and Pierre-Charles Le Sueur, indicate that their country consisted of very few forests, that they traveled on foot, did not live in pemmnent villages and neither worked the land nor gathered wild rice. Their only food source was that which could be hunted, mainly buffaloes (DeMallie 2001, 725). Thus the Lakota are described as a nomadic people who walked in the wake of the buffalo herds. However, as the Sioux lands were greatly reduced by colonialism and the development of the railway that prevented the movement of the herds, particularly from 1851 to 1912, the hunt for buffaloes was steadily

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When Objects of Religious Significance Mediate Power

made impossible, and the Lakota turned away from nomadism in order to live in houses on the remaining reservations. Thus, it has been more than a century since the Lakota lived as nomads. Nevertheless they are still, in a religious sense, a nomadic people. As the Lakota's lands dwindled, they were also isolated from Bear Lodge, a mountain plateau located in the Black Hills area where the current states

of South Dakota and Wyoming meet.

According to

mythology, Bear Lodge was the axis mundi where the divine power Wakan Tanka, in its anthropomorphic manifestation as White Buffalo Woman, bestowed the means to communicate with the divine to the Lakota's primeval ancestors as well as the hunt as their livelihood. When the Lakota were denied access to the Black Hills they were also deprived of their connection to both deity and origin. The relationship between the divine concept of Wakan Tanka and its physical manifestations can illustratively be compared with that of the anthropomorphic gods of monistic Hinduism whom we may regard as somewhat simplified representations of the general, abstract, transcendent, immanent, omnipresent and tiber-divine principle, Brahman, which is everything and determines everything. Being the sum of the universe, Brahman is so incomprehensible that mere mortals need to have it adjusted to their own concept of reality through anthropomorphic divinities in order to comprehend just a fraction of it. The American anthropologist Raymond

J.

DeMallie and the Lakota

spokesman Luther Standing Bear describe Wakan Tanka as follows:

According to one Oglala, wakan was "anything that is hard to understand." It was the animating force of the universe, the cornmon denominator of its oneness. The totality of this life-giving force was called Wakan Tanka, Great Incomprehensibility, the whole of all that was mysterious, powerful, sacred, holy. The wakan permeated all of life, all of the universe, making everything one. For this reason, "religion" for the Lakotas was not a separate institution distinct from the rest of daily life, but rather it was integral to all hlUllan experience (DeMallie 1 9 84, 8 1 ) . 3 FurthelTIlore

Wakan Tanka breathed life and motion into all things, both visible and invisible (Standing Bear 1933, 197)

In short, Wakan Tanka can be regarded as the overall sacred,

sentient,

immanent and ubiquitous force of life and cohesiveness that makes all 3 Oglala is one among seven sub-groupings of the Lakota tribe.

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existence possible. In its manifestation Wakan Tanka is reflected in the form of sixteen charitable Wakan-beings that all have human traits. They include the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, several invisible spirits and \¥hite Buffalo Woman. The internal dynamics between the Wakan-beings reflect those of humans, giving the Lakota a sense of intimacy with the spirits (DeMallie 1984, 81). The Lakota myths derive from oral traditions and appear in many varieties, which is also the case with \¥hite Buffalo Woman as a motif. But even though she is described in varying ways she always appears as a representation of Wakan Tanka, and as such is a mediating link between divinity and humanity. One story recounts a woman who could overtake the dark animals and chased albino buffaloes (Standing Bear 1933, 199). Another story describes a similar woman who, among other things, bestowed the ancestors their basic religious and ethical codes as well as the calf's pipe. Through its smoke human activity is assumed to be conveyed to Wakan Tanka. Thus rules and smoke from the sacred pipe constitutes the very foundation of divine communication and interaction (ibid, 220-222). Yet another pattern is depicted in the relationship between the Sun and the Earth. According to Lakota cosmology they are engendered and invigorating polar opposites and-like everything else­ permeated by Wakan Tanka. These principles ensure that everything in the world is considered and treated as relatives, which means that nothing on Earth, not even the earth itself, can be O\vned. And in this setup Bear Lodge represents a cosmogonic link between soil, sun and Wakan Tanka who, in the form of White Buffalo Woman, ensured that the first Lakota would live as nomads in symbiosis with the land the deity had bestowed upon them.

The desacralising of a sacred bundle at the National Museum of Denmark We are now in a position to examine the ritual content of the television documentary Watowe-the Sacred Bundle (1987) noted earlier. The footage of the ritual perfOlmance along with Lame Deer's commentary explanations of Lakota ritual practices as well as the myths associated with the rituals, depicts the desacralisation process which the sacred bundle undergoes. The initial rites-chanting and burning of sagebrush-were perfonned in the National Museum's storage facilities after which the bundle was transported to the western shores of Jutland where Lame Deer erected a sweat lodge. Lame Deer explained how the ancestral power contained

When Objects of Religious Significance Mediate Power

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within sacred bundles makes them particularly effective. In order for them not to diminish in strength, sacred tools must be regularly put to use, he said. Thus the ritual leaders operate on a mandate from their people when maintaining or removing the power of sacred bundles and pipes, wherever they may be.4 He also emphasises that representatives of indigenous peoples should not be afraid to enter the museums to pray with and for the sacred objects which are still active. At this point it should be noted that, as the ritual leaders, from Lame Deer's point of view, are mandated to perfOlTIl rituals

are,

where the objects

they connect to a museological context where museums, by virtue of

being repositories for ritual equipment, are to become scenes of ritual activity akin to churches, temples or sacred groves. Historian of religions J0fgen Podemarm Smensen, divides ritual efficacy into two domains, adding to Catherine Bell's

(1997)

theory on

ritual efficacy. One domain addresses the alleged ritual efficacy (the expected actual impact by virtue of the ritual's connection with mythological narratives and claims) and the other addresses the

efficacy (the

socialising ritual

collective structures of power and cohesion attained by ritual

activity). Lame Deer's comments exemplify this coincident alleged and socialising ritual efficacy: the museum rituals are thought to affect the accumulation of divine power within the obj ects as well as providing social

cohesion

communities

and

through

ties

between the museums

ritual

practice

involving

and the the

religious

obj ects.5

The

desacralisation of the sacred bundle also exemplifies a typical rite of passage and as such it may be analysed in accordance with van Gennep 's

(1909) classic three-phase approach: separation, liminality and incorporation. I argue that the separation phase is indicated by the removal of the sacred bundle from the museum storage facility to the sea shores. Here at the threshold between two fOlTIlS of existence-respectively as a mere museum object and a powerful ritual tool-it gradually enters the liminal phase of the ritual (with the ocean symbolically being a liminal area itself separating Denmark and America).

In

the documentary,

a ritual is

perfOlTIled by the beach consisting of a mythical reconstruction, in which a white-clad woman, enacting a reference to the White Buffalo Woman, hands the medicine man a sacred pipe before disappearing again. The

4 Though it is not mentioned in the docmnentary itself, but while visiting the museum facilities Lame Deer also inspected a nmnber of Lakota sacred pipes. At his behest the bowl and neck of these pipes are now kept separated as that, from a religious point ofview, renders them merely potentially active. 5 See Podernann Sm:ensen 2006a, 529-53 1 ; 2006b, 525-527; 201 1 , 74-75; 2013, 158-161 andBe11 1997, 241-242.

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medicine man spends the following night in the sweat lodge in the company of a group of men. Together they establish contact with the divine. The next day the white-clad woman reappears holding the sacred bundle. Along with the male ritual leader she enters the sweat lodge where she hands over the bundle. Subsequently a group of women enter and again they all spend the night in there. The actual ritual activity within the sweat lodge is not described in detail in the documentary. However, Standing Bear mentions that these lodges are an integral part of all religious ceremonies among the Lakota and that inside a small altar is regarded as "at Mother Earth's lap"-i.e. on the ground. According to Standing Bear one half of the altar is painted green to symbolise the earth, and the other half yellow to symbolise the sky. A buffalo skull is to be placed on the altar itself and a stick is planted in every comer, holding a deer skin bag with sacred tobacco. The sacred pipe is placed in a rack near the altar (Standing Bear 1933, 200). On the third day the bundle is taken to the seashore and placed by the water. At this point it is void of sacred power. The reconstruction of the white-clad woman's visit among the primeval Lakota and her donation of the sacred instruments are elements of the performance by which Lame Deer-due to his entrusted ritual authority­ enters a ritual state and from which he is identified with the primeval ancestors at their first encounter with the 'White Buffalo Woman. Accordingly, having for a time situated himself in a ritual setting betwixt­ and-between the present and a mythological past, he has entered the liminal state of the ritual. At this point he is entrusted with the power to change, renew or maintain elements of the collective religiously perceived reality by ritual means. In other words, he has ritually entered the primeval cosmogonic process and is perceived to bring order to a disorderly world, drawing on myth through ritual activity (podemann S0fensen 2013, 7-8). The mere presence of White Buffalo Woman, who, as mentioned, constitutes an anthropomorphic representation of Wakan Tanka, refers to the part of the myth that reflects the hunt and, consequently, a nomadic way of life. In this way the liminal phase of the ritual as a whole refers to the overall founding of the world as we-or at least the religious Lakota­ know it and in a ritual sense it is a corrective repetition. From this point the foundation of the world can be reestablished and any incompatibilities occurring in the present, such as a misplaced sacred bundle still emanating effectiveness, may be corrected. On the subject of authority, it is interesting that in the scene when Lame Deer led a group of men into the sweat lodge, one of these men was

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the fOlmer curator in charge of the American collections. By his ritual participation a direct correspondence was established between the religious authority of the Lakota medicine man and the secular authority of himself as a museum representative. Hence, the possibility of a transfer of the ritual authority sovereignly possessed by the ritual performing religious representative occurs. As demonstrated above, an object which in a religious sense is considered to be sacred through a ritual process can be desacralised and thereby be accepted as a museum piece by (descendants of) the original users.6 With regards to the hypothesis that underlines this chapter, our focus should be on the central aspect exemplified: the transfer of authority between the religious representative and the museum representatives. Via the somewhat orthodox ritual setup the representatives involved are embedded in an interdependent relationship where status and authority are exchanged to some extent. Representing the museum while attending a religious ritual, the curator provides a seal of approval by participating in a religious function in an environment in which religious representatives usually do not have much opportunity for ritual expression. Likewise, the curator benefits from the ritual authority of the religious representative, notably through incurring potential goodwill towards any future exhibition of the sacred bundle and minimizing any future accusation of cultural disrespect, and maybe even averting claims for repatriation. Furthermore the media attention gives the two representatives a platfOlm from which they can attempt to promote their individual agendas.

Displacement, in-placement and social liminalisation Mary Douglas (1966, 36) defined the concept of "ritual impurity" as "matter out of place". She perfOlmed a systematic categorisation of materials that are either viable in a given situation, thereby pure, or unwanted or displaced by-products, the impure. In order to achieve the ritual purity for a person or an object, it is necessary that all elements of the ritual are potentially adjustable and in their intended setting. By nature, we are talking about an ordered or ordering restrictive practice contrasting 6 This analysis partly adopts the assumption that Lame Deer has a mandate to represent the Lakota entirely. However, as with any larger collective, one must assume that there are those among the Lakota who do not accept Lame Deer as their religious representative. Those people may still consider sacred blUldled as effective. This cOlUlter assumption is particularly relevant due to internal dissension whether ascetic or more syncretic traits should characterise contemporary approaches to pre-Colombian Lakota religion. See Lewis 1990, 176-179.

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a disordered Of, in ritual telTIls, chaotic state. Hence, the absence of order is an identification of the chaotic, which again implies a potential for order (ibid, 95). Consequently displacement, as Douglas terms it, implies the potential for what one might call in-placement. Applying this matrix, Lame Deer's ritual participation in the museum setting can now be analysed as follows. As a religious authority Lame Deer pointed out that the sacred bundle was to be regarded as displaced in the museum's storage facility. Through a ritual desacralisation the bundle was stripped of its sacred power and could then, as an ineffective object, take its place in the museum again. Yet, as a desacralised museum object, it was in-placed In an analytical perspective, this in-placement can be regarded as a new ritual adaptation of the object. In an analogy to ritual impurity Douglas describes the difficulties British social workers experience reintegrating ex-prisoners into a society that struggles with their criminal history (Douglas 1966, 98). This analogy may be compared to the Lakota, represented by Lame Deer, who did not wish to repatriate the sacred bundle. At the sarne time the object may not be regarded as integrated with the museum community, since, in this setting, it is merely an object whose identity is only detennined by the choice of narratives which the curators deem appropriate or representative. I contend that the ritual in-placement of the sacred bundle in fact constitutes a kind of social displacement of the object, where it hovers between two cultural contexts and waits to be incorporated into one of them-either as a museum object or as a sacred bundle. Until this happens, the object appears in a contradictory position. To illustrate how things that are regarded as ritually impure, as well as purified, are still characterised by the abilities to enter into new meaningful contexts, Douglas uses another analogy. She states: [1]f all weeds are removed, the soil is impoverished. Somehow the gardener must preserve fertility by returning what he has taken out. The special kind of treatment which some religions accord to anomalies and abominations to make them powerful for good is like turning weeds and la\Vll into compost. (Douglas 1 966, 164)

Drawing on Douglas, the transformed identity of the sacred bundle derives a new ritual adaptation. It has been deprived of its quality as an emanation of Wakan Tanka. And hereafter its new identity is detennined and effected according to the stories that the representatives fmd appropriate. Still expressing ritual and social liminality after its desacralisation, the religiously significant museum object still has not run its narrative or

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perfOlmative course. But what kind of co-existing religious and curatorial context is then likely to emerge?

Enacting objects and narrative complexity In her take on actor-network-theory, the ethnographer and philosopher Anne Marie Mol suggests working with what she calls a performative understanding of reality. This is characterised by a cognitive presence of multiple parallel realities where the truth-understood as one uniquely identifiable reality-can neither historically, materially or culturally be localised. Rather, according to Mol, it is human interactions with the environment that determine the number of realities that appear as real or truthful in any given situation (Mol 1999, 74-75). Furthermore, she states that objects too can create such truth-seeming realities by relating to other representatives, or, in a more actor-network theory related telTIlinology, "Actors". Thus she regards reality as a product of practice: it is created through enactment and anchored in the concrete context of the action (Mol 1999, 77-79 and 83-85). Taking Mol's perspective into an analysis of museum exhibitions, factors such as contextualisation, representation, narration and reaction together create the reality to which a specific object seemingly belongs. More specifically, adapting to Mol's perspective, our desacralised sacred bundle and museum object, rooted in many different realities all of which basically bear equal relevance to the object's context and historicity, can be regarded as an active sacred bundle, a conquered item, a gift, a stowed object, a desacralised sacred bundle, as part of a specific exhibit narrative etc. The realities-rather than the singular reality-that the sacred bundle is ascribed to as a museum object are thus multiple. But where an object in a museum is rooted in historical narratives articulated by representatives operating within a museological reality, the same object does not necessarily remain attached to the associated religious narratives, unless the object again gets to interact with human actors who create a religious context. Social anthropologist Sandra Dudley (2012) has explained such shifts between different contexts of understanding as rites of passage. It is Dudley's assertion that objects, curators and guests take part in an ongoing negotiation concerning authority, notably over which narrative context the objects should be given. Dudley operates with a wide definition of the term "object" in which the objects themselves are to be regarded as storytellers or narrators and in which museum objects, by virtue of being exhibited, individually reflect the entire museum hegemony.

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Like Mol, Dudley's take on different actor-network-theories enables people as well as objects to enact, as objects too are defined by tbeir alleged actions and the social communities in which they partake.7 Based on Mol's performative understanding of reality Dudley's model can be viewed as a process from one original narrative which is later supplemented or replaced by new and varying synchronous narratives. The final, yet still hypothetical stage of development should tben ideally consist of an overall understanding and acceptance of the object's multiple and parallel narratives. With a fixed focus on the objects Dudley seeks to illustrate this series of conceptual shifts-or displacements-occurring due to the various museum opemtor's continuous reconceptualisations and recontextualisatiollS. In order to do this she makes use of van Gennep's model for rites of passage: 1.

Separation:

The object is collected (breaking with its original

historicity)

Liminality: The object alternates between different narratives (having uncertain historicity) 3. Incorporation: The object's creative potential is realised in its new environment (full understanding of the object's multiple historicity)

2.

As such, the ideal in Dudley's model is that the object may be integrated into the new museum environment and likewise that the new environment may be integrated into the object's original context(s). Yet as mentioned earlier, due to their ritual in-placement, the objects risk being socially displaced in an ongoing liminal state. And this point is reinforced by Dudley as she argues that for many museum objects displacement-here represented at the second stage of the model-is going to constitute a serially connected mode of existence where objects may appear as lost as if they were living people in a similar marginalised situation. She argues that at each moment, each state of existence has its 0\Vll authenticity and the liminality, and the uncertain historicity characterising this phase, is included in the total sum of co-existing realities or narratives, which will ideally be linked to a given object or individual.' 7

For a more overall reference to actor-network-theories, see ie. CalIon 1984.

8 At this point I wish to deflect any potential criticism of Dudley's use of van

Gennep's model by acknowledging that it may seem like she does not take into account that his model was aimed at situations where all ritual participants share a common and religiously fmmded assmnption that something extraordinary can be accomplished by the ritual activity. However, in this case rituals performed in the

When Objects of Religious Significance Mediate Power

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Additionally, Dudley uses her model in relation to human representatives. She argues museum visitors are going through a similar passage in which they, jointly with the museum object, strive towards integration of the museum object in the ideal museum framework created by the model's third stage; the phase ofincorporation. The Danish art historian Rune Gade reinforces Dudley. He observes how something extraordinary happens when the museum visitor enters the museum, where the physical setting renders the guest particularly receptive: To approach these [musemn] buildings may involve a fonn of symbolic submission, concretized when one enters the building and necessarily adapts to a specific code of conduct. In this sense the musemn space has a disciplinary affect as it requires corporal as well as conscious submission. To put it less negatively, one may say that at the entrance to the musemn a transformation takes place, which helps to establish a bmmdary between the world outside and inside the musemn. [ ... ] The passage through the musemn entrance paves the way, so to speak, for a special receptive mode, potentially helping to constitute the musemn space as a special reflective space. (Gade 2006, 26-27)'

According to Gade, a restructuring of the visitor's receptive state involuntarily takes place along with the museum visit itself: the visitor's understanding of reality is affected and is particularly susceptible to the narratives selected by the museum's academic staff as representations of reality. Applying Dudley's model to the desacralisation of the Lakota sacred bundle it becomes apparent that not only does a mutual interdependence occur between the ritual and museum representatives, but that this interdependence also-in accordance with Mol and Gade-extends to the visitors and the object itself. Due to the common state of liminality all these groups cooperate towards entering the model's third phase, the state of incorporation, where an adequate understanding of the object's multiple historicity, its full context, is ideally obtained. The fIrst phase, the phase of separation, covers the individual as she encounters the object in the museum setting for the fIrst time. At this stage she may not have the slightest clue about the object's provenance or previous historicity. As the individual engages with the object, due to its potential for bearing meaning museum setting with objects of religious significance are indeed the ritual and analytical hub: a central catalyst for comprehensive structural and social volatility for all parties involved religious or not. This will be illustrated presently. 9Author's translation.

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in a personal or professional context, she enters the second phase, the liminal phase. Due to her O\Vll or other representatives' growing understanding and interpretation of the object's full context, the individual will, ideally and ultimately, obtain an adequate understanding of the different narrative dis-placements and in-placements as well as multiple realities that make up the object's multiple historicity. This indicates the third phase, the phase of incorporation. This allows us to extend Dudley's model as follows:

1.

2.

3.

Separation: The meeting where the individual is unaware, but by the object's presence is situated in a special receptive space or mode. Liminality: The individual becomes part of a transformative engagement with the object in which they attach meanings to the object. At this liminal stage meaning may reflect the individual's O\Vll personal reflection, whether or not evidence exists to back up such interpretations. Incorporation: Adequate understanding of the object as situated in a museum setting and adequate knowledge of its multiple historicity.

According to Dudley, the object represents and narrates the past. And as a representation of the past it generates and represents a material yet associative link by means of memories, imagination and a feeling of "having been there." As a mediating link to the past, the muselUll object is not only applied to a nlUllber of narratives; it gains its 0\Vll voice. And thus, by virtue of the narratives it is asslUlled to tell, it acclUllulates authority and power. 'When the muselUll visitor becomes attached to the object on a personal and emotional level, the chosen narratives of the muselUll professionals are contested by the personal narratives that might achieve a greater impact by virtue of the personal framework of understanding. The common liminality encompassing all representatives-hlUllans and objects-that occurs when a muselUll object is re-actualised as a ritual object can be illustrated as shown in Figure 4.1.

"When Objects of Religious Significance Mediate Power

Separation

Liminal ity

103

Incorporation

Object

Inter- l i m i nal ity

Separation & Liminality

O u t t h e re

Incorporation

M useum

Figure 4.1. Inter-liminality in Museums, Carsten Viggo Nielsen 2017.

Figure 4. 1 indicates how the obj ect undergoes a somewhat circular development from being placed in a perceived original context and through a series of contextual in-placements and displacements, coming full circle as established in a state where it represents both the original context as well as any new contexts. ill parallel, the human representatives as interpreters of the museum obj ect undergo a linear development in which they are involved and liminalised as they interact with the obj ect (meeting the obj ect in the second phase of the model). Within the museum this creates a collective receptive state in which all representatives become ritually liminalised during their participation with the ritual obj ect. Due to this

collective receptive state,

a potential for restructuring of any

authoritative and hegemonic hierarchies between religious representatives and museum representatives emerges. However, one should be aware that Dudley's model represents an ideal state in which all stakeholders work together towards the same goal. In real life, the situation is often characterised by the representatives' conflicting

agendas,

where some may be

aiming towards

a more

traditional-in a museological as well as in a religious sense-practice.

1 04

Chapter Four

Concluding thoughts The purpose of this chapter was to illustrate how the rituals performed in a museum setting may entail a transfer of ritual authority between religious and museum representatives. Applying Podemann Smensen's argument to the data at hand, it became apparent that alleged ritual efficacy consists of the transforming effect conferred by the religious representatives, while the social efficacy lies in the sharing of authority between-in this case-the religious leader (or rather the religious representative leading the rituals) and the curator, which took place when the ritual was perfOlmed within the museum auspices. In this context the religious representative acquired a rhetorical momentum in the museum, i.e. the secular, hegemonic research and communication institution reproducing culture, while the curator who participated in the religious ritual was endowed with a fragment of the religious status held by the religious representative. Via the dual efficacy and the exchange of authority, the different representatives-worshipers, visitors, the museum staff and scholars-became included in the museum's internal and constantly fluctuating power structures. From this state­ within the given ritual dynamic's fluctuating framework-they could seek to influence each other or gain a foothold in each other's traditionally anchored domains. Furthermore, by applying the theories of Douglas, Mol and Dudley it was argued that museum objects with religious significance, by virtue of their social marginalisation or in-placement, can be held in a ritual liminal state in which they are perceived merely as exhibition obj ects. Applying Mol's and Dudley' s perspective, the objects were regarded in the

same manner

as

human representatives:

as

active

representatives or actors. Thus people as well as things were seen to play an active role as mediators and producers of history by virtue of their common, persistent liminal state within the museum setting. As for the obj ects, the liminal phase is initiated as they are removed from their original context and placed within the museum.

In the museum setting the

museum visitors are, according to Dudley and Gade, in the throes of their immediate fascination for the obj ects ' "originality" whereby they enter a particularly receptive mode, which is characterised by their reconstruction of the obj ect's contextual meaning based on a personal framework of understanding. By assessing this collective liminality in relation to the various representatives, it appears that the museums interpretive recontextualisation of obj ects and the involvement of religious representatives in the museum auspices, are all part of a process where all representatives have a say in

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105

the multi-faceted narrative that will constitute the objects' new historicity. Ergo all representatives are included in varying power structures, anchored in specific museum objects' (re)presentation and narrative context in order to renegotiate the traditional hegemonic structures.

CHAPTER FIVE How MUSEUMS IDENTIFY AND FACE CHALLENGES WITH DIVERSE COMMUNITIES CHI THIEN PHAM

Introduction This chapter will argue that museums can identify their communities through collections and the location of the building. First, the chapter will explore some challenges that museums around the world experience when working with communities and suggest some solutions for the problems identified. The chapter recognises that "communities" is a wide-ranging concept since there are many groups with overlapping interests in different societies (Golding 2013a). For the sake of clarity and to achieve some depth in analysis, the chapter will focus on discussing the LGBT community (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) via a case study: The Cabinet exhibition in Vietnam (2014), which I am qualified to write on, as a member of the international curatorial team.

Defining terms To begin to understand clearly how museums identify their communities, it is necessary to explore the concept of communities. Currently, there are diverse interpretations. The Oxford English Dictionary (Hornby 2005), states that a community includes all the people who live in a particular area within a country etc, while the Collins English Dictionary and Thesaurus (Makins 1997) define the concept of community as the people living in one locality, a group of people having cultural, religious or other characteristic in common. Researchers in Vietnam note that the community defmes people within the same social situation, cohesively living together, for example, ethnic minority groups, disabled groups and LGBT groups (Giang 2014; Thieu and Nga 2009).

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From these definitions, it is evident that "the community" is hugely complex, involving a constantly changing pattern of both tangible and intangible factors (Davis, 2007). Perhaps we could sum up tbe concept of community as: a collection of people in contact (physical or virtual) that share a culture, a religious belief or circumstance in common. "Community" and creating an "inclusive community" have become buzzwords in the museum sector (Sandell 2002). In the museum context, the word "community" seems to have replaced "audience", "public" and "visitor" (Crooke, 2007). This chapter argues tbat museums must relate to, serve and interact with several diverse communities, and through their actions define for themselves who their "communities of interest" are at different moments in time (Davis 2007). In other words, museum communities are the constantly changing groups with which museums are engaged. According to Golding (2013a) and Modest (2013), the role of tbe communities in museums has changed. In the mid-nineteenth century, there was a one way relationship: objects from people all over the world entered museums who presented infmmation about them, often from a colonial perspective. As a result, there is a connection between museums as institutions within imperial powers and source communities in colonised regions. At that time, museums considered their communities to be members of dominant colonial societies-either specialists or the public (Peers and Brown 2007). With the arrival of the New Museology and tbe post-museum (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000) who tbose communities are considered to be has massively diversified, and museums' relationships with audiences and groups has, consequently, changed.

Museums and Communities Collections and Collaborations In recent years, a new generation of museum professionals has developed in a people-centred museum. In this type of museum, everything, from the physical layout, the choice of exhibition and the organisation of the collection can be made by tbe community (Appleton 2007). Community members have come to be defined as authorities of their 0\Vll cultures and material heritage. This change immediately has a positive effect on attracting visitors to museums. Watson discusses the way in which local people chose themes "to represent their history and sense of place" (Watson, 2007b). As a consequence, individuals who come from all walks of life (from tbe working classes to tbe upper middle classes) see themselves reflected in the museum display with a sense of satisfaction.

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From this example, it can be clearly seen that the museum and the community can share tight bonds and common purposes-though this is, of course, not always the case. Museums pursue many kinds of purposes, such as collections stewardship, education and lifelong learning, economic development, quality of life, and so on, but the core mission of museums is to serve the public, and the museum explains whom it will serve and how in its mission statement (Jacobsen 2013). One of the most important elements to attract museum audiences is accurately identifying museum communities. In order to identify them, museums need to acknowledge two key factors, the collections and the locations of the museum (Davis 2007; Peers and Brown 2007). What are museum collections? The Oxford English Dictionary states that a "collection" is a group of objects, often of the same sort, that have been gathered together or collected. Chapter one of the National Park Service Museum Handbook (Floray, Knapp, Mather 2003), expands upon this notion of museum objects. They note the museum object is a material thing possessing functional, aesthetic, cultural, symbolic, and/or scientific value, usually movable by nature or design. They further observe that museum objects include prehistoric and historic pieces, artefacts, works of art, archival material, and natural history specimens that are taken into a museum collection, while large or immovable objects such as monumental statuary, trains, nautical vessels, cairns, and rock paintings, are defined as structures or features of sites. Employing these the two notions, it could be stated that a museums' collection is a gathering of objects of tangible and intangible culture, which are collected, maintained, and arranged systematically under the general headings of fOlTIl, content or material. The Louvre-one of the greatest museums in the world-has more than 300,000 objects in its collection. Here we can find the most famous works in art history, such as Venus de Millo, Mona Lisa or the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The Louvre is an extraordinary time machine. As one passes from one room to another, one travels through centuries and through entire civilisations (Musee du Louvre 2005). In contrast, Yamate Museum of Art in Japan has more than 1000 objects and all of them are of Japanese painting. The collection of this museum mainly focuses on modem Japanese painting after the Meiji era. It is hoped that through museum experiences, visitors will develop an intense appreciation of Nihonga's or Japanese art's characteristic sense of the seasons and of the distinctive materials such as mineral pigments, silk and paper used to create these paintings (Yamazaki 2015).

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The collections play a pivotal role in all museum activities. In reality, it could be argued that all museum operations, such as exhibitions, education and research, are working around the museum collection. Communities have legitimate moral and cultural stakes or fOlms of O\vnership in museum collections (Peers and Brown 2007). Thus, the museum collection will be central to the decision of the museum community to visit. As an example, through collecting, excavation, gifting, and acquisition, today the Louvre has a massive collection with many kinds of objects, including Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities, European paintings and the Arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. It is evident from the information provided that the Louvre is holding treasures that reflect the history and culture of humankind. National museums such as the Louvre have been considered universal sites to showcase the World. For Neil MacGregor, fOlmer director of the British Museum, museums serve to root the histories of peoples up-rooted-enforced or free-from their original homelands (2004 cited in Golding 2013b). Therefore, the value of this collection is beyond the scope of France. Consequently, people from every continent, who are wealthy enough to travel to Paris, could see a part of their culture represented. The museum communities of the Louvre are not only the citizens of Paris or France in general, but a variety of worldwide audiences. In reality, from my experiences visiting the Louvre, I observed many visitors were international tourists coming from countries outside of France. Beside the collections, museums are also dependent on their locations to identify their communities (Sandell 2002). The Oxford English Dictionary (Hornby 2005) explains that location is a place where something happens or exists, the position of something. In fact, physical geography-landscape, natural resources, economy, tradition and local language-also help to make a community, according to Davis (2007). A local museum with a limited collection may serve a local community within a city or region. To illustrate this, and to tie together these ideas of object and location as crucial to community contact, I will take as an example the Bai-mi Clog Museum in Taiwan. This museum was built by the contribution of community residents in I-Ian (Yilan) County in the northeast part of Taiwan with limited resources and budget. The collection of this museum was formed from everyday simple objects donated by local citizens. Moreover, the Bai-mi community also insulated the walls of the museum with colourful handmade tiles. Because of this, the primary museum community of the Bai-mi Clog Museum is the local community. Consequently, they can easily feel the connection of their community in the museum (Chen 2002).

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A good example of this is the Denver Community Museum located in Denver's dO\vntO\vn Riverfront Park neighbourhood. From the beginning, the museum was built to serve all of the Denver area residents. As a result, some themes (namely 'Munnnify Me' or 'Wonder Room') were created from community collections (Kopke 2011). Another example is the Los Angeles Children's Museum. This museum, funded by the Community Redevelopment agency of Los Angeles considered the opinion of nearly 1,200 children, teachers and parents along with their museum staff in Los Angeles. It follows that the museum community are teachers and parents and children in the city (Regnier, 1987). Now I tum to my main case study-The Cabinet-in Vietnam. This collaborative project highlighted how objects and location are one way, although not the only way, in which communities might be identified. The Cabinet shows how one community may relate emotionally more strongly to museums through these two things. It should also be emphasised here that there is no homogeneous LGBT community. LGBT individuals have shared desires and experiences, and participate in many shared social and political movements and campaigns. Furthermore not all LGBT people identify primarily with nor consider themselves to be part of that community, and there are complicated divisions and conflicts within the LGBT spectrum. The Cabinet

In recent years, Sandell (2002) has noted that the social role and responsibilities of museums has been changing in line with the values of modem societies. The museum is not only a place to keep and conserve the memories of humankind but also a place to mirror social issues, such as racism, crime, and human rights including those of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people (Sandell 2002; Thien 2015). Recent research has suggested that each community has its own identity and the museum is a place where people actively make and remake their identities (Newman and McLean, 2006). The concepts of LGBT identities are comparatively new and strange for the public in Vietnam although there have been some notable advances. Same-sex marriage was discussed on 21 November 2013 in the 6th Session of the Eighth National Assembly, Decree NO. l l 0I2013 abolished the administrative fine and on 16 September 2014, the National Assembly officially removed the ban on same-sex marriage in the "Law of Marriage and Family" (Van 2015). Research indicates that the number of Vietnamese LGBT people is about 1 .650.000 who live and work in

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different roles and all types of agencies in society (UNDP-United Nations Development Programme, iSEE, 2014). In order to raise the public's awareness of the LGBT community, The Cabinet was produced, with 30 objects presented in four themes-Identity, Sorrow, Pride and Sharing-introducing almost 100 true emotional stories about life, love, inner tUlTIloil and hope for a new brighter future. The experience of LGBT insiders aims to promote better public understanding of what this community has been suffering. The stories are from persons living in many parts of the nation, but they all have the same desire of living with their true identities. The Cabinet was the first professional exhibition in Vietnam about LGBT communities. It was also unique in involving collaboration between three institutions (museums, NGOs and LGBT communities). The Cabinet opened on 10 March 2015 at the Vietnam University of Fine Arts, at 42 Yilt Kieu, Hit N(\i and ran until 3 1 March. It was a capacity-building project and community-based exhibition supported by UNESCO, tbe Swedish Institute, museums and NGOs in Vietnam and Sweden. The Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam, Ms. Camilla Mellander, spoke at the opening ceremony. She pointed to the ways that tbe exhibition was in line with universally recognised principles on equal rights and non­ discrimination established in tbe UN Declaration on Human Rights which both Sweden and Vietnam have signed. The Cabinet is an excellent exhibition and a joint initiative of nmnerous partners and musemns from Vietnam and Sweden. Learning about all the touching individual stories presented at this exhibition only deepens my strong conviction that all people have the right to be treated equally in society.

Mellander furtber highlighted how "[e]veryone, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation, should enjoy the right to happiness in telTIlS of family, relations and love and no one should be subject to discrimination" and praised "LGBT communities in both Vietnam and Sweden as they lead efforts to fight social prejudices and secure tbeir rights" (Van 2015). Returning to the question of how museums identify their communities, this case study will consider the collection of the exhibition as the first factor to determine the community. To begin with, the collection of The Cabinet was formed from small collections, held by NGOs with the original purpose to reflect the life of the LGBT community in Vietnam. What is more, these objects were collected from small groups of LGBT people in the nation's two biggest cities: Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

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Most objects are memorabilia associated with the daily life of LGBT people who come from all ages and occupations in society. From these characteristics, it can be clearly seen that the target community of the exhibition would be LGBT audiences in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. However, when looking at the second factor, location, since the exhibition was organised and presented in Hanoi, the critical community would be LGBT visitors in Hanoi, although the wide ranging community would be LGBT individuals in the whole country. Until now, LGBT issues are still a contested area in many societies (Tseliou 2013; Frost 2013). Because of the prejudices of society against LGBT people, they tend to mask their sexual identity. Hence, it is not easy for some museums to collect stories about them. This chapter will try to clarify the challenges that museums face when working with the LGBT community via experiences gained from The Cabinet. To begin to understand the challenges that museums face when working with the LGBT community it is necessary to explore the key factors or defining concepts of LGBT identities. According to Vincent (2014): Lesbian is the commonest English language telTIl for describing sexual and/or romantic desire between women. Gay was originally applied to men and women, but now generally applies to sexual and/or romantic desire between men. Bisexual describes sexual and/or romantic desire for men and women. Transgender is an all-encompassing telTIl for people that cross gender boundaries, permanently or otherwise. I note here that some individuals who would not identify as Transgender but would fall under it in this definition-people who are agender, or genderqueer, for instance. I also observe people's individual identities and presentations might shift over time. As a consequence, the museum might feel confused when they choose objects for specific storytelling. After all, what constitutes the LGBT community? Is it a collection of people with the same characteristics as the concept outlined by Vincent, or not? People frequently describe LGBT people as a "community". Whilst this is an easy shorthand, it may also bring its 0\Vll problems-for example, some people, artists for example, may not want to primarily be positioned in an LGBT community because of their particular gender or sexual identity. It is thought that the term could itself contribute to stereotypes

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and has similar problems as the concept of a "Black community." Artists, for example, may rather be identified as artist first rather than as a gay or Black person first. In other words there is no universal LGBT community, but, rather, people who may form alliances over certain issues and not over others (Formby 2012). In reality, even in developed countries with an open culture about sex and gender, such as Britain, the activities of museums relating to LGBT issues are still controversial. Pride and Prejudice-Lesbian and Gay London, opened at the Museum of London in 1999. However, this exhibition did not reflect all aspects of the LGBT community. It mainly focused on two groups in the community: lesbians and gay men. In 2006, the exhibition Rainbow City, Stories from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Edinburgh was considered the first exhibition in the UK to mirror multiple aspects of the LGBT community. In recent years, there have been an increasing number of temporary exhibitions about LGBT people in the UK (Sandell 2002; Frost 2015) and Queering the Museum at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2011 represents this trend. This was an LGBTQ (including Queer) project, although appealing to the general public, as manifestations of sexual diversity were integrated spatially across regular exhibits and not within a confined gallery space (Tseliou 2013). By contrast, Vietnam is a developing nation and the vie\vpoint about sex and gender in Vietnamese culture is different from Western culture. In Vietnamese society, stereotypes about gender and sexuality are institutionalised and this regulates how human beings behave and who they love. People who do not belong to the dominant heterosexual pattern are marginalised, and LGBT issues are still controversial to the authorities. As a result there are currently few offices representing LGBT people and the rights in Vietnam. There are just some NGOs, which have several projects supporting LGBT people about sex, Hrv or anti-discrimination (UNDP, iSEE, 2014). Because of this, LGBT issues have not been recognised and in some periods, have even been considered as a disease in society. Nevertheless, there was a great change in 2012. The numbers of seminars and discussions relating to LGBT people rose dramatically when the Minister of Justice declared his disapproval of prejudice against LGBT individuals. Since then, the activity of the LGBT community has officially become more open to the public. To illustrate this, the chapter will outline some events of the LGBT community from 2012 to 2013 (UNDP 2014): at "Hand in hand", LGBT people and supporters marched around the Ban Nguy�t Lake in Ho Chi Minh City. This event was organised at the same time as Viet Pride in Hanoi (8/2012). "Rainbow welcome awakening", a

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series of events in four big cities in Vietnam-Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Danang and Cantho-took place on the anniversary of the world anti­ discrimination towards homosexuals and transgender people (5/2013). Through these events, it can be seen that there has been a positive change in Vietnamese society about LGBT issues in recent years, but we carmot see any museum activity relating to this phenomenon before the exhibition The Cabinet, and Bisexual groups do not receive much attention from the public. I! is in this context that The Cabinet project was created. During the project, museum staff often faced difficult issues because this was the first time the NGO collaborated with Vietnamese museums in an exhibition about LGBT people. The curatorial tearn included Swedish and Vietnamese lecturers, educators and designers.1 The chapter will share some personal experiences gained while working with LGBT communities in Vietnam. One of the major challenges for LGBT people in society is recognition. As outlined earlier, the LGBT community is a minority group in society accounting for 3-5 per cent of the population (iSEE and rcs, 2014). They face discrimination from their families, friends and colleagues. Therefore, LGBT individuals fear to "come out" and tend to divide their life into two halves. Within their community (LGBT), they live with their true identity, while in the wider world, they live under the cover of heterosexuality (Phuong 2013). This means that it is really hard for the public and museums to identify them in daily life. Swedish lecturers of the course: Andrej Nosov, Britta Soderqvist, Elfrida Bergman, Frida 1sotalo, Helene Larsson Pousette, Katarina Zivanovic, Linn, Nyberg Ekengren, Nicolas Hasselvist, Olinka Vistica. Vietnamese lectures of the course: Nguyen Duc Tang and Nguyen Truong Giang. Curators: Pham Chi Thien, Pham Khanh Binh, Mai Thi Buoi, Dinh Thi NhlUlg, Tran Thanh Tam. Editors: Luong The Huy, Pham Phuong Le, Dinh Thi NhlUlg, Tran Thanh Tam, Dinh Thu Thuy. Designer: Pham Khanh Binh Producers: Pham Khanh Binh, Pham Chi Thien, Dinh Van Hien, Nghiem Thi Minh Hang, To Thi Thu Trang, Ly Thi Ngoc DlUlg, Bui Thi Thanh Thuy, Kieu Vinh Trong. Educators: Mai Thi Buoi, Hoang Thanh Mai, Tran Thanh Tam, Hoang Huy Thanh, Quach Thi Thu Trang. Director: Ander Ohm (Swedish) Technical adviser: UlfPetersson (Swedish) Assistants of Technical adviser: Katrin Brannstrom and Alexander Kvamstrom (Swedish).

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On top of that, some LGBT people have difficulty with their gender identity. In this process, they tend to ask questions of themselves: Who am I? Do I love women or men? Am I a gay, lesbian or bisexual? (Julien, Chartrand, Simard, Bouthillier and Begin 2003) They feel scared, confused, and worried about their LGBT identity. They may wish to "come out", to tell the truth and live with their real identity, but unfortunately, they may be exposed to risks when they do this. Families may become angry, friends shocked, discrimination experienced from other people and relationships could be broken. Because of this, they have often experienced tragedies. For example, one of the objects on display was a razor. The storytelling accompanying the razor was moving, with the donor describing self-harming with the object. The donor states: Often being scolded by the whole family. I see this life so ironic and bitter. I often laugh with everybody. I laugh about my lUlhappiness and sadness. I laugh at the cruelty that everybody treats me. I often take this razor and carve on my hand. I carve the words "Smile and Resent" and other words. This becomes something I often do when I feel sad.

Also on display was a scarf, once given as a gift between lovers. The storytelling accompanying the scarf describes a heterosexual relationship. The donor states: This scarf was given to me by the first and only girlfriend of mine. After her, I have had only boyfriends. I keep this scarf because we have a fondness toward each other. Besides, the relationship with her helps me to realise that I cannot be with women.

These stories above all relate to sad things and are part of the terrible memories which LGBT people do not want to be reminded of. As a result, they also do not want to share these things with the public. This is another challenge for museums because if museum staff are not sensitive in their approach, they will make LGBT people feel vulnerable. Thanks to the development of media, nowadays, we can quickly find information with one click. However, the media also has some negative effects on society. In Vietnam, the media tends to dramatise LGBT issues instead of providing a balance with scientific and cultural infonnation. When the media mentions LGBT issues it often concentrates on the sexual behaviour of homosexuals. In this case, a lot of articles have confused notions about: homosexuals, transgender people and MSM (men who have sex with men). Besides, the media suggests that LGBT people's "different" sexual instincts cause their sex life to be hazardous, that their

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love is often not sustainable, and that it is difficult to find acceptance in society (iSEE, 2011). Consequently, with its widespread power, the media has contributed to increased prejudice against homosexuals in society in Vietnam. For this reason, the LGBT community tends to avoid the mass media including museums, which was the third challenge I experienced when working with museums and the LGBT community in my country. In order to resolve such challenges, I recommend museums take some concerted measures. One primary solution is to find LGBT stakeholders for the museum. Mio and Fasan (2015) contend that stakeholders are "any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization's objectives". The relationship between museums and stakeholders is pivotal in all museum activities and understanding stakeholder perspectives becomes a key task for museum managers (Legget, 2009). In developing The Cabinet, the LGBT individuals who have "come out" are the key museum stakeholders because more than anyone else they have experienced the plight of insiders, so they have a certain empathy with other LGBT people. In addition, they are people who know clearly LGBT culture. Therefore, they are the best guides for museum staff who want to work with LGBT communities. Through a useful interview with a stakeholder, we (museum staff) learned more about LGBT culture and how we might connect with the world of LGBT people. For example, the LGBT community has its rules and museum staff will be obliged to follow them, such as: do not assume the gender identity-he, her-of someone in the LGBT community, nor should we use the word "get". If we use gendered words and "get" we will show insensitivity and discrimination towards LGBT citizens because the meaning of the word "get" in LGBT culture is "get sick" and as mentioned before, LGBT is not a disease. LGBT people do not need a remedy to cure any disease. This is a small detail, but if we do not know, perhaps, we will never open the door to the LGBT community. As noted above, the story of this LGBT community in Vietnam was largely revealed as one of sadness and isolation during The Cabinet, so when as museum staff we met and talked with LGBT people we attempted to become friends and encourage them tell their life stories in relaxed semi-structured interviews. This friendly approach was seen as a good way to relieve stress and for the museum staff to give useful advice. The success of the interview approach also points to the need for museums to determine clearly what constitutes each target groups in the LGBT community and not presumes any commonality. From an open and learning position, suitable ways to make a conversation with LGBT people emerged. For example, with Transgender groups, we see they have the

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desire to live with their true identity. They tend to show their identity through distinctive dress, gestures, and so on. As a result, it can be hard for them to find a job in traditional society and they may have to find illegal jobs to live, such as prostitution. Thus, instead of asking only about their life story, as museum staff we also offered useful advice: producing NGO information about LGBT issues including meaningful work which they could do such as charity work. In this way, we demonstrated how the museum can build trust in the hearts of LGBT people and then, as a consequence, we found they will tell their stories in a natural way. My experiences in Vietnam leads me to recommend that museums tell more LGBT stories and visibly employ more LGBT people on a full time basis rather than in one-off exhibitions. Last but not least, museums need to resolve "the fear of media" in the LGBT community by explaining plainly about the purpose of the museum when working with them. In The Cabinet project, we organised seminars with the community to explain the purpose of the exhibition. We collaborated with NGOs because these organisations have credibility with the community. After that, we were able to work with the LGBT community in a favourable environment. Additionally I can advise museums to use modem media, such as social networks, electronic newspapers, and so on to productively illustrate their activity.

Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter has outlined some answers to two questions: "How can museums identify their community?" and "What challenges do museums working with the community face?" through a case study of The Cabinet exhibition in Vietnam. To answer the first question the chapter defined the key terms "community" and "museum community" via key theorists, notably Davis and Crooke. Then the essay discussed the role of communities in museum activity. Through specific examples, the essay illustrated the changing role of the community in museums from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, arguing that the "community" is no longer just people who enjoy the products of the museum, but people who also take part in directing the activities of museums, in choosing exhibition themes and participating in displays with museum staff. Then, based on the theories of Davis, Peers and Brown, the chapter clarified methods to help museums identify their communities, notably that museums can detelTIline their communities through two pivotal factors, their collections and the locations of the museums. The chapter applied this idea to identify the main community

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for the case study The Cabinet, with the LGBT community in Hanoi and the whole country. The analysis of LGBT data provided useful statistical infonnation on the LGBT community in Vietnam. To answer the second question about the challenges facing museums working with communities I drew on personal experience working with the LGBT community in Vietnam. My analysis clearly identifies distinct aspects of LGBT people's lives which have been hidden and so it is easy for museums to make mistakes when making exhibitions on these themes as they have little understanding of the key concerns. This is one of many reasons why museums tend to neglect LGBT issues. The chapter specifically outlined the activities of the museum related to the LGBT community in the UK and Vietnam. Museum activities relating to LGBT issues in Vietnam appear later than the UK and the quantity of activities is limited. However, since 2012, LGBT issues have been discussed with more frequency and spread across many fields, including museums. The success of The Cabinet certainly created a big buzz in the LGBT community and Vietnamese society. 'While it is too soon to radically enhance the public's awareness of LGBT issues, The Cabinet is a great signal for Vietnamese museums to continue creating more LGBT exhibitions in the future and the chapter points to three main difficulties when working with the LGBT communities in the Vietnamese context: how to find LGBT people in society and convince them to tell their stories and how to trigger trust and credibility inside the LGBT community. In order to explain these challenges, the chapter suggests three measures for museums. First of all, to find LGBT individuals, museums should collaborate with stakeholders who are LGBT and have come out. Secondly, to convince LGBT citizens to tell their stories, museums should become a friend to them via respectful listening to gain some understanding of their thinking and feelings, and ultimately to give them a more positive outlook on life. Thirdly, to build trust and credibility inside the LGBT community, museums should celebrate diversity and organise more seminars with the LGBT community and to do this well, museums should construct a stable relationship with NGOs. Finally, it is worth noting that while LGBT issues are still controversial in some nations, there is a growing body of research in this area. This chapter has outlined a comprehensive picture of the situation of museum activities related to LGBT people in Vietnam. Through outlining the challenges and solutions mentioned above, the chapter hopes to make a contribution to finding a method to erase the gap between museums and minority groups in society, not only LGBT groups but also other groups,

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such as people with disabilities, Hrv/AIDs, ethnic minorities, so on via museum exhibitions.

CHAPTER SIX THE VANISHING CATEGORY OF "THE OTHERS"? REFUGEES, LIFE STORIES, AND MUSEUMS! ANETTE REIN

Introduction Ethnographic museums around the world have been accused, often with some justification, of "Othering" Peoples whose cultures and societies differ from a familiar "home" culture and traditions. This paper will examine the new challenges for ethnographic museums attempting to serve as social resonance chambers for persons and objects in transition. The argumentation ends in the thesis that GelTIlans, as well as the refugees who have been arriving there since 2015, are traumatised through common war experiences. Museums with their great collections may serve as social resonance chambers to bring people together in a peaceful atmosphere. While exchanging their life stories with the help of museum objects, the vanishing of the category of the "Other" could be exchanged with a commonly experienced new "We." The timeframe considered in the chapter is from 2015 to the present, when a "refugee crisis" was increasingly dominating the political arena in Europe. Geographically the chapter focuses on Gemmny, the nation where the author was born and is a citizen.

1 This is a revised form of a paper presented at the international conference of ICME dming the General conference of ICOM in Genoa, July 5, 2016. The author thanks Sabine Kalinock, for proofreading this text.

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Retrospection On August 31, 2015, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, uttered the sentence: "Wir schaffen das!" ("We can do it"), which reminds one of Barack Obama's famous speech during his election campaign in 2008, when he said: "Yes we can". During the following days, hundreds of thousands of refugees streamed through the opened borders into the multitude of Austrian and GelTI1an cities. This movement was a daily occurrence until March 2016 when the borders through the Balkans were closed again. "Whereas in 2015 altogether 759,000 asylum seekers crossed the border to Germany, in 2016 only 155,000 arrived. The biggest cut could be observed since March 2016-the month in which the Balkanroute was closed. Whereas in January and February approximately 75,000 and 41,000 border crossings were registered, in March less than 7,000 were counted" (Fendrich 2017, translated by the author). Thousands of welcoming volunteers provided the refugees with food, drink, clothing and toys from September 2015 until March 2016. This new phenomenon gave birth to a specific "welcome culture" (Willkommenskultur) for the refugees. In GelTI1any, each accommodation for refugees became connected with its 0\Vll circle of friendship clubs, which are organised by volunteers who "take refugees to meetings with the authorities in their 0\Vll cars, pay their fares, foot their medical bills, teach GelTI1an, translate fOlTI1s, share couches and bikes, act as narmies, open up soccer clubs, schools and kindergartens for refugee kids, and go on demonstrations against rightwing attacks across the country" (Akrap 2016). At this point, one has to mention the negative reactions versus this so called "wave" of refugees. Since those had arrived in Germany in 2015, hundreds of attacks of aggression against them as persons or against their accommodation had happened, and several narratives about possible terrorists in the group of the newly arrived people were constructed, such as the false suspicion of Anas Modamani from Syria, after he had taken a selfie with "Angela" (Diehl 2016). The Willkommenskultur included huge parts of the German population from all generations and different backgrounds-who worked together with previous migrants or who had established themselves as migrants in German society since the 1970s. For example the Afghan entrepreneur Nadia Qani, who arrived in 1980 in GelTI1any, has, since 2016, organised musical events for refugees in Frankfurt am Main, following contemporary and traditional holidays-like the International Women's Day or the spring festival Nouruz.

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Figures 6.1 and 6.2 March 5. 2016 Celebrating the "International Women's Day" with refugees from Afghanistan and [yak and the music group from Bridges-Music verbindet (from left to right with Johanna-Leonore Dahlhoff, Ustad Guhlarn Hossain, Pouya Roufyan, Mirweis Neda. Photos © Anette Rein.

Each time more than 700 refugees, rnainly from Afghanistan and from Iran, participated in these events. Because they happened in an open space location called "HAFEN 2-Kulturzentrum und interdiszipliniire Plattform, in Offenbach am Main" ("Cultural Centre and interdisciplinary Platform", translated by the author), Germans also started to participate, and efforts to

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connect people with shared originating countries has begun. Such events are organised and supported by volunteers and are mainly financed by private sponsors. FurthemlOre since the beginning of 2016, musicians all over the world have worked and performed together in tbe project "Bridges-Musik verbindet" (Boyens 2017). When volunteers were asked: "Why do you want to help the refugees?" the main answer was: "I want to give something back" (Akkaya, 2016). In many cases, the so-called "bio-GelTIlans" were descendants from immigrant families or refugees themselves, forced to leave their fOlTIler homes as a result of tbe two World Wars. In this context we should be aware that migration was not a new phenomenon. Only 120 years ago at the end of the nineteenth century, around 50 per cent of the inhabitants in GelTIlan cities were migrants as a result of the industrial revolution and the world economic crisis (Kramer 2016).

Migrants and refugees Since 2010, Germany has differentiated between Germans and people with a migrant background. In 2014, 19 per cent of tbe total population of Germany had a migrant background (DMB 2015a, 10)2 Five different types of migration are differentiated, depending on the reasons and the direction of the people's movements. The "immigrant" leaves their home and becomes, in another country (in a new society), an "emigrant" who moved abroad. If this person wants to go back home after some years, they are called a "return migrant". Usually, a return migrant will spend the whole time away in close contact with their first homeland. 'When they regularly move back and forth, people are also called "recurrent migrants". Likewise, the "diaspora migrant" stays also in a close relationship with their home community, but is mainly moving because of religious, political reasons, or motivated by an organisation-not because of economic reasons. The "transmigrant" moves because of economic reasons (they are managers or experts, for example) and has multidirectional relationships (DMB 2015a, Absl 34-35, translated by the author). A person has a background as a migrant when they 1 . do not have German nationality, 2. their place of birth is outside of the actual German borders of the German Republic and their migration into the German Republic happened after 1949, or 3. the first two points are applicable to one of tbe parents. According to this defmition about 15 million people with a migrant 2 In the "Migrationshintergnmd-Erhebungsverordnung" from September 29, 2010 the category migrant was extended with new definitions.

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background were living in Germany in 2014 (DMB 2015a:10 translated by the author). In other words, today about every fifth German has their family roots in another country. In the following debate, we have to differentiate between "migrated people" and those "refugees" who have arrived in GelTIlany in recent years. Over a long time, the European perspective regarded and treated flight and migration as regional problems, which meant in practice that the neighbourhood countries of, for example, Syria, Afghanistan or Eritrea, were seen as being responsible for the arriving refugees. Since summer 2014, the first indications that more and more refugees would take the risky routes to come to Europe could no longer be ignored. In spring 2015 the so called "wave of refuges" started; in May 2015 about 40,000 persons arrived in Germany, by the end of the year 890,000 had arrived, and in September 2016 over 280,000 refugees were received in Germany-mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, lrak and Eritrea (Schubert and Haase 2018, 3).

German museums: places of refuge and welcome? Despite these significant "migration waves", German museums ignored "migration" as a topic until the 1990s. Until recently, special exhibitions about migrants were only temporary. Migration and cultural diversity have, historically, not been main topics of exhibition, but only mentioned sporadically. Even today, migration is only one issue among many others. It is not yet accepted as a transversal question, which concerns all parts of society, and which emphasises the permanent change of cultures and traditions. But the interest in this topic has increased during the last years (Osses 2013, 58). Slowly, German museums started to play a role in the Willkommenskultur. On December 9, 2014, the German House of History in Bonn opened its exhibition Multicultural Germany, a Country of Immigration. In her opening speech, the Minister of Culture, Monika Griitters, emphasised the outstanding role which museums play for people coming from different origins looking for a new home country. In her speech, Griitters spoke about "migrants"; she did not speak about refugees. Even in 2014, for the whole German cultural sector the motto "Kulturelle Bildung" ("Cultural Education"-translated by the author) was the primary stance upon official cultural issues, and this also applied to the museums (Bonn, 2014). The demand for special culture programs suitable for refugees was mentioned for the first time in October 2015 by two important cultural players-the Deutsche Kulturrat (DKR, German Culture Council) and some weeks later, the Deutscher Museumsbund (DMB, German Museum Association).

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In its press release from October 1, 2015, the DKR, a strong promoter of the program "Kulturelle Bildung" ("Cultural Education") formulated: "Nothilfe jetzt, Integration als langfristige Aufgabe" ("First Aid now, Integration as a task of long duration"-translated by the author). This press release, which emphasised the first positioning of the DKR concerning people coming to Germany to take refuge, referred to the statement of the DKR from September 30, 2015 (Deutscher Kulturrat 2015). Since 2009, the German Museum Association (DMB) has officially supported "Migration and Cultural Diversity" through a "Special Interest Group on Migration" (AK Migration *2010), and has been actively involved in several conferences and projects concerning migration, museums and intercultural dialogues (http://www.museumsbund.de/de/ fachgruppen arbeitskreise/migration ak/aaa/O/) When hundreds of thousands of refugees arrived in Germany unexpectedly within six months, the DMB published an official statement concerning the role of the museums in the actual situation (http://www.museumsbund.de/fileadrninl geschaeftslbulletinlBulletin-2015-3.pdf). Whereas the DKR demanded more fimds for cultural and BildW1gs-Institutions (Institutions of Learning'" translated by the author) in general, the DMB accentuated the role of GelTI1an museums as active players in the Willkommenskultur. _

_

Wir bitten Sie als Museumsmitarbeiterinnen und mitarbeiter, ihre Tiiren fur die Ankommenden Zll 6ffnen lUld die AnklUlft der Menschen Zll erleichtem, indem Sie bestehende Angebote fur Fhichtlinge 6ffnen oder Aktivitaten ausbauen. . .Nutzen -..vir also lUlser Potential fur die Gestaltung einer lebenswerten ZuklUlft lUld einer kulturell vielfaltigen Gesellschaft in Deutschland. (As museum colleagues we ask you to open the doors for the arriving people, and in order to make it easier for them, open existing cOillses/workshops for refugees, or extend existing activities .... Let us use our potential capacity for shaping a liveable future, and a cultural manifold society in Germany (DMB 2015b, translated by the author).

Museum praxis Since 2015, German museums have been confronted with new questions such as the following:

3 To translate the noun "BildlUlg" into other languages is not possible, because the concept behind this typical German idea needs different words to embrace the meaning like: "insight/education/valueslknowledge, etc. the complete 'forming' one might say, of a person" Per Rekdal quoted in Rein 2014, 146 footnote 23.

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"How could musemns most productively fulfil their role for these people who had survived bomb attacks and escaped other forms of violation and brutality?" "How could we welcome refugees appropriately without speaking their languages or knowing their traditionsT>4 "\¥hich objects do we have in our collections from their homelands or which topics might be interesting for them?"

Figure 6.3 ''Kunst fur Fluchtlinge" ("Art for Refugees"). Photo 0 Helmut Beier September 2016, Ludwig Museum Koblenz.

4 Most

of the actual refuges carne from Syria, Libya, Irak and Afghanistan - areas,

which are traditionally not the main focus of collections in ethnographic museums. Furthe=ore, usually the different languages of the refuges (like Arabic, Dari, Farsi etc.) are not spoken in most of the etlmographic museums nor on the street of Ge=an cities as a daily routine like English.

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Figures 6.4 and 6.5 Multaka - a guided tour with refugees in the Museum for

Islamic Art. March 16, 2016. Photo © Anette Rein.

Fortunately, the museums themselves did not wait until the two cultural associations published the previous statements, and immediately developed special activities suitable for the arriving people-mainly from Syria and Afghanistan. Already around the end of 20l5, many of them had started with different offers for these communities newly arrived in the country: they opened their museums with a warm welcome for refugees offering free admission; they established guided tours either in English or

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in Arabic, like the Friends of the Museum of World Cultures in Frankfurt am Main, who worked with refugee groups on a city walking project (http://www.weltkulturenmuseum.de/enlfriends); the Museum fiinf Kontinente in Munich offered special programs in their exhibition like lessons in boxing, dancing and the German language (http://www. museum-fuenf-kontinente.de/); and the Ludwig Museum Koblenz started an art project for refugees - they invited participants to art-pedagogical painting courses (http://www.ludwigmuseum.org/)5 Various modes to publish these museum's initiatives sprang forth and all types of museums were involved in these initiatives for refugees. In October 2015 four museums in Berlin (Museum for Islamic Art, GelTI1an History Museum, Bode-Museum, Museum of Ancient Near East) (http://www.smb.museum/enievents/detaillmultaka-treffpunkt-bode­ museum-28.html) started to search for suitable personalities (former refugees/migrants) to whom to offer special training as guides in their exhibitions. Since December 2015, one of the best known projects, called "Multaka-Museum as Meeting Point" has been taking place in Berlin and has gained international acclaim. Twice a week large groups of refugees from Syria, Iran and Iraq are guided through exhibitions in their Arabic mother tongue. This project is very successful and prominent in the media. l! won the award "Sonderpreis fur Projekte zur kulturellen Teilhabe gefliichteter Menschen" ("Special award for projects for cultural participation of refugees"-translated by the author). 10.000 € was transferred by the Minister of Culture on May 21, 2016 in Berlin (https:l!www.preussischer­ kulturbesitz.de/meldung/news/20 16/05123/kultur-als-integrationsmotor­ multaka-projekt-ausgezeichnet.htrnl; https:l!www.riksutstallningar.se/contenti spanaimuseet-ger-nyanl%C3 %A4nda-flyktingar-hopp). In the German History Museum these refugee groups are confronted with the devastation of the Second World War and the socio-economic developments which followed. Most of these visitors do not know in advance about the disastrous situations in Gemmny after the war-and how the people took up the challenge and kept working hard together to build up the country again-with help from abroad. The museum's guided tour of this history provides a vital point of connection between the museum and its new visitors, giving the refugees hope for a new start either in Gemmny or in their fOlmer home countries. Objects from the refugee's home countries, which are presented in the Museum of Islamic Art, reinforce this narrative of hope. Through intense discussions within the refugee groups, an impression about the ways different religions coexisted peacefully living together through the past 5

This art project was inititated by Helmut Beier (eMail April 1 1, 2018).

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centuries, is imparted. When they arrived in Gemmny, most refugees did not know about relevant archaeological items in the Berlin museum. In 2016, I participated in one guided tour in this museum and I observed the many questions of the visitors and their interest in the archaeological art objects of their former home countries. That day, they asked the following questions: "'Why are those items in Gemmny and not in our home countries?" and "How did they come to Germany? Have they all been robbed?" The following intense discussion tried to answer these questions and made obvious at the same time, the great connectedness of the refugees with the objects of their homelanda and of their religion. Being told the biographies of the museum objects, immediately, the group started to compare their own fate with those of the exhibited objects. In the following, I will discuss this connectedness between the biographies of objects and people and the great challenge, which lies behind this knowledge for museums, to work with their collections under a new perspective-as a chamber of social resonance.

Museum objects and persons in transition The museologist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett prefers not to talk about "ethnographic objects" but about "ethnographic fragments", created by ethnographers who made their personal choice in the field, segmented, detached, and carried the artefacts away to become part of a museum collection (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1990, 388). The different steps are elaborated in the process of musealisation, which consists of three steps. Figuratively they correspond with the classic model of liminality in rituals that, following Arnold van Gennep (van Gennep 1909), can be summarised colloquially as: remove-recreate-reintegrate. First: removed from their original context, the things are robbed of their function-they are taken out of time and space-in order to be exported in this still unclean condition for further processing. Second: the semantic change of the objects takes place along a prescribed path through the various departments of the museum: in a process of gassing, inventory, conservation, restoration and declaration. They are integrated into the museum's system of rules and regulations in the workrooms far from the public eye. Dislodged from their true symbolic context, the objects are sorted according to principles of materiality,

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authenticity, analogy, causality or functionality and then assigned to a culture--ergo, recreated.

In this second step, the prerogative of interpretation

is defined after physical appropriation has taken place. The objects become

scientifically legitimised and are often declared exceptional.

Specially chosen pieces are given this mark of quality by labelling them as "top exhibit" or "masterpiece" for the general public. An object that has been sanctified in this way comes to represent an entire culture, since ethnographic museums never show the people themselves, but only their forms of cultural expression (Kostering

2003, 17).

Third: the last step of musealisation is its exhibition. The visitors' individual perspectives give things their exclusive aura and thus tum them into museum obj ects. Their new status is now also perceived by the public and thus they are reintegrated (Rein

2013, 38).

'While comparing the experiences of refugees with those of museum obj ects, their structural similarity is obvious immediately. Refugees had to leave their countries, in most cases, because of brutal events like war or violation. When they are lucky, they arrive safe in another country where they can ask for asylum. They get cleaned, new clothes, and they have to follow the complicated process of administration in which they are given a new identity. For example, when a person does not bring

a birth

certificate, they receive a new date and year of birth, which opens different ways to welfare programs-depending on their defmed age. The fIrst three months, adults are not allowed to accept any job that pays well, and they have to stay in their refugee accommodation. At the first "end" of the process, when they are accepted as asylum seekers, they get a residence pelTIlit and are allowed to look for a new job wherever they want-it takes many more examinations, papers and different stations in the bureaucratic infrastructure until they receive a GelTIlan identity and a German passport. With their official new identity (already as an acknowledged asylum seeker), they are back in the public like the museum obj ects, rated to be worthy of exhibition. Following the three stages of the rites ofpassage, the transition process of refugees and obj ects can be differentiated in the following three phases:

1 . Leaving their home or original context 2. Transit via ship, plane or by foot 3. Arriving in new surroundings and receiving a new statuslidentity.

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Rites of Passage

Process of Transition

People's expenences

Object's expenences

1 . Separation

Homeland and time before the trauma starts

Poverty PersecutionfWar SeparationiDeath

Salel1'resent Robbery Separation/Loss of context

ORIGINAL CONTEXT When the trauma starts ! On the rum

Separation/Loss Violence/Torture Existential threat

Separation/Loss Damage Existential threat

2. Transition/ Liminality

3.Reintegration/ Incorporation

TRANSPORT Country of arrival Post-traumatic time

NEW CONTEXT

Violence Process of Procedure for musealisation granting the right New Name of asylum New context Cultural New Identity uprooting! Part of collection DeprivationiNew Part of Identity exhibition MUSEUM NEW SOCIETY

This entire displacing process of transition can result in the grave loss of objects as well as people. But there remains a big difference between objects and people in transition. Objects can be damaged or the knowledge of their fOlmer context can get lost, so that the items remain without their original complex of meanings or references, irrecoverably lost on their ways into a museum collection. This is actually a very strong topic in the colonial provenance research in museum collections. 'Whereas objects keep silent (they appear but they do not speak) and need a recipient to speak about them in order to find out original contexts or the traces of their life stories generate a meaning (Thiemeyer 201 1 , If), people themselves can cry out loud and they can speak about their traumatising experiences themselves. In the following I will briefly explain the processes of traumatisation and the challenges for museums working with (traumatised) refugees.

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Traumata According to the psychoanalyst Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber (2016) and the traumatologist Regina Rettenbach (20166), traumata which are provoked by nature are less intensive than traumata evoked by people (for example because of human aggression inside and outside of a family and/or technological disasters). In the context of war one has to differentiate three different spheres of traumatisation, for example: 1 . In the homeland (poverty, emotional, bodily or sexual abuse, persecution/war, separation/death), 2. On the run (separationiloss, violence, existential threat), 3. In the country of arrival: this is the third stage of traumatisation, because the German procedures for granting the right of asylum are (culturally) uprooting-deprivation and several forms of violence happen. Concerning the traumatisation of the refugees, according to Rettenbach, it is very difficult to make a precise diagnosis immediately following the arrival. There is no standard reaction of people having experienced extremely threatening situations. 70 per cent of the refugees arriving in GelTIlany are traumatised, but only 40 per cent of them need therapeutic help. Despite their experiences, most of the refugees arriving safely in the new country, are emotionally stable with great resilience. However, as Rettenbach further observes, traumata can unexpectedly be triggered, provoking strong reactions in the person concerned, which would mandate immediate professional help. For museums this means that there remains a residual risk to trigger a trauma and to be confronted by unexpected reactions such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Usually, museums do not have staff members with the psychological training to work as a trauma task force, if something happens during a museum program. FurthelTIlore, usually they do not know the native languages (Arabic, Dari, Farsi) of the refugees and have to work with translators. To take care of the staff and the participants, museums have to be aware what may happen, when they ask, for example, children to draw their experiences during their trip to Europe.

6 Quoted and translated by the author from a lecture Regina Rettenbach presented at the Fachtag des Systemischen Zentrums der wispo AG in Frankfurt am Main: "Systemisch-interkulturelle Arbeit mit MigrantInnen lUld Fhichtlingen", (Systemic­ Intercultural Work with migrants and refuges).

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Taken together, all these circumstances are a great challenge for (ethnographic) museums: on the one hand there is the Willkommenskultur together with the statements of the cultural protagonists like the DMB and the DKR with the expectations that the museums develop programs suitable for refugees as quickly as possible. On the other hand, museums being confronted with those expectations are often ill-prepared to work with traumatised people and to recognise within in a group of participants those who have a strong individual resilience and others who feel in danger and react correspondingly. But there are ways out of this apparent "Catch-22". In the following I will demonstrate that one of the solutions lies in the attitude sho\Vll in museum concepts and its programs-besides special competences to handle those complex situations.

The museum's attitude According to Saskia Sassen (Lang-Lendorff 2016), the estimated 80 million refugees worldwide is just the beginning of what we have to expect in future years because of various factors including 10ng-telTIl failures in international development policies, wars and climate change. Most of them carmot go back because conditions in their fOlTIler home countries (HerkunftslandJ do not allow them to survive there any longer. This is a great global challenge for everybody and museums are one of the cultural institutions which can play an important role in stabilising the society in which they are situated. In Germany, the successful museum's Willkommenskultur offers for the refugees a first step in the right direction, a move towards bringing them back to a stable, ordinary lifestyle 7 A special role has to be ascribed to the objects in the museum's collections, as agents through which to speak with refugees about their experiences with "man-made disasters", on their ways to Europe (Leuzinger-Bohleber 2009, 388). At this point, the changing responsibility of ethnographic museums comes to the fore. They have to abandon the discourse of the Other(s) in favour of opening their archives and displays to the social network around the collections to be worked on in a participativelinc1usive relational way, accepting of intellectual contemporaneity (Zeitgenossenschaft) worldwide. As James Clifford (2004, 5) presented it:

7

Tramnata take their time and sometimes need special constellations to be re­ activated as a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by a person concerned. (Leuzinger-Bohleber 2009), pp. 386.

134

Chapter Six Gone are the days when cultural anthropologists could without contradiction, present 'the Native point of view,' . . 'the anthropologist' broadly and sometimes stereotypically defined has become a negative alter ego in contemporary indigenous discourse, invoked as the epitome of arrogant, intrusive colonial authority.

To welcome refugees with an open perspective needs a deep understanding of how to welcome human beings who are speaking different languages and following different religions and life traditions. This means that the fIrst step is to find out ways for communicating about the commonalities between the newcomers and the people living already in GelTIlany-and not to concentrate on the differences, which would create new borderlines immediately. The awareness of speaking with individuals and not with representatives of a culture facilitates an exchange with these refugees about "their" and "our" ideas and expectations, for example, with the following questions: "'What do we/you need?" "\¥hat is important for youius?" FurthelTIlore in museums, the huge collections together with the knowledge accumulated about the history of the world, cope with their special role in this communicative approach. Beyond that, museums need more adequate conditions to work with refugees. According to Leuzinger­ Bohleber, !lie following aspects are important for Bildun;;s-Institutions to have in their mind, when they want to offer (traumatised) people/refugees of each age suitable programs (2016, translated by the author): The attitude within a Bildungs-Institution should include: empathic intercomses in their range of comses/educational opportunities/workshops to intensify the perception of distinctiveness (Besonderheiten) the promotion and support of peer groups in their heterogeneity; the support of individual contributions to the group work against isolation and encapsulation while promoting the relation building. The museum who works with refugees has to know and to offer: secure and reliable structures empathy for the "un-imaginable", what hmnans can do to hmnans the experience of alternative relations to empower resilience meaningful activities hmnan dignity

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Educational methods could be: to reflect and to design interaction with aggressions: in films, conversation, role-playing, projects, sports to promote the exposure of the body: with sports, deconstruction of beauty ideals, gender roles to reflect and to promote superego ideals: with multicultural aspects, diversity, tolerance concepts, space for several critics on society and institutions." "the model of pedagogy as dialogue or conversation the to and fro of active listening and speaking" (Golding 2016b, 2).

(Un)doing differences Contrary to the situation at the end o f the nineteenth century, when

50 per

cent in German cities were migrants (s.a.), today refugees comprise only

1.25

per cent of the population (https:llwww.youtube.com/watch?v�

6YysGCUDuBg). Obviously, this is not a threat of foreign infiltration

( Ob erjremdung)

of the German society. But we can interpret this situation

as a challenge and an opportunity to refresh our common daily life praxis. If we respect migrants or asylum seekers as actors, who came to our country with their 0\Vll ideas and values, let us start to ask them about their ideas for their future. Which competences do they have and what are their dreams or visions about their status in

In

15 years time?

conclusion, I would propose the following thesis: if we can find

some connnon ground in Gemmny with our "Others", as an example­ accepting a collective traumatisation by brutal wars as a common topic­ then, as a next step, we could begin to accept each other as emotional and intellectual contemporaries

(Zeitgenossen),

having suffered comparable

emotional experiences. As a consequence, out of this challenging attitude, breaking do\Vll rigid notions of "us" and "them", we may be able to negotiate with each other in the present: in the here and now. This acceptance of a common humanity would open a new perspective to connnunicate and to act with each other independently from different etlmic, historical or educational backgrounds. \¥bile walking side by side on the way to healing our common trauma, we have the chance to develop a common vision for a different social way of living together. This chapter has argued that museums can work as a social resonance platform

to

facilitate

the

mutual

acknowledgement

of

common

experiences-independent of ethnic, cultural or religious backgrounds. As explicated above, one has to be very careful about dealing with sensitive experiences to avoid any triggering of a traumatic reaction. To enable this, obj ects can be used as mediums through which to talk about difficult life

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situations. Ethnographic objects in particular, imported from far away under difficult conditions, are perfectly suited to begin such a conversation and reflection. As part ofthe EMEE (EuroVision Museums Exhibiting Europe) Project, Popp and Schumann defined the "Change of Perspective" method (COP) as follows: It aims at making multi-layered meanings of those objects visible which at the same time have a local and regional as well as trans-regional [ ... ] and cross-cultural dimension of meaning. Thereby, the visitor shall move into the centre of attention as co-constructor of the multi-layered potentials of meaning of the local museum objects. He shall be encouraged to engage with the object on a subjectively relevant level and to build bridges between the encounter with the past and his own present experiences irrespective of the social, cultural and educational background as well as regional origin with which he approaches the cultural heritage that is presented to him.

And furthermore: The theoretical foundation of the COP-concept is the constructivist assumption of the musemn objects' "meaning" r ... l It is not regarded as object immanent, but as a result of construction process and ascriptions made by the observers and visitors. Accordingly, this construction processes are closely linked to the social and cultural contexts respectively and conceived as constantly changing (Popp and Schumann 2014, 15).

According to Susanne Popp and Jutta Schumann, cultural trans­ regional or cross-cultural perspectives can be gained from objects with iconic and/or \Vfitten statements that explicitly deal with topics such as cultural encounter, migration, missionary or diplomatic activities, and also aimed conflicts. Drawing on Popp and Schumarm, we might argue that the trans-regional and cross-cultural connection between the refugees and the so-called bio-Gemmn population is the collective traumatisation by man­ made disasters. Stefan Hirschauer (2014, 170) elaborates how these social categories (the differentiation between "them" and "us") are contingent and limited in their temporality. Categorisation is contingent not merely because it is socially constructed and attributed with relevance, but also because it can in practice be used, ignored, and made irrelevant. Each instance of "doing difference" is a

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137

meaningful selection from a set of competing categorisations, creating difference that makes a difference (translated by the author).

Social or cultural differentiation creates an orientation system for the people involved. If a differentiation is not selected, according to Hirschauer, a form of "stand-by modus" occurs, a situation which carmot be observed empirically but happens as a phase of negation of a differentiation-the "un-doing of difference". "Insofar, 'undoing ethnicity' (z.B.) marks only a small intermediate range, before merging into something different...At the border of the undoing there happens a change to other differentiations" (2014, 183). According to Hirschauer, undoing differences "designates an ephemeral moment of undecidedness and non-differentiation between the relevance of social differentiations" (2014, 170) only. This knowledge of the "stand­ by modus" gives a great chance for the experience of the vanishing of the category "The Other(s)" (the foreigner?)-in a museum's approach. With their collections, museums can offer huge varieties of life stories-biographies of things-and stories together with interpretations about changing perspectives on life and lifestyles. As agents of facilitation, the objects together with their historical background play a decisive role through their multiple meanings to install museums as social resonance chambers for objects and persons in transition-to experience the awareness of the possibility of un-doing differences. Let us start with these short moments of insight which can change our lives.

CHAPTER SEVEN DIVERGENT MEMORIES FOR MALAYSIAN NATION-BUILDING PI-CHUN CHANG!

Introduction Malaysia is widely seen as an example of a multietlmic and multicultural developing nation (Milner 2003; Embong 2002; Gudeman 2002; Guyer 2002). Yet, when it comes to the representations of nation­ building which come from different groups, divided and often conflicting communal tensions are always readily unearthed. This chapter compares the official and the vernacular visions of identity by examining the display in the National Museum of Malaysia as well as the display in the book Moving Mountains: A Pictorial History of the Chinese in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur (hereafter referred to as Moving Mountains) 2 As Malaysian society is knO\vn for comprising various ethnic groups, a comparison of perspectives from different groups is destined to show differences regarding historical memories and narration. A comparison between the perspectives of the dominant Malay and the Chinese communities are particularly revealing as these two groups are regarded as the major protagonists that have dominated the political stage of Malaysia since decolonisation. To broaden the field of cultural representation the chapter will focus on the dynamism of the Chinese minority communities within a nationalistic context. 1 Acknowledgement: This article is supported by the project flUlCling of Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology (103-241 0-H-003--I IO-MY3). The author wishes to thank Dr. Bon Hoi Lew and Center for Malaysian Chinese Studies for providing photos and kind assistance. 2 This book was published by Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies in 2013. It has three volmnes and this chapter focuses on Volume III: Political Participation: Tribulations and Contributions.

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Given the inevitable collisions of different perspectives, the main aim of such a comparison is to unpack how the histories displayed and narratives presented set the framework in forging national identities, in interpreting history and culture, and in promoting national agendas. The nation-building message embedded in botb displays will be analysed along with reading how the past and the present animate each other and what conflicts arise from divergent interpretations of history and from opposing memories or visions of identity. In particular, this chapter compares displays on the historical and political stages of colonial times, from the British administration to the Japanese occupation, as well as the independence period.3 The role of museums, especially public museums, is changing from simply housing collections of objects to becoming a showcase for key modem ideas about the hierarchical ordering and logical progression of knowledge, identity and culture (Bennett 1995). Museum researchers have understood museums as politically charged sites, "where themes of power, citizenship, and democracy have played out in . . officially sanctioned spaces of representation" (Message and Witcomb 2015, xxxvi). For a country like Malaysia, when colonial regimes toppled, public museums in the post-independence era were able to take advantage of tbe global language of display. Museums exemplify national spaces in the Malaysian landscape that are designed to reflect state aspirations and to continually evoke a sense of belonging. In contrast, the book Moving Mountains, through a picture series, represents an alternative voice that is non­ dominant and non-mainstream.

Identity and Museums The representation of national identity in museums has been a subject of discussion in the twenty-first century. It has been argued that: "The growing interest in museums, a boom indeed, is not the success of our policy as much as it is tbe effect of the global identity crisis for which a counter-productive means is searched" (Sola 1986, 17). As such, tbe 3 The time-frame of comparison starts from colonisation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when, due to the borders of Malaysia, its state structures and its civic identities inherited models created by the British (see Kratoska 2007). This chapter particularly focuses on the period between the Japanese Occupation and independence itself, a decade in which there was disagreement and conflict between Malays and non-Malays, over the scope of the new state and what constitution it would be given, a war against comrlllmism (the Emergency) and a dispute over how soon the country would receive independence.

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significant growth in museums can be related to upsurges of nationalism and a sense of national identity. Museums in the contemporary world of nation states are now charged with the need "to represent themselves to themselves" as well as "to represent themselves to others" (Steiner 1995, 4). A museum, the repository of a nation's heritage, which connects the past to the present through recounting stories about the artefacts of past cultures, is clearly significant in representing the identity of the nation. As Flora Kaplan (1994) notes, museums, as social institutions, are the products and agents of political and social change. She further observes there are many ways in which museums have been significant in creating national identity and agendas. Taking Scottish museums as examples, McCrone and his colleagues (1995), also emphasised the importance of investigating identity fOlmation in museums in the quest to understand the processes of identity creation. McCrone agrees with Karp and Lavine's argument that: "Decisions about how cultures are presented reflect deeper judgments of power and authority and can, indeed, resolve themselves into claims about what a nation is or out to be as well as how citizens should relate to one another" (1991, 2). Therefore, Foster (1991) suggests that because historical memory is a construction, struggles over the definition of the nation-as-community will inevitably be marked by struggles over the constitution of an authorised, collectively held past. Museums, especially national museums,4 are salient examples to illustrate how the past and representations of the past can be arranged to demonstrate historical continuity, and point to the relationship between national ideology and national museums. Museums play a crucial role in conserving and displaying the nation, as they are sites for the dissemination of particular constructions of "knowledge" produced by those in power. Such sites of memory are, therefore, profoundly political. In Malaysia museums are heavily tasked with nation-building missions, as the representations of history and culture were significantly impacted by the 1971 national culture policy (Ahmad, A. 2008, 3-6). As such, the exhibits and narratives in the National Museum are meant to ensure museums continue to remain relevant to the nation­ building agenda, while, at the same time, museum representations are increasingly challenged by various groups: the national culture policy has been contested by non-Malay groups (Kua 1987) and by portions of the Malay intelligentsia ever since its inception (Ahmad, M. 2011, 78). 4 por example, chapters in the book Museums and the Making of "Ourselves": The Role of Objects in National Identity on Mexico, Greece, Israel and Saudi Arabia draw the connection between state power, archaeology, and museums as repositories of the past.

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The Malaysian National Museum The idea of the National Museum was mooted by Tunku Abdul Rahman in 1958, and it was opened in 1963. This museum is under the direct control of the Department of Museums and Antiquities (previously the Department of Museums), which is located within the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture (previously Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports in 1957; Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism in 1987). Between 1963 and 2007 the National Museum covered general topics including history, natural history, culture, arts and crafts, and economic activities. In 2007 the National Museum became a history museum after the closure of the National History Museum (Ahmad, A. 2015, 4-15) 5 Following reorganisation, the National Museum was arranged into four sections confined to specific periods of national history, with Gallery A focusing on early history, Gallery B on the Malay kingdoms, Gallery C on the colonial era and Gallery D on the post- 1957 period (the Malaysia Today Gallery). It is thought that the National Museum has closely followed the fonnat and storyline of the fonner National History Museum, imbued with the task of nation-building throughout the displays on the one hand, and confonned to the new history curriculum revised in 2000 on the other (ibid., 20-21). Therefore, the narratives and exhibits of the National Museum are soundly representative of the national history at the official level and this chapter focuses on the colonial and contemporary era (Gallery C and D) in particular.

Different Versions of National History While museums tend to present a unitary privileged history without acknowledging that there are different versions of the past, different groups claim different histories and assert a plurality of positions. From the perspective of Malaysian Chinese, the book series Moving Mountains is a trilogy of the Chinese community's struggle in the development of the country. It was a project launched by the Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies and supported by the Association of Kwong Tong Cemetery Management Kuala Lumpur. Volume I concerns Malaysian Chinese 5 The National History Museum was officially opened in 1 996, and is administered by the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism. According to its promotional pamphlet at the time, the National History Museum sought to impart "noble values in nation building as a way to forge a peaceful and hannonious society." (For fmther information on the exhibits of the previous National History Museum, see Ahmad, 2015, 14-20).

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economic, cultural and educational activities, Volume II focuses on social and religious life and volume III is about Chinese political participation. Volume III divides the history of Chinese political activities in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur into four sections: Chinese Captains and Towkays; Passionate Support for Chinese Revolution; From Anti-Japanese War to Civil War; and Involvement in Building a New Nation. The first section presents pictures about the era of Chinese Captains in Malaya and the relationships between the Chinese Towkays6 and the colonial government. The second section illustrates the complicated relationship between the Chinese in the pre-Independence era and their mother-land. By that time, as most Chinese in Malaya were still immigrants from China and were emotionally attached to their country of origin, this section reveals episodes relating to the anti-Qing Dynasty revolution movement, the wave of anti-imperialism, and assistance given in the eight-year anti-Japanese war in China. The third section comprises pictures relating to anti­ Japanese activities undertaken mostly by the Connnunist Party of Malaya (hereafter called the CPM), the war and confrontation between CPM and the British colonial government. This part also includes the life experiences of the Chinese community during the anti-Japanese War and the Civil War periods. The last section documents !lie political involvement and the emergence of !lie Chinese after !lie 1950s as they contributed to the struggle for Malayan Independence with other ethnic groups. Through the picture series, this part tries to map out the context of various trails of the Chinese and the efforts made to achieve Malayan independence, indicating the important role of the Chinese in the history of Malaysian nation-building. As Moving Mountains is a richly illustrated book and part of a picture­ book series, it can be regarded as a fOlTIl of cultural display, similar to the exhibitions in !lie National Museum. Both book and museum displays serve as sites specifically constructed around the sense of nationhood and of national identity that arises from the processes of meaning-making, and from symbolic practices. Most importantly, the book and !lie museum both function, through the images and narratives, to constitute a knowledge and sense of what it is to be Malaysian. 'While the basis of this comparison is that both book and museum offer particular ideas of the nation created and embedded in the exhibitionary fOlTIls of various cultural practices, the meaning of such a comparison does not simply lie in exploring the differences between the two. In museums, visitors do expect to see clear cultural identities on display. That is, every selection, every ordering of objects and infolTIlation within museums drew 6 Towkay, a Rollien (Chinese dialect) term, means "boss."

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upon interpretations of history, and what counted as history, was inevitably partial and ideological. For a multi-ethnic country like Malaysia then, a key question for the museums ' practice of cultural representation is: what "multicultural" or "postcolonial" displays are evident? The point of this comparative investigation is not just to interrogate the politics behind museum exhibitions, but to reflect on how we respond to the minority's claim for inclusion whilst it remains a tendency for national museums to display only dominant fonns of culture within universalising rhetoric (Bennett

1992).

The comparative research underpinning this chapter aims

to show the contradictions and complexities underlying the various identity­ claims. This work led me to an awareness that, when including alternative voices, cultural difference is not reproduced as a natural category but is revealing of historicity and politics.

Colonial Period In the National Museum, the colonial period is argued to have started with the collapse of the Malacca Sultanate as a result of the Portuguese invasion in

1511.

Yet it was not until the Pangkor Treaty in

1874

that the social

structure and political system of the peninsular were subj ect to significant change.

A simulation of the signing of the Pangkor Treaty with the British

is displayed as a key obj ect since the signing occasion marked the official intervention of the British in the administration of the Malay States. The British colonial period is depicted largely in relation to the development of the economy. On the one hand, coconut, coffee, pepper and gambier, plants that were intensely fanned during colonial times, are introduced in tenns of their economic value. On the other hand, traditional tin mining and rubber tapping are also displayed with explanations of how they were once major contributors to the Malaysian economy. Displays on the growth of the colonial

economy

also

highlight the need to

develop

transportation,

connnunication and education, and show that the role of the British, implicitly or explicitly, related to the concept of "progress" while resistance and opposition to colonialism around the peninsular are just briefly sketched. The chronological order in Moving Mountains, which covers the period from British regime to the Japanese colonisation, is classified into three categories: "Chinese Captains and Towkays"; "Passionate Support for Chinese Revolution";

and "From Anti-Japanese War to Civil War."

During the British rule, the Chinese Captains (Kapitans) system7 was 7

The Chinese Captain was a system inherited from the Portuguese and was abolished in 1902. The Captain was appointed by the colonial government, usually the leaders of the Chinese community.

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established, which enabled the Chinese and British to work together to develop Malaya. In Moving Mountains, the section on this period records how Chinese in southern China were recruited for tin mining, and how Chinese people were nominated by the British to be Captains, which led to "the development of Kuala Lumpur from a land of uninhabited wilderness to a modem city" (1 1). The hard work of the early Chinese workers and their "towkays" in farming, mining, construction and other fields that contributed to the founding of modern Kuala Lumpur, is emphasised here. As the processes through which British Malaya became the foundation of modem Malaysia are implicated in the museum displays, how colonial rule brought fundamental political and social changes to the Malay Peninsula is hardly examined in the official narratives. For instance, how Islamic Law became prominent and codified through the cooperation between local elites and colonial authority (Hussin 2009), how "Malay" as an ethnic identity was formulated through colonial knowledge (Shamsul 2004; Reid 2004) as well as how the distinction between races became clearer during the colonial period (Hirschman 1986; Abraham 1983) is completely ignored. Although a number of post-independence researchers have challenged colonial histories and frames of colonial knowledge in various ways, the official perspectives "retained British Malaya as their starting point and frame of reference" and the "centrality of the British administration, the colonial export economy, and relations with London, continues to be widely accepted" (Kratoska 2007, 231). The depictions of colonial economic activities in the peninsula do not reflect the rich life experiences of all groups living in Malaya. In fact, a large population of Malay-speaking Muslim cash croppers, merchants and entrepreneurs who facilitated the economic development of the Malay Peninsula have more often than not been overlooked in the histories (Kahn 2012). According to Malay nationalist narratives from at least the 1920s, people coming from outside the peninsula, or their descendants, are now part of the Malay population, regarded as indigenous, economically marginal and commercially naive, village-dwellers, who were thereby distinguished from "alien" Chinese and Indians (Kahn 2006). However the evidence clearly shows that a large proportion of these "Malay" cash croppers, merchants, traders etc. were in fact just as foreign as the Chinese, Europeans and Indians more often subsumed under that label, having been born not on the peninsula but in a number of different places in what was then the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) (Kahn 2012, 49). Therefore, it is not historically correct to claim the creation of Malaya/Malaysia as a national space was driven by a single cultural or civil framework.

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To summarise then, one rarely senses any harsh criticism toward British colonialism in the museum. 'What now needs to be noted is how the Japanese military occupation is represented. In comparison to the mode and weight of the representation of British colonialism, the depiction of Japanese colonisation receives a relatively light touch.

Japanese Occupation Period During World War Two, as most Chinese in Malaya were still immigrants from China, significant political trends and social movements that occurred in China caused waves of political passions and nationalistic fervour among the Chinese community in Malaya. For example, photographs in Moving Mountains depicted the volunteers who departed for the battlefield in China and the volunteer drivers and mechanics who tread the critical path in Southern China, sending ammunition and supplies to the army" (Ser et al. 2013, 78-81). Photographs of the returning volunteers as well as the memorials erected for those who sacrificed their lives for the cause are also listed (82). Such display reflects the early Chinese immigrants who wanted to contribute to their motherland, China, which paved the way for a later shift of their identified homeland from China to Malaya. In comparison with the piecemeal sketches of resistance to the period of British rule and the scant mention of Japanese colonialism in the National Museum, the wartime atrocities against Malayans, especially those of Chinese heritage, is well documented in Moving Mountains. Apart from ruthlessly killing large numbers of Chinese (96- 101), the Japanese were seen to have forced Chinese community leaders to give donations as a show of loyalty and this demand often led to economic bankruptcy for the Chinese in Malaya and Singapore (102-4). Moving Mountains also shows the Japanese army forcing Chinese people to work on construction projects such as the "Death Railway" in Thailand and Burma (1 14). The terrible history of Chinese "comfort woman", actually young women forced into the Japanese government's system of sexual slavery during wartime, is demonstrated by an image of an ill card (107). This display powerfully counters, with hard evidence, the Japanese government's continued denial of such activities.

8 That is, in 1939, the China Relief Committee set up the Service Group of Nanyang Overseas Chinese Vohmteer Drivers and Mechanics (also known simply as NanqiaoJigong), calling for overseas Chinese youths to carry out difficult tasks along the YUllllan-Bunna Road (also nicknamed as "the death path").

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Moving Mountains puts some emphasis on the efforts of the Chinese in Malaya to defend their country during the anti-Japanese war, notably including the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Anny (MPAJA), led by the Chinese-dominated Communist Party of Malaya (CPM). Different forms of massive Chinese killing and sacrifice at various sites are sho\Vll in the book, and those death-scapes have become special places for reflection on Chinese identity, with Chinese inscriptions and imagery reflecting the closeness of the Chinese to Malaya, their homeland in the 1940s. Looking at the photographs in Moving Mountains, one realises that the Occupation was a critical stage in which the Chinese in Malaya had begun to break away from their identity as immigrants to recognise the need for localisation. Yet remembrance of the largest group of war dead, people of Chinese heritage, continues to be managed by Chinese families, clans and chambers of commerce, and remains outside of national commemoration. The Japanese Occupation period was a particularly difficult time for Malaya, yet the omission of any reference to Japanese brutalities indicates the political ideology at the official level (Cheah 2007; Ahmad 2005, 2006, 2015). The official policy tended to look more positively than negatively at the Japanese role during the war, particularly to its support for and awakening of wartime Malay nationalism (ibid.). Such lines of argument portrayed the Japanese coming to Malaya as liberators rather than conquerors and imperialists (Ahmad 2015, 140). The National Museum of Malaysia's minimal coverage of the Occupation is probably connected with Japan's contemporary status as a crucial economic partner in trade, investment and foreign aid. The erasure of historical facts in the national narrative is challenged, however, not only by non-Malay ethnic groups, but also by other state and private museums (Ahinad 2015). Avoiding discussion of the Occupation, in part at least, arises from the contentious issue of collaboration and resistance. In fact, different treatment was accorded to the Chinese and the Malays under the Japanese rule. Evidence suggests that the Japanese administration employed a large number of Malays in government service and also employed the Malay police and paramilitary forces to fight against the MPAJA. While the Japanese troops are said to have carried out the soak ching, the massacre of between 6,000 and 50,000 Chinese in Singapore and in Malaya (Cheah 2007, 51), the uneven treatment of the communities impacted negatively on "the development of a united Malayan nationalism and fOlmed the starting point for inter-racial conflicts in the country" (ibid.). According to Blackburn and Hack (2012), what the Malaysian state chose to commemorate about the war legacy has evolved over time. That is to say, those who had collaborated with the Japanese and had formerly

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been marginalised are now reintegrated into heroic narratives of Malay nationalism.9 Notably, Blackburn and Hack observe a discrepancy in terms of war memories and a "forgetting" of the Japanese recruitment of Malays. On the one hand, the Malays who fought against the Japanese honor Malay nationalism and on the other hand the Malay Regiment who fought for the Japanese are also held up as heroes (2012, 209). The mainstream Malay perspective is that the Occupation was a time of heightened political consciousness and developing Malay nationalism. This political trajectory recognises the role of the Malay left and right, Malays who fought for Japan, as well as those who fought for Britain. Incongruities appear when more Chinese were drawn to the MPAJA either as combatants or as supporters, whether voluntarily or coerced. The role of the MPAJA of defending Malaya is not justified by the National Museum other than suggesting that its members were condenmed as villains during the Emergency (1948-1960). The issue of dealing with the Occupation becomes more complicated when the victims and perpetrators came from different ethnic groups. During wartime, the Japanese favoured the Malay group against the Chinese, maintaining and even exacerbating the British policy of "divide and rule". Now the National Museum omits of all kinds of brutalities and resistances and preserves only Malay war memory instead, which continually leads to unstable race relations. The coverage of the MPAJA in the museum does not give an accurate explanation of the changing attitudes toward the Malay leftist organisations and figures. School history textbooks before and after Malaya's independence in 1957, and even after the fonnation of Malaysia in 1963, gave a fuller account of the war and tended to look more favorably at the local anti-Japanese resistance forces, including the CPM-led MPAJA (Cheah 2007; Ting 2009). Now, in the National Museum as well as in the history textbooks, the CPM are described as "terrorists" who destroyed the country's infrastructure, crippled the economy and made people live in fear. To illustrate this "terrorist" image, a number of events are listed: the murdered European estate managers and plantation O\vners who would not cooperate; the guerrilla assault on the Bukit Kepong police station; the tragedy following the Tampin Train ambush; and, the most salient case, the murder of the British High commissioner Sir Henry Gurney. On the contrary, Moving Mountains shows a poster of the CPM that calls on people to go and fight the Japanese (98-9). Hundreds of communists and anti-Japanese activists who were detained earlier and later released by the fleeing British troops formed the earliest anti-Japanese 9 Those were labeled as Malay leftist nationalists.

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army in Malaya. Moving Mountains also shows that when Japan announced its surrender, the MPAJA then emerged from the forests and entered the various cities and towns, where they were welcomed by local residents (108-1 10).

Figure 7.1 The MPAJA are welcomed by local residents after Japan sunendered in

1945. Photo courtesy Center for Malaysian Chinese Studies. Independence and After

The National Museum introduces the independence period by emphasising the social consciousness and the emergence of nationalism when the British returned to Malaya after the war. What comes into prominence are the roles of religious teachers and Malay associations in the nationalist movement. Religious figures and education are identified as the earliest beginnings of the spirit of nationalism among the Malays. Nationalist movements that finally led to Malaya becoming an independent state are depicted as Malay opposition to the British proposal for a Malayan Union, which would have undermined the Sultans' powers and the granting of citizenship to the non-Malay residents by jWi soli principle. The primary role of the anti-Malayan Union movement was developing a new ideology regarding race and nation. This credited the

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association, United Malays National Organization (UMNO), as the main fighter for the protection and advancement of the rights and freedoms of the Malays. In the official discourse, the birth of the Federation of Malaya, following negotiations conducted between UMNO, representatives of the Malay Rulers and the British, is a huge victory in the nation's history. The displays in the museum, however, allow only a single interpretation of the independence struggle, from the viewpoint of UMNO and the Alliance, which inherited political power from the British in 1957. Non­ Malay groups and other Malay groups, who preceded UMNO in the nationalist struggle and had competed with UMNO between 1945 and 1948, are marginalised. During the time of Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, there was also no national commemoration of the Malay nationalists who sided with the Japanese, such as Ibrahim Yaacob and the members of the KMM (Blackburn and Hack 2012; Cheali 2012). The suppression of many of the Malay left organisations is believed to be related to the ideology of the Malayan Emergency and the failure to commemorate left-wing nationalists in the early years of independence (Blackburn and Hack 2012, 241). In Moving Mountains, there is increasing political awareness among the so-called Chinese Malayans. Chinese are seen to join the Malay and non-Malay left wing, who proposed "The People's Constitution" and promoted Malaya-wide Hartal (strike). Chinese participation, from joining Hartal, demanding citizenship, proposing a memorandum to the Reid Constitutional Commission to petition the British Prime Minister, are all viewed as part of the Chinese contributions to independence. Moving Mountains enlivens such contributions and makes them concrete with biographies of important figures who are too often effaced from historical representations. A number of notorious cases reflect contrasting views on Malayan/Malaysian history. For example: Yap Ah Loy, a pioneering founder of Kuala Lumpur, was excluded from the National Biography Project to honor "national heroes"; Tan Cheng Lock, one of the first to promote a "common Malayan" identity, was only perfunctorily mentioned as an opposition figure and then as a co-opted political ally in the "Federation of Malaya" and during the movement towards independence. The issue of Malaysian citizenship weighs significantly in Chinese perspectives as it embodies taking roots in that country and regarding it place as a permanent homeland to which loyalty is pledged. This reflects another side of history when the Museum mentions the Chinese in the Straits Settlements under the British administration as only being concerned with "their social and economic interests rather than political ones" before the Second World War. According to the Museum, when the

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Chinese and Indians were first concerned about their status in Malaya in the mid-twentieth century, they established the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC) and the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) and joined with UMNO to form the Alliance Party. Moving Mountains emphasises Chinese striving for "citizenship." It shows a number of citizenship applications and birth certificates to demonstrate the various restrictions upon non-Malays before independence. It also introduces the emergence of the United Chinese School Teachers' Association of Malaya (also popularly known as Jiao Zong) along with the fOlmation of other various Chinese communities who called for the rights to be granted citizenship at a time when MeA were unable to leverage power over this matter. As non-Malays faced numerous restrictions when making applications for citizenship, this issue deserves particular attention, description and documentation in the museum, since it was believed to be "a significant event of Chinese awakening in the history of Malaya" (Ser et aI20l3, 192). It is believed that one of the reasons behind British willingness to grant independence to Malaya in 1957 was the "historic bargain" struck between the Malay-Muslim majority and the large Chinese and Indians minorities two years earlier (Cheah 2002; Milner 2005). Malays, who regarded themselves as "sons of the soil" granted Chinese and Indians "citizenship" in exchange for political primacy, and special rights and privileges, which resulted in the creation of two strands of citizenry, with differing status for Malays and non-Malays in the new nation-state (Cheah 2002). While the concept of "compromises" have marked modem Malaysian politics, from the perspectives of the ruling party and coalition partners, it inevitably gives rise to various criticism and challenges to the idea of the "social contract" here. For the period from anti-colonisation to a self-governing state, the Museum emphasises the role of Islam and religious teachers who were seen as providing a primary platform for Malay progress as well as the basis for Malay nationalism. However, the Chinese community is putting pressure on the museum to show non-Malays' involvement in the building of a new nation. 'While they were not absent in the political landscapes which transitioned from Malaya to Malaysia, not from the building of a new China, their input is rarely discussed in the museum. Moving Mountains lists various documents and activities that strove for three demands before independence: the recognition of the Chinese language as an official language, adoption of the principle of jus soli (citizenship by country of birth) as well as equal rights and obligations (1 88-201). Notably, Moving Mountains explains the defmition of the so-

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called Chinese Malayans as "Chinese who treated this country as their permanent homeland to which their loyalty was pledged" (200) in order to demonstrate why the issue of citizenship is critical. The citizenship campaign culminated in the final petition to London to seek amendments to the Constitutional Proposals when the Independence Day drew closer. Among the historical pictures on the struggle for independence, many have shown the Chinese participation in the history of Malaysian nation­ building. Although the demands of the Chinese community were repeatedly neglected, pictures of Chinese celebrations everywhere for the independence of the new country are listed (212-220).

Comparison and Analysis of Divergent Memories While the National Museum is mostly concerned with the representation of what a nation is and builds upon a cultural politics of remembering and forgetting to "reinforce the conceptual categories as to who should - or, more importantly - who should not be included in the nation" (Seo 2014, 381), Moving Mountains is concerned with telling stories from below, stories of the Chinese community that the authors contend needs to be woven into the national tapestry. The contrast between the display in the National Museum and the pictorial series of the Chinese publication demonstrates Cheah's central thesis that the "centripetal and centrifugal forces of inclusive Malaysian nationalism and exclusive Malay nationalism" are "constantly in conflict" (2002, 234). In the National Museum, British Malaya is privileged in the representations of Malaysia's past, while minimal attention is paid to the Japanese Occupation. Ethnic Chinese nationalism between 1900 and 1941 is perceived largely as an extension of the political developments and allegiances in their home countries. This perspective renders them "disloyal" to Malaysian nation-building efforts. Malay(si)an nationalism has been mainly formulated, disseminated and consolidated through Malay groups, especially UMNO, who were leaders on the road to independence. As a result, the way British colonialism systematised and institutionalised the boundaries of different groups and reified the classification of "races" has been little examined. Japanese brutalities inflicted on Malaysians during the war are little discussed in the museum, while Chinese and Indians only merit mention when working with UMNO towards a common goal. Responding to these silences, Chinese publications such as Moving Momtains highlight leading Chinese pioneer entrepreneurs such as Yap Ah Loy and Loke Yew, whose inclusion in the National Biography Project

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to honour "national heroes" was subject to debate (Teo 2010, 99). The difficult colonial history of the Japanese and their terrible treatment of the Chinese is noted. After the Occupation, the picture series indicates the historical trails of the Chinese involvement in building a new nation. For example, the nationwide Hurtal (strike) movement unprecedentedly united various ethnic groups to oppose the Constitutional Proposal for the Federation of Malaya. And the citizenship campaign, though marginalised by the mainstream establishment of the Alliance (UMNO and MCA), was in fact representative of the public opinions and wishes of the Chinese community in Malaya and their determination to gain recognition for their identity. Malaya-wide /I{I/·/o' 0" 0,'/. 20 Cal/,," By AMCJA Plllpl"fI --

Figure 7.2 News report on widespread support for the Harta) (strike). Photo courtesy Center for Malaysian Chinese Studies.

Generally speaking, the National Museum reveals the intersections of "race" or ethnicity with history and indigeneity. The cultural bias that comes with the politics of racialisation is inherent in present-day nationalist histories of Malaysia, but this can be contested by retracing the diverse, socio-historical fabric of the Malaysian nation's development. Deconstructions and reconstructions of "race" require a questioning of racial govermentality to emphasise the place of new ethnicities in a redefmed multicultural and intercultural Malaysian landscape in the museum. Moving Mountains offers a model towards this end. The book's overriding concern with colonial and postcolonial identity, the relation between modem nationalism, imperialism and colonialism progresses a wider idea of Malaysian identity and its relation to internal as well as international politics.

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Conclusion The question of what infOlmation is relevant and what is not in terms of the history of Malaysia has varying answers, depending on who answers, and what events and ideas are considered. Museums, as repositories of a nation's history, carmot shirk their responsibility for representing national identity. Through representations of particular historical narratives encoded in the museum displays, the public is presented with our/their history, and the state attempts to invoke feelings of national pride and patriotism to the nation-state. Historical tendencies within museums displays are observed to represent dominant forms of culture within a universalising rhetoric (Bennett 1992), or as governmental apparatuses embedded within a network of power relations that support dominant interests (Dibley 2005). Notably, what museums put on display is conditioned by "where a country is in the arc of its nation­ building . . . and the kinds of citizens it believes it needs in order to reach its goals" (Levitt 2015, 3-4). Therefore, museums order objects in such a way as to legitimize "particular social and political hierarchies, privileging some ways of knowing while excluding others" (ibid., 7). In the case of the relatively new nation state of Malaysia, its National Museum tells a clear story about the nation but is silent about the assumptions underlying its diversity management and internal social differences are glossed over. Tony Bennett (1992) reminds us that the pretension to universality laid the ground for excluded groups to insist on being included. Omitting certain communities from Malaysian history has the effect of calling into question their role in contemporary affairs, which may have negative consequences for the country in the long-term. At this point, this comparative study calls for integration through interracial and intercultural dialogue rather than through assimilation in Malaysia. It is critical then, both for individuals and for society as a whole, to be comfortable with heterogeneity, to learn to respect what one does not immediately recognise and understand, and to develop a concept of equality that does not call for or impose sameness and unifOlmity. Malaysia has always had a culturally complex and hybrid history. Therefore, a re-reading of the country's past against the homogenising colonial and postcolonial etlmicising discourses of Malaysian identity, which are seen to privilege some cultural groups over others in the making of the nation, impacts intra-Malaysian solidarities (MandaI 2004). As this chapter has demonstrated, while one cultural/religious/civilizational singularity was claimed to be constitutive of modem Malaysia, it is not only important to point to close links between particular cultures, religions

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or civilizations but also to point to different ways of framing the problematic of modernity in Malaysia.

PART THREE BORDERLANDS AND BRIDGES: ENGAGING AUDIENCES BEYOND NATIONS

CHAPTER EIGHT THE REMOTE LOCAL: TRAVELLING EXHIBITIONS AND NEW PRACTICES IN CHINA HENG WU

Introduction I was prompted with the question "what is your own understanding of a museum's community?" at the public forum entitled "US and Chinese museums and their communities", which was organised by the Asia Society in New York on September 27, 2016. The immediate thought that came to my mind was the audience at the hosting venue of a travelling exhibition. It was not surprising for me to come up with that spontaneous thought, as I work at one of the leading museums in China in charge of the museum's international programmes, many of which are loan exhibitions. It is, however, not an improvised idea, but a deep thought rendered in my years of observation as both a museum practitioner and museum scholar. 'While museums in the west have long included the audience as one of the main focuses in curating exhibitions and operating the institutions, with Stephen Weil's (1999) well-known remark that they had moved "from being about something to being about somebody" as a benchmark, it was not until recently that museums in China started to attend to their audiences. Currently in some major museums in China, audiences have been kept in mind by curators and administrators in their practices, and audience surveys are conducted before, during, and after exhibitions. This audience-focused mindset in China is not only seen in the museum's pemmnent exhibitions or special exhibitions made in-house, but is also beginning to be seen in international travelling exhibitions that Chinese museums have been involved with. Meanwhile, with the rapid growth of museums in China in the past decade, and in the macro context of China's strong economy and the increasingly open national strategy, international

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communications and exchanges are significantly conducted between Chinese museums and their foreign counterparts. A direct result is the increase in international travelling exhibitions either coming into or going out from China. Among these changes taking place at micro and macro levels a previously overlooked topic comes to attention: the local audience at the hosting venue of a travelling exhibition, which I describe as "the remote local" audience, and which is the theme of this chapter. In a post-Brexit, Trump-presidency age when globalisation is being reviewed and rethought, and ethnic nationalism is re-emerging in some regions of the world, it is perhaps necessary, and important, to re­ investigate the museum's role in globalisation. Globalisation is never an attempt to assimilate differences, but to provide a platfOlTIl of dialogue from which peoples of different cultures, beliefs, and ethnicities may gain a better understanding of each other. Museum exhibitions, especially those which travel to other places and tell stories of other cultures, may claim their accountability in this process; they are not only responsive to, but also active players in globalisation. In this chapter, I aim to answer the following questions: how and why might the remote local audience be counted as the museum's community; why has it previously been overlooked; and why and how is it recognised now.

The museum and its visitor, audience and community A variety of words have been used to describe the people to whom museums are providing services: visitors, museum-goers, the public, audience, and community, sometimes interchangeably, but most of the time with deliberate consideration. These tenns are indicative of the kind of relationship between the museum and its service target (Macdonald 2006b, 320). Meanwhile, they are also reflective of the focus that museums are putting into their operations. The tenn visitors emphasises the physicality of the museum as a site, a place, and a space, which people can visit and walk through. Such a sense of place is rooted deep in the concept of the museum. The English word museum is derived from the Ancient Greek MOUG£loV (Mouseion), which denotes a place or temple dedicated to the Muses, and hence a building set apart for study and the arts (Findlen 1989). The Chinese concept of the museum was introduced from the west in the late nineteenth century with the first Chinese museum (established by Chinese people rather than by foreigners in China) founded by Zhang Jian in 1905 (Wu 2011). In the Chinese language, the museum is called bo- wu-guan, which literally means "a place with plenty of objects". People of the times when the

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museum was invented may have never imagined how diversified a fOlTIl the museum could develop into and that a physical place may not be necessary to construct a museum. With the appearance of virtual museums, thanks to the internet, visiting museums does not require a physical trip to the museum site, and museum visitors can also include people who browse the virtual museums online. Visitor studies has become one of the major pillars of museum studies. Pierre Bourdieu was a pioneer of this discipline, who, as early as the 1950s and 1960s, conducted an extensive investigation into the visitors of art museums in Europe. According to Bourdieu and Darbel (1991), what distinguishes museum visitors from non-visitors is the visitor's social class, his or her educational, economic, social background, or in Bourdieu's own term the "cultural capital" that the visitor has held before he or she visits the museum. Bourdieu boldly argues for the museum as differentiator by claiming that tbe museum "strengthen[s1 tbe feeling of belonging in some and the feeling of exclusion in others" (Bourdieu 1993, 236). Bourdieu's pioneering work has had far-reaching influence on museum studies. 'What is noteworthy, however, is that Bourdieu focused merely on the visitor side and overlooked the constructive role that the museum is capable of playing in the visiting process. Additionally, by arguing for the museum as a differentiator and strengthener of social classes, Bourdieu implied that the museum is high, superior, and even sacred: far too cultured a site for the ordinary public to reach. Again, the museum has been put in a passive position. To view the visitor as the audience provides a remedy to such an oversight. The telTIl audience, with its root aud-, ties closely with hearing or listening. In its present use, it has been expanded to include both listeners and spectators, which in the Chinese language is respectively expressed as tingzhong and guanzhong. This term adds an additional layer to visitors' activities in the museum by further pointing out the specific modes of visiting-listening and watching. In other words, it touches the content part of the museum's offering: the museum is not just a place for storing and displaying objects, but also for making meanings and broadcasting infolTIlation, which is in line with the educational role that modernist museums have been expected to play (Hooper-Greenhill 2000b). The recognition of the museum audience is one of the features that mark the new museology. To view the museum as an infolTIlation sender, however, is to view museum communication as a linear process where infolTIlation is transferred from the source to the receiver. 'What is implied is the authoritative position of the museum and the passive role of the audience,

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as well as the static process of knowledge-shaping. Scholars in media studies once were greatly concerned about the obsolescence of the audience when traditional media were challenged by internet and new technologies, and produced papers entitled "The end of the audience?", "The Audience Is Dead: Long Live the Audience!" (Gilhnor 2006; Livingstone and Das 2009; Jermyn and Hohnes 2006). Accordingly, the museum field has also realised the limitation of this linear perspective and turned to a more democratic approach that recognises the two-way flow of information during communication and the positive role that the audience may play in this process. Another approach to communication, which Hooper-Greenhill (2000b, 20) describes as the cultural approach "focuses more closely on how meaning is made" and "sees communication as an integral part of culture as a whole". The museum's role as a communicator has been repeatedly advocated by museum practitioners and scholars (see, for example, Hodge, D' Souza, and Riviere 1979; Strong 1983; Hooper-Greenhill 2000b). Corresponding to the museum's role as a communicator is the perception of the audience as its community, which has been widely observed in recent literature (Crooke 2006; Golding and Modest 2013). Etymologically, the words communication and community share the same root that relates to commonality and sharing. Members of a community have something in common or to share. To understand the audience as a community implies that such commonalities and sharing exist not only between audience members but also between these audience members and the museum. This reveals the need to recognise the audience as an integrated part of the museum communication. What is emphasised here is the 10ng-telTIl reciprocal partnership between the museum and its audience. In this sense, the telTIl community, I would argue, speaks of a more advanced understanding of the museum and its audience in that it acknowledges the two-way rather than linear nature of communication and casts importance on the participation of the audience and their interaction with the museum.

Travelling exhibitions in China At the time when this chapter was compiled, the exhibition A History of the World in 100 Objects was on view in the National Museum of China, and thereafter toured to Shanghai Museum; Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, which was travelling globally, was on view at the Palace Museum in Beijing; Tomb Treasures: New Discoveries from China 's Han Dynasty, which included collections from Nanjing Museum and two other museums in Jiangsu Province,

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China, was on view at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, and the exhibition Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.-A.D.220), with collections from 32 Chinese museums, had just opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. These are just a few examples of the many, and growing, travelling exhibitions that Chinese museums are involved in. The heavy media coverage and lines of people waiting to get in were reminiscent of the western phenomenon of the blockbuster exhibition. The history of blockbuster exhibitions has often been related to Thomas Hoving, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1967 to 1977, who brought a series of international exhibitions of great financial and visual extravagance to the U.S., including King rut: Treasures of Tutankhamun, which attracted 1.27 million visits to the Met and 5.6 million visits to the other four venues it visited (Kennedy 2009). Hoving's blockbuster endeavor was considered to have "turned an institution he said was 'dying' into a happening museum" (Dobnik 2009). Despite the great success in increasing attendance and revenue, blockbuster exhibitions have also been criticised. In addition to a general concern for the safety of artworks and artifacts which may be damaged during shipping and installation or dismantling, museum professionals have also expressed concern over curatorial attention being detracted from pemmnent collections (Smith 1983), or the potential production of a limited, misleading and distorted perspective on art history (West 1995). These concerns, as Berryman summarised, "revolved around elite versus accessible culture, pemmnent collections versus temporary exhibitions, and aesthetic contemplation versus popular entertainment" (2013, 160). The problems of blockbuster exhibitions do not seem to concern Chinese museums. As previously mentioned, China is seeing a rapid growth of inbound international exhibitions, which can be seen clearly through statistics: in 2010 there were only 10 international exhibitions coming to China while one year later in 2011 the number ahnost doubled to 19. This yearly number was maintained in the following years. The latest statistics quoted by Mr. Liu Yuzhu, Director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China, reveals that from 201 1 to 2016, the number of inbound exhibitions totalled 1 1 6 (Wang and Shi 2017). 'While sharing some common features, these large-scale international exhibitions which travelled to China were different by nature from those blockbuster exhibitions. One of the main driving forces of the blockbuster exhibition was revenue generation. In the report "Is the blockbuster exhibition dead?", Stephen Moss (2011) even described the blockbuster exhibition as "a desperately hoped-for money-spinner for cash-strapped

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galleries". This financial purpose is not necessarily a concern, at least presently, of Chinese museums, thanks to the generosity of the Chinese government. The main body of Chinese museums are public, established, owned, governed and funded by the government. By the end of 2015, there were a total of 4692 museums in China, 76.3 per cent of which were public museums (Wurihan et al. 2016). These public museums are subordinated to the administration of the local government, be it at county, municipal, province or state level, and over all to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH). This is also tlie reason that all tlie international exhibitions, either coming to or going out from China, have to seek official approval from the SACH. The Chinese government has been greatly promoting museum development in the country, particularly since the tum of the twenty-first century (for a full view oftlie national policy changes regarding museums development in China see Wu 2011). The museum has been seen as an instrument to develop culture and a facility to realise the basic cultural rights and interests of the people. One of the boldest initiatives that tlie government has taken was to advocate for free-admission to public museums by providing them with subsidies since 2008. By the end of 2015, 4013 museums were open to the public free of charge, taking up 85.5 per cent of all the museums in China (Wurihan et al. 2016). So it is safe to say, to earn profit is at least presently not a primary consideration for Chinese public museums in their decisions to bring in international exhibitions. Of greater concern is whether the exhibition is enjoyed by the local audience, or the museum's communities. How to make these international exhibitions enjoyable to local Chinese audiences and what Chinese museums' endeavors to engage these exhibitions with local communities are will be discussed in the next section. Before that, however, it is important to discuss another major type of Chinese museums' international involvement: outbound exhibitions. The above discussion focuses on the exhibitions which have travelled to China. However, more predominant are exhibitions that have travelled out. Despite the growth of inbound exhibitions in recent years, outbound exhibitions have always been greater in number. During 201 1 -2016, while 1 1 6 exhibitions travelled to China, 293 exhibitions travelled out from China (Wang and Shi 2017). China's practice in sending exhibitions to foreign countries started much earlier back in the 1970s, and is more predominant. The first exhibition that tlie PRC has sent overseas was tlie Exhibition of Archaeological Finds of the People 's Republic of China, which first opened at Petit Palais in Paris, France in May 1973, tlien toured to Europe, North America, and Oceania across a total of 15 countries and

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achieved great success. The preparation work for this exhibition started in 1971 when the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was ending. The Cultural Revolution had put the museum cause in China in a state of great stagnation (for more details, see Wu 2011). The exhibition request was raised by a French delegation's visit in China in 1971. It was soon after the Ping-pong Diplomacy, an extraordinary diplomatic success which led to the fe-opening of Sino-U.S. relations and to some degree influenced the contemporary history of the world. The then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai happily agreed to the French request. The intention to use the exhibition as a diplomatic tool to gain national interest is not hard to understand. Such a diplomatic consideration was actually clearly stated in the document issued by the State Council for selecting cultural relics from museums throughout the country to be included in this exhibition (State Council of PRC 1971). This exhibition exemplifies the outbound exhibitions of Chinese museums in the early years, which were more of a representation of the national identity of China rather than the museum's individual profile. These exhibitions were often on a broad theme of China's ancient civilization, either on a major time period of Chinese history, or related to the emperors and the imperial collections, or told the story of Chinese civilization in general, and often used the word "treasures" in their titles, or featured well knO\vn treasures: for example, Treasures from the Bronze Age a/China: An Exhibition/rom the People 's Republic a/ China, which opened at the Met in April 1980, then toured to the other four museums in the U.S.; Treasures ofAncient Chinese Art, opened at Louisiana Museum of Modem Art in May 1980, which then toured to Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium through 1982; Terracotta Warriors and Horses 0/ China 's Qin Dynasty, which was opened at the National Museum of Fine Art in Stockholm in December 1985, then toured to Norway, Austria, and Scotland. These exhibitions were mostly undertaken for diplomatic purposes and national interest rather than the museum's 0\Vll benefit. Exhibitions at this time were seen as an endeavor on the part of China to communicate with the world. The exhibition agreements of this time often started with the sentence "In order to promote the friendship between the People's Republic of China and [the country where the hosting museum is located]". The image of individual museums was fairly vague. The govermnent instead took a leading role. Many of the outbound exhibitions of China were organised by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China, which oversees all the museums in China, through its official agency Art Exhibitions China, which is also in charge of the preliminary assessment of all the exhibitions both outgoing from and incoming to

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China. As to the reasons why most of the international exhibitions at the time were undertaken via Art Exhibitions China, lack of staff capacity for international communication in individual museums was, I would argue, a contributing factor. These exhibitions often utilised heritage resources from across the country; the loans were often from dozens of museums throughout China. For example, the above mentioned Archaeological Finds exhibition included collections from China's 29 provinces and regions and the Bronze exhibition's collection were also from over 20 provinces in China; The China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD exhibition, on view at the Met from October 12, 2004 to January 23, 2005, gathered objects from 46 of China's muselUllS and institutions. There is one point to note that among these outbound exhibitions, there is one special category in which exhibitions are curated by curators of Chinese art at overseas museums with collections loaned from China. So these exhibitions may better be described as travelling collections instead of travelling exhibitions, as Chinese museums are merely collection loaners and play little role in the content development. Again, for these exhibitions, loans are often from multiple museums in China. Curators from overseas museums pick what they need from a menu composed of collections of muselUllS throughout China. The overseas curators then work with the State Administration of Cultural Heritage via Art Exhibitions China. The previously mentioned Age ofEmpires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.-A.D.220) exhibition is an example of such practice. With the rapid growth and development of the museum cause in China, new trends have been observed with regard to travelling exhibitions and new approaches to international collaborations have been developed. Individual Chinese museums are taking a more active role; international exhibitions are increasingly brought into China; co-curation is an increasingly welcomed approach. What is reflected, I would argue, is the development of the community-mind in Chinese museums.

Community-minded travelling exhibitions Unlike many of their western counterparts such as the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which label themselves as encyclopedic museums with collections and curatorial interests covering the whole world, museums in China, even those large leading ones, for a long time have only focused on Chinese history and culture and gathered only Chinese collections. Correspondingly, the majority of the Chinese public have little or no knowledge about western art. Globalisation and more

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frequent international communications, as well as the development of museology, have encouraged Chinese museums to go beyond China and look to the world. To introduce other civilizations and other cultures has become a common desire shared by many leading museums in China. Nanjing Museum, for example, has added a new four-story wing dedicated to special exhibitions and travelling exhibitions. Since its opening in November 2013, this new wing has hosted a series of exhibitions on arts and cultures from other countries of the world including the U.S., Canada, UK, Italy, and France. But how best to introduce these unfamiliar themes and topics to the local audience? How to best use these travelling exhibitions to serve the local community? On the other side, for the exhibitions sent to other countries from China, how do they engage the local audience and community in the hosting venues? My discussion in the following paragraphs will address these issues by taking examples from the travelling exhibitions that Nanjing Museum has produced in recent years.

Cultivating the Audience In 2014, Nanjing Museum brought in American West in Bronze: 18501925, an exhibition featuring sixty-five bronze sculptures made by twenty­ eight artists exploring themes of the American West from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on view in Nanjing Museum from October 2014 through January 2015. "American west in bronze" is by no means a theme that would appeal to Chinese audiences. All an average Chinese person would know about the American West is perhaps cowboys or western movies. However, this exhibition represented a part of American history and art, and fit well into the mission of Nanjing Museum's special exhibition wing, which is to bring and introduce other cultures and other civilizations to local audiences. The solution that the museum took was to take this opportunity to cultivate audiences, trying to find and build the connections between the exhibition theme and the audiences. Specifically, two special spaces inside the gallery were created, one for screening American western movies, and the other for educational programs. A selection of American western movies, the titles of which were provided by the curator, were screened in loop during the exhibition. It was observed that some visitors came into the gallery directly to the screening room, but they did spend some time looking at the displayed bronzes after the movie. The educational space was decorated in a western style with a wooden salon door set up at the entrance, as often seen in western movies, and cowboy hats hung on the wall. Workshops such as "Indian" or Native American

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head-ornament making, or drawing classes focusing on the animals depicted in the sculptures, were organised throughout the exhibition period. Additionally, tailored exhibition tours were created for audience groups with different interests and needs. For example, in addition to the daily public tour targeted at the general visitors, an in-depth tour was given by the exhibition curator, Thayer Tolles, to those who had a special interest in the exhibition theme, many of whom were university students or scholars in art history. All the educational staff and volunteer members who worked for this exhibition received prior training from the curator. Other approaches may be taken to cultivating local audiences for special exhibitions. Journalists and the media, for example, can be very helpful. In 2013, Nanjing Museum sent the exhibition Ming: The Golden Empire to tour in Europe. The first stop was the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. Ming is the name of a Chinese dynasty which ruled China from 1368 to 1644, one of the dozens of dynasties in Chinese history. To engage the local Dutch audience with such a historically and culturally remote topic was certainly a challenge. To meet the challenge, the organisers resorted to media. Six months before the exhibition's opening, a group of 15 journalists from Amsterdam's diverse local media including newspapers, magazines, radio, and television stations came to Nanjing Museum. They looked at the collections, the museum, the city and the country to track the Ming related themes. After returning to Amsterdam, they published a series of reports, some on the exhibition but more on the background of this exhibition, in local media. In other words, the local audience had been watmed up for half a year when the exhibition was eventually opened. To keep this warmth, a 3-D printer was set up in the gallery to print a model of the Ming Forbidden City day by day through the entire exhibition period. The progress was updated on by the local media every day, building a daily connection between the people and the exhibition.

Comparative Curation Pedagogical studies reveal that relevance and connections are vital to students' learning (see, for examples, Willis 2007; Kember et al. 2008). This is also important to the museum experience, as the museum experience is understood as a fOlTIl of learning. In the case of travelling exhibitions, which often address topics from cultures or civilizations that are remote, either physically or emotionally, from the audience, it is vital to find the links or build connections between the remote and the local. In recent curatorial practices in Chinese museums, an emerging trend has

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been observed, which I would describe as comparative curation. Comparative curation refers to the adoption of a comparative perspective in curating an exhibition. The majority of current museum exhibitions, excluding contemporary art exhibitions, are addressing either one historical period (for example, the Ming dynasty of Chinese history) or one category of works of art (for example, Chinese ceramics) within one culture or one civilization. Comparative curation breaks boundaries between societies, nations, cultures, civilizations, and artistic fOlTIlS by juxtaposing objects or works of art from different social, national, cultural, and artistic origins, which are connected by the similarities between them. The exhibition Pharaohs and Kings: Treasures of Ancient Egypt and China 's Han Dynasty on view at Nanjing Museum 9 August 2016 tlnough 9 January 2017 is an example of such comparative curation. This exhibition featured 1 1 0 Egyptian collections from the Royal Ontario Museum and 140 unearthed Han dynasty relics from Nanjing Museum and other Chinese museums. The Han dynasty in Chinese history is dated from 206 BC to AC 220. Much of Chinese culture was established during the Han dynasty, to the extent that the majority ethnic group in China is referred to as the Han people and Chinese characters are referred to as Han characters. Additionally, the Han objects included in this exhibition were unearthed from Jiangsu, the province where Nanjing Museum is located. In other words, Han culture was a familiar topic to the local audience. As to ancient Egypt, an average audience member might be aware of mummies, a statement which is partly confitmed by the audience survey conducted after the exhibition that revealed the Egyptian munnny was the most favored exhibit. Ancient Egyptian pharaohs and China's Han kings seem two totally unrelated items, no matter their cultural origins, or historical time periods. However, they shared similar beliefs, and even some practices, regarding the afterlife, which is the link that curators at Nanjing Museum found and used as the main theme of this exhibition. The exhibition gained exceptional success. Statistics from Nanjing Museum show that during its five-month period, the exhibition received 3 14,843 visits, with the highest daily visits reaching 6,000. Over 90 per cent of visitors expressed their satisfaction with the exhibition. I should note that this exhibition was the first one at Nanjing Museum that charged an admission fee, which makes the above listed visits numbers more persuasIve. Pharaohs and Kings is not the only exhibition that has adopted comparative curation. In fact, Nanjing Museum has curated a series of exhibitions of this kind. To name a few: A Tale of Two Cities, which compared the cities of Nanjing and Edinburgh in terms of urban and

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cultural development, on view at Nanjing Museum, Nanjing November 2013 through May 2014, and at Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh December 2015 through February 2016; Ages of Empires: Russia and the Qing, which put the period of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great of Russia and the reigns of Emperors Kangxi and Qianlong of China's Qing dynasty in one exhibitionary frame of discussion, opened in summer 2017.

Participatory euration To better engage a remote local community of a travelling exhibition, another approach that has proved to be workable in Nanjing Museum's practice is to invite local audiences to take part in the curating process. In July 2012, the exhibition Treasures of China opened to the public at Colchester Castle Museum in Essex, UK as part of the London Cultural Olympic programme. The exhibition became a great success not only because it promoted cultural communication between China and the UK What made it more meaningful was the involvement of the local students in the curation of this exhibition. In 201 1 , one and a half years before the exhibition's opening, 10 students from Gilberd School in Essex visited Nanjing Museum under the supervision of their teacher. From Nanjing Museum's abundant collections, each of the students selected one favorite object. Based on their selections, the curators at Nanjing Museum added 60 more objects, thus composing the whole exhibition. One and a half years later at the exhibition's opening in Colchester, the ten students were so excited and thrilled to see that the objects they themselves selected from Nanjing were finally displayed in their hometown museum. They even described this exhibition as a "life-changing project". Here is a quote from one of the students, Rosey \\!hite: .

Now that this has all corne together, and that the exhibition is finally here, it makes me feel proud to have been a part of it, but it is also marking the end of a very special time in my life that I will never forget.

If this exhibition had been curated solely by curators at Nanjing Museum, the connection between the culture and art presented in this exhibition and the local community would have never been so deep and immersive. While travelling makes the exhibition physically accessible to the audience at a remote geographical location, participation from the local connnunity creates and strengthens emotional access, and it is such emotional access, I would argue, that raises engagement to a higher level.

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Another advantage to inviting local communities to participate in the curating process is that it ensures the exhibition will approach the local audience in a more welcoming way. For travelling exhibitions, one of the biggest challenges is that the curators and the eventual audience are often from different "interpretative communities", a term coined by Stanley Fish (1980) referring to "those who share the same strategies for reading texts and assigning meanings" (171). In the Essex case discussed above, the objects that the students had chosen for this exhibition were not at all what the curators at Nanjing Museum had expected. The Nanjing Museum curators had assumed that the students would all pick from the museum's highlights, those which had been officially defmed as first-grade collections due to their great historical or artistic values. However, it turned out the students were not particularly concerned with the collections' grade, although they were provided with such infonnatioll. The exhibition was entitled Treasures of China. Obviously, people from different interpretative communities have different understandings of treasures. In this case, students as part of the local community were only participating in the curation process. The curators at Nanjing Museum still took the lead on content development. A more immersive mode of participatory curation could be termed co-curation, which requires curatorship from both collaborating institutions. Under this mode, curators from both sides work together and closely throughout the entire curating process, including even the selection of the exhibition theme. This model is the most challenging one, as it requires a high degree of cooperation from two culturally different institutions. It is, however, the most fruitful one as it provides a more extensive scope of institutional collaboration and cultural communication, and is therefore the preferred mode of international collaboration by Chinese museums such as Nanjing Museum.

The A-Tale-of-Two-Cities Phenomenon On 27 June 2014, the exhibition Ming: The Golden Empire opened at the National Museum of Scotland. Three months later on 1 8 September, Ming: 50 Years That Changed China opened at the British Museum. While the two exhibitions did have different focuses, with the fonner surveying the dynasty as a whole and the latter touching a half-century period of the dynasty, they ignited a Ming moment over Britain from Edinburgh to London. On 3 April 2017, the Metropolitan Museum of Art unveiled the exhibition Great Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.-A.D.220). About two months earlier on 17 February, the Asian Art

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Museum opened its door to Tomb Treasures: New Discoveries from China 's Han Dynasty. With different focuses and perspectives, the two exhibitions addressed the same historical subject-the Han dynasty-across the U.S. from West Coast's San Francisco to East Coast's New York. These are just two recent examples of exhibitions that are on similar subject or theme and on view in two places within the same region at the same time. These paired exhibitions are not rare to see today and I use the umbrella telTIl "A-Tale-of-Two-Cities Phenomenon" to describe them. They do not necessarily come in pairs, but also in series, and are not necessarily open at two cities within one country or continent, but also at two institutions within one city, (which we might telTIl "A Tale of Two Institutions"). For example, the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition, on view at the V&A from 14 March to 2 August 2015, was echoed by Nick Waplington / Alexander McQueen: Work in Process, a photographic exhibition documenting Mcqueen's final AutunmiWinter collection, on view at Tate Britain 10 March through 17 May 2015; the Mondrian and His Studio exhibition, which was on view at Tate Liverpool from 6 June through 5 October 2014, was accompanied by Mondrian and Colour, an exhibition shown at the Tumer Contemporary 24 May through 21 September 2014; and in a period between late 2014 through early 2015, a series of exhibitions on Schiele were seen in London, Zurich, Tulln, and New York, resonating with one another. With or without overlapping, these A-Tale-of-Two-Cities exhibitions approach the same topic through different perspectives and focuses, weaving a richer interpretation of the subject matter and providing multiple charmels for the audiences to choose at their will to engage. It is interesting to note that in many cases the pairing or grouping of exhibitions were not deliberately planned, but did have unintended positive outcomes. The phenomenon also provokes some inspiration regarding curatorial practice in travelling exhibitions with regards to engaging the local community. Through cross-institutional communication and consultancy, museums at the same city or two cities in the same region may work together to create a season with two presentations of the subject matter that they would like to introduce to the local community through travelling exhibitions.

Conclusions In this chapter I address a topic that has been relatively overlooked by Chinese museums in their previous practices but is now gaining increasing attention: that is, the local community of the hosting venue of the

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travelling exhibition, which I address as "the remote local". Remote and local are not only meant geographically, but also culturally, as travelling exhibitions often address topics that are from other cultures and are not close to the local community. I firstly carried out a review of the terms that have been used to describe the target that the museum is providing service for, the visitors, the audience, and the community, and argue that the telTIl community is more advanced an understanding in that it emphasises the two-way nature of museum communication and the more profound relationship between the muselUll and its audience. With that in mind, I then examined the travelling exhibition practices that Chinese museums have been involved with. In their early practices in this regard, Chinese museums played a relatively passive role, paying little attention to the local communities. In their recent practices, however, changes toward their audiences have been observed. By taking examples mainly from Nanjing Museum, I discussed how Chinese museums take the local communities into consideration in curating travelling exhibitions and outline the new approaches that have been practiced. I have discussed how curation for travelling exhibitions is a comprehensive process involving content development, exhibition design, audience research, community engagement, project management, logistics coordination, cross-cultural communication, and all the necessities for team working. Situations are different from country to country, institution to institution and case to case. Sometimes even the individual personality or work style of the institution leader or the project manager can change largely how a travelling exhibition would be shaped. However, that doesn't deprive travelling exhibitions of the need for study. The issues addressed in this chapter aims to provide some contextual understanding of the practices, and the thoughts, that are currently employed in Chinese museums regarding travelling exhibitions and even international collaborations, and hopefully to provide a glance into the museum boom that is happening in China, which is not only extensive, covering the whole country, but is also intensive, gathering unprecedented pace and producing great achievements.

CHAPTER NINE DIVERSE AUDIENCES OR A SINGLE TARGET PUBLIC: THE ETHNOGRAPHIC COLLECTIONS OF GHENT UNIVERSITY IN BELGIUM AND ITS INTERDEPENDENCY WITH DIVERSE ETHNIC AND CULTURAL AUDIENCES PAULINE VAN DER ZEE

Introduction In 2015 the University of Ghent began the process of merging its collections into the first Belgian University Museum. A primary aim of the academic authorities was to serve the distinct needs of the academic community, as well as more diverse museum audiences. For the contemporary museum visitor, the hunt for knowledge offers important routes to discover the ways in which people from all of walks of life and different backgrounds might come to a fuller realisation of themselves, or some stronger understanding of their full potential. In this chapter I want to work out how to make it clear that shared human patrimony of ethnographic objects, once collected by professors, goes beyond the "Buro-centrism" of academic science, how it might be possible to promote genuine inter-cultural understanding without trying to erase the past, and, finally, what it is that can make this university museum "family friendly" or make it welcoming to people who are unfamiliar with its collections (Birkett 2016). The objects of the Ethnographic Collections of the University of Ghent fonnerly belonged to a tradition of academic training in ethnic or non­ western art, and are therefore now quite rightly considered as part of an academic heritage. At the sarne time they are objects of what may be regarded as world art. It may be clear that there are fundamental differences between the two designations. The big challenge was to

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explore the actual relevance of these non-western collections within the academic heritage context. In the planned University Museum, science will play a central role. All kinds of strange objects coming from several academic heritage collections of Ghent University will be assembled in an evocation of scientific research. As a rule, academic heritage objects will reflect on their own Faculty, and to the specific period in which they were developed, collected or used in its courses. Passionate scientists collected the objects on various occasions in different periods, and their meanings are largely seen as historic. In this way the ethnographic collections of Ghent University are considered as academic heritage. The actual Ethnographic Collections of Ghent University were a result of the "Wunderkarnmer style" collecting of its first professors. They bought ethnographic objects which were collected during expeditions by geographers, anatomists, ornithologists, as well as by colonial civil servants, missionaries, merchants and planters. These men often collected material culture without sound documentation systems. Perhaps the poor documentation was a consequence of nineteenth century indifference. FurthemlOre, these ethnographic collections were often considered as a just by-product of scientific research, as language barriers usually hampered contextual research. However, as the university becomes more curious about its 0\Vll history and the collecting process that laid the foundation of science, art and collecting, this planned museum of academic heritage has to lead the public, via a kind of contemporary voyage of discovery, into a world of art and science. Although the objects were collected for academic purposes, like demonstration material for education, most of them were chosen for their beauty, their imaginative power, the exotic dimension, and for the astonishment they caused. The university therefore decided it would be most appropriate if objects for the new museum could be selected to incite reflection on the philosophy of science, the history of scientific research, aesthetics and creativity. This aspect of discovery, we argued, surely has appeal for diverse audiences and would certainly reveal something of the story of collecting. During the history of the Ethnographic Collections, the objects have had at different times changing educational functions, from archeology to natural history, to ethnography and [mally to art history. Every Faculty brought its own set of views on the ethnographic objects and added new meanings to them. It was not until the twentieth century that the idea of these cultures being studied began to be appreciated as more complex and cultural contact became a motivation for collecting, as it was assumed that

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these cultural items would disappear together with their rituals and dancing. However, as these objects were collected in contact with non-western cultures and therefore are shared human patrimony, at the present time I want to put more stress on the heritage aspect, and the significance these objects may have for the source communities in the Diaspora. It seems crucial to present the fOlTIlal aesthetic properties of ethnographic objects, the way they were used in their original setting, and the nature of the society in which they were made, as well as to pay attention to the meaning these objects have to the descendants of their makers, who now live in the Diaspora. Unfortunately, in Belgium ethnography museums the collections often face indifference today. It is crucial that we fmd ways to assist them in reinventing themselves, as they have to escape the overriding colonial connotations that surround them and prevent a wider understanding.

Is it Art? Shared ways of human expression go beyond "Euro-centrism" In recent times there is a trend to create a new, more fashionable, context for non-western art objects by putting ethnographic collections together with collections of other kinds (Golding 2016). When planning a new academic museum narrative based on western science, my aim is to make clear that shared patrimony goes beyond "Euro-centrism".l As a curator it is important to show which ideas were at the origin of "the Western perspective" on what was firstly called "primitive art" and nowadays "world art", as well as which role researchers have played throughout the century. Though I intend to avoid the hierarchies of the past, it may be clear that an optimistic term like "World Art", has already lost some of its hopeful connotations. 1 Euro-centrism is based on the widespread assmnption that only a Western point of view holds the criteria to determine the truth. However, any form of knowledge makes sense only within its 0"WIl cultural context. Scientific knowledge has long held a central role and attained a dominant position in Oill developed societies, but we cannot ignore the fact that other valid knowledge systems exist. For instance, in developing cOlUltries, science education is based on Western concepts and culture, and it is taught by those for whom science is often unrelated to their culture. This leads students to deny the validity and authority of the knowledge transmitted to them by their parents and grandparents and creates tension in several societies. It is exceedingly difficult to analyse one form of knowledge using the criteria of another tradition (Mazzocchi 2006, 463 6).

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For many contemporary museum visitors "Art" is an imp ortant point of interest, as it enlarges and refmes experiences. To b e able to determine these non-western collections as "Art", we need to defme the concept of art. "Wbat is art?" does not express anything like a single question, but one to which competing answers are given. In the Western world the word "Art" is generally used as a synonym of western art. Common conventionalist defmitions account well for modem art, but generally have difficulty accounting for art's universality. Nevertheless, people around the world and from all times have been drawn to image-making. The aesthetic appreciation for non-western art started at the beginning of the twentieth century. As long ago as 1909, the French art critic and surrealist Guillaume Apollinaire asked why these attractive ethnographic obj ects were not included in Museums of Fine Arts. The Belgian profes sor Frans Olbrechts, the founder o f the Etlmographic Collections of Ghent University, spoke with the same sentiments . He also wanted to put non­ western art on equal footing with Western art. That ' s why he aimed for high art quality when he started collecting for a laboratory for his students .

Figure 9.1 Ivory Coast Exhibition Box. Copyright Ghent University Museum. Photo by BeIlll Deceuninck.

Olbrechts created, within Ghent University in the 1930s, the fIrst place ill

Europe where students could graduate in non-western art. In this

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respect, he is important enough to be mentioned within this first Belgian University Museum, as Founding Father of a "pluralistic" discipline, which valued western and non-western arts equally. Thanks to the international breakthrough of new disciplines like "World History", and "World Heritage Studies", Olbrechts nowadays is regarded as a precursor of "World Art Studies". In spite of this, the question was raised within the Art Department: "Are ethnographic objects Art?" This has also led to debates. According to followers of Olbrechts, art is a product of our shared experience; it reflects the human condition and the most basic cultural preoccupations. This idea focuses on art's pan-cultural and trans-historical characteristics.2 Yet, this idea that ethnographic objects are art challenges a whole range of Western expectations concerning knowledge and social relationships as well as Art (Thomas 1995, 9). Thomas (1995, 1 1 -2) argues that the meanings and effects of this art are not wholly alien to those of other artistic systems, in part because there seem to be psychological universals that influence art everywhere. At a social level there are universals that enter into virtually every art tradition; the great questions of life; the issues of creating continuity out of uncertainty, eventualities and impelTIlanence, the relationship with the dead that a community seeks to sustain or erase, etc. Europeans and peoples of non-western cultures are separated but also joined by history in relations of exchange, conflict and mutual influence between them. In the early twentieth century, artists like Gauguin, Picasso, Derain and others were inspired by ethnographic art objects. On the other hand the introduction of Western metal tools influenced the technique of indigenous sculptors, just as adoption of Western techniques as illustrations in books brought by missionaries and travelers sometimes influenced their imagination. At the perceptual level Thomas points to the effect of designs: some combinations of colors and patterns are used because they are dazzling, the balance created by using symmetry, or the application of shapes like faces or eyes, all have certain effects on human vision and cognition. Naturally this approach offers a less conventionalist definition of art. Since a lot of Western people show the tendency to take their Western view as a measure for everything, they 2 Scharfstein (2009, 9-10) explains that although the arts have taken so many different forms, they have nevertheless seemed us to be so much alike and emotionally identifiable. According to him the lUliqueness of everything in art is therefore to a surprising degree communicable. The foreignness may make it even possible to appreciate characteristics of the art, which familiarity has made invisible to those born into it.

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are in fact conventionalists. The staff of the Art Department also appeared to react in the same way and decided to close down the academic education in ethnic art in 2007. As a lot of people are unaware of art's universality, it might be important to point to another contemporary definition of art. Of course, the question of art's universality could be followed by tbe question "if that is the case, does it contribute to the relevance of these nOll-Western collections?" In fact, the difference between art and world art remains intact; it still refers to "the West" and "tbe Rest" (Hall 1992, 275-331). Here we need to refer to Sally Price (1989) who, in her book Primitive Art in civilized places draws attention to the Westerner's appropriation of non-Western art. The telTIl "primitive" in art-history was used for painters and sculptors before the Renaissance, and meant "early" or "ancient". But in combination with non-Western art it acquired pejorative connotations of naivety, simplicity, and irrationality, with links to superstitious practices, symbolic meanings related to fertility and witch-craft. Using Western standards to judge non-Western art, cultural arrogance lead to a highly superior interpretation of this tenn "Primitive Art" That is why nowadays "Primitive Art" is replaced by "World Art" .' Price (2001, 128-30) sketches the positive developments in tbis field. However now, in the effort to embrace the "arts of the world" as a conceptual whole, the question remains "What does 'world' mean in 'World Art'''? The cultural geography of art, the hierarchy of traditional art scholarship and the division between producers and commentators persists.4 In using tenns like "World Music", "World History", and "World Culture", the obvious question continues to be, "in whose interests must 'ethno' and 'world' remain distinct from a discipline of art, of music, of history etc?" 3 McClellan (2008, 25) notes that especially large museums as the Louvre, the British Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art, give the impression of separate but equal traditions, motivated by a shared desire to give visual expression to the human condition; local inflection and historical specificity, in the end, are transcended by lUliversal impulses. 4 The term "world art," like "world music," stresses art's universality. However in practice it is different and its meaning more focused on non-western art. The word "traditional", for example, places the emphasis on cultural continuity, but might ignore the ability of traditional societies to adapt to changing circumstances. "Indigenous", for instance, is meant to highlight the autochthonous nature of this art, but it might suggest a pejorative connotation, like the word "primitive". Each of these notions carries different implications, and there is an ensuing discussion about which one is the most appropriate. In fact, no satisfying lUliversal term is available.

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Ellen Dissanayake (1995, 5, 1 1 -2) approaches the issue from an evolutionary perspective. She argues that art and the aesthetic aspect is a basic psychological component of every human being. Like Thomas, she assumes that art is linked to the origins of religious practices and ceremonies of birth, death, transition, and transcendence.5 Dissanayake stresses human ethology and broadens the telTIl "Euro-centrism" by calling it "species-centrism". She wants to provide an alternative to conflicting and conflicted attitudes regarding the art of Westem culture by introducing a "species-centered" view. Within the context of the plarmed University Museum we felt this notion might offer an opening to the domains of some other collections. Since the humanities have been studied in the past for the guidance about how to live, Dissanayake suggests we might study humanity itself for the same reason. What apparently is missing is a discipline where all practices, histories, and identities could assert equal claims to value, study, and performances. In Ghent there was no chance to transfolTIl the academic education in ethnic art to such a discipline, so all attention was directed to the collections. Valuing collections is not only a case for academics and specialists, but also a case for audiences. Therefore I wanted to offer new perspectives to create new openings for the Ethnographic Collections to appeal to a wider range of visitors, as it was no longer a laboratory for students. But former students kept asking to be involved, now as volunteers. During events we catered for a broad public. These events and other more infolTIlal collection presentations strengthened ties with non-academic audiences. It was especially the culture-minded visitors who appeared to be open to other kinds of significance. As a matter of course I wanted to show these powerful objects and their variety and ingenuity, their material complexity and technological creativeness, and above all highlight their visual appeal. Departing from non-western art objects, I started to work together with Belgian artists, to create exhibitions focussed on a dialogue between contemporary art and non-western ethnographic objects. As aesthetics make these non-western collections more accessible to a western culture-minded public, they spark people to discover, wonder and dream. For instance, the first artist I worked together with was Camiel Van Breedarn, for the exhibition "(Un) Important things". Our exhibit project was focussed on a dialogue in form between his art and ethnographic objects from the university collection. For this occasion he made delicate assemblages of discarded materials 5 Ellen Dissanayake (1995, xvi) also states that arts of other times and other places reminds us that they have been overwhelmingly integral to people's lives. Far from being peripheral, trivial, dysfunctional, or illusory, the arts have always been part of human being's most serious and vital concerns.

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found in flea markets, etc. In his art he not only made a case for durability, but tlnough the dialogue with the objects he also put stress on how non­ western cultures have been wiped out through cultural contact with the West. To take one example, the dramatic events of Wounded Knee in the sununer of 1 873 has been a major source of inspiration for his art 6

Figure 9.2 Hopi katchina. Copyright Ghent University Museum. Photo by Benn Deceuninck.

6

In the UFO (the University Forum) of Ghent University an environmental installation by Camiel Van Breedam (2014-) is on display. The art work was a gift of the poet Roger De Neef in 2007. It is called "The Last Day" and is connected with The small Surgery, a series of poems by De Neef. The artwork was made on his commission and was inspired by his poems called the Ballade of Wounded Knee. In preparation to the solenm conveyance in 2010, an academic meeting was held in which different scholars from different domains gave a presentation on the context of the artwork from their point of view. It resulted in a book De laatste dag. Verhalen over een kunstwerk (The Last Day. Stories about a Work ofArt) and was presented on 1 7 January 2014 in the exhibition of readable objects '" (Un)Important Things' in the Ethnographic Collections of Ghent University" (Tsjoen, Van Damme 2014, 7-12).

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Figure 9.3 Greetings to katchina. Copyright Ghent University Museum. Photo by

Benn Deceuninck.

This new approach concentrated on such a dialogue attracted a mixed audience. Art lovers discovered the aesthetics of non-western art objects, while the public interested in these objects became interested in contemporary art. Artists and open-minded visitors showed themselves to be attentive. They defrnitely noticed the likeness concealed under dissimilar surfaces and distinctive details. Also it became quite clear that art lovers form a loyal audience which is interested in life-long learning, a major goal of museums. How to promote genuine intercultural understanding without trying to erase the past?

With the newly-plarrned museum Ghent University wanted to make these ethnographic objects not only visible, but also useful in an educational context. The new University Museum narrative therefore needed to focus on research, on past histories of collections and on the relationships that created them. This last dimension seemed to be a good way to get into both the complex story of relations between Belgium and the objects' original societies, and the interesting biographies of the people responsible for the arrival of objects in the University. It was accepted as inevitable

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that there would be a big discrepancy between the histories of the collectors and those of the local artists and makers of the objects. As the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe once wrote "there is that great proverb that says until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter" (Brooks 1994). The philosopher Stefan Nowotni (2015, 61-3) notes that since the 1970s the role of ethnographic collections has changed. Conflict is part of their history. While this aspect is usually brushed aside their legitimacy is now sitting amidst great public interest. The legitimisation of the procurement of objects, which in a number of cases was absolutely negligent or even ruthless, makes curators, in the vision of the public, the accomplices of former collectors. As a consequence the colonial connotation of the telTIl ethnography is a real challenge to a curator.7 The aspect of a shared history tranSfOlTIlS these non-western ethnographic objects into "entangled objects'" as the British anthropologist and historian Nicholas Thomas (1991) calls them in his book of the same title. The aim is to be able to make these difficult histories connect with the objects as a subject of discussion. That is the main reason why it is necessary to develop new ethical interpretations of ethnographic objects. Museum narratives therefore have to centre on historical and ethical issues. From an ethical point of view it is important to be open and above board in showing the past of non-western collections, primarily because these colonial collections are invested with an aura of guilt. To create clarity about that past also implies that the critical aspect may not be disguised. Can museums bring hard facts to their displays, or do they have to put them mildly?9 In museums, we argue, direct questions 7 Nowotni (2015, 61-3) mentions that curators think their name dates to the first curatores res publicae, which round the year 100 acted as representatives of the Roman Empire in remote areas like the African provinces. They had to preserve public order and were responsible for the goods and commonwealth of the commlUlity. Also museum curators bear the responsibility for artifacts and objects of special value and meaning. In non-western collections these meanings are linked to a broader framework of economic-political powers and oppression, but also to new domains such as anthropology and modem aesthetics. This aspect may also offer new perspectives to create new openings. 8 In Entangled Objects Thomas integrates general issues into a historical discussion of the uses Pacific Islanders and Europeans have made of each other's material artifacts. 9 Mostly only big lines are drawn in discussions about colonisation. Exhibitions may succeed in presenting impertinent questions that may leave a deep impression on the public, such as the exhibition "Exit Congo Museum: A Century of Art with or without Paper", organised by the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren,

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can be asked, such as: "what is colonisation?", ''what were the existing connections between areas?", or "why are these objects here?" , "what is their context?", ''which interpretations have there been in the course of time?" and ''which interpretations are relevant now?" The research on collecting histories is so important because it also includes research on the origin of objects. Nowadays a lot of foreigners are interested in Belgium's non-western collections, because these collections also represent their history. They are also regarded as a vital parties to answer questions regarding digitization and digital repatriation. Therefore it should be stressed that objects and documentation are not only looked at from the point of view of Belgian researchers, but also the vie\vpoints of source communities, which should be integrated. The imbalance of the past is still with us today and must be challenged. The context, be it historical or contextual, curators of non-Western "entangled" collections offer visitors on museum walks and guided tours is of course highly selective and far from complete. Ben-Ami Scharfstein (2009, 15) explains that the value of contextual interpretation all comes dO\vn to empathy. Also there is the notion that we-curators and visitors­ reconstruct the context of a work of art in our minds, as we reconstruct it and embrace it within the context of our 0\Vll lives. Of course this reconstruction is artificial, but it can serve a serious desire to learn. And although this learning takes place within the context of a different culture, it can be sound-as far as it goes. But just as a language learned after childhood, is spoken with an accent, the art one sees outside of its full-and perhaps no longer existent-context, is seen with a foreign accent. Learning and life-long learning is a major goal of museums, as we all know. For the new University Museum the educational focus lies on a public of secondary school pupils from the age of 14 and 15 years. This means that from the viewpoint of the Ethnographic Collections it matters to find an age-appropriate connection. It happens that the final assessment level for these pupils requires them to have learned more about cultural near Brussels, in 2000. It took a critical response to the permanent display of the museum and the constitution of the museum's collection. The art of Congo was displayed in relation to its social and ritual context. The curator Boris Wastiau cooperated closely with the Congolese art historian and guest curator Tome Muteba Lutumbue who invited eight African artists critical of the permanent display to get involved. In the accompanying publication of the exhibit Wastiau (2000) emphasised how violence was often used to collect such objects but also how their original meaning changed as they travelled through Europe. The public reaction varied between those who responded enthusiastically and those who were shocked.

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diversity, about different world-views, ethics and religions. Consequently the context of non-western art objects could prove to be central for this education and to progress genuine inter-cultural understanding here means that the past cannot be excluded. The Education Department of Ghent University has recently chosen the education model of "multi-perspectiveness", which offers the possibility to approach contexts from different angles, to be able to handle different paradigms in order to encourage creative rethinking. The idea behind it is also that people look at the world from a certain perspective, and start from particular assumptions. A person that has learned to approach a phenomenon from multiple perspectives will be someone with a wider outlook. The practical model departs from the rigid notion that perception and the way one interacts are based on a unique combination of characteristics, style of communication, motivations, needs, etc. People may be dreamers, doers, rebels, or thinkers. The approach can be applied to motivate pupils, and gives teachers a better insight into how they can adapt their style of teaching and communication to the personality of everyone in their class. But also it offers the possibility to step, so to speak, in the shoes of people of other societies. As curator of the Ethnographic Collections, I want to adopt this so called Process Communication Model and translate it to museum practices, as it appears to contribute to a better contact with others in personal life (Mortier 2015, ii-iii). Martha Nussbaum (2010) speaks out for a Socratic and cosmopolitan vision of education. In her book Not for Profit she pleads for education that leads to democratic world citizenship. Kwame Anthony Appiah reinforces her view. He tells us that "we need to develop habits of coexistence", to "learn about people in other places, take an interest in their civilizations . . . . because it will help us to get used to one another" (2007, 17, 103)10. This is important as "conversations across the boundaries of identity-whether national, religious or something else-begin with a sort of imaginative engagement you get when you read a novel or watch a movie or attend to a work of art that speaks from some place other than your own" (ibid.). Both publications are inspiring when it comes to the fact that the new museum needs to create a strong vision of intercultural dialogue in what is called "storytelling in society". The social purpose of the museum includes also breeding greater familiarity with the rich diversity of the world, as it leads to greater understanding. After all, museum work is fundamentally about representation. l O In the original version: pages xix, 78.

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So, how can we put artifacts into action to stimulate these pupils to reflect? How can we teach these young people to cope with their world? Or how can we discuss together with them what the historic context of these objects may mean to their 0\Vll and our common world? 'What qualities of reflection are needed to give the impetus to a curious, exploring attitude? We argue that an inspiring and independent vision of the museum regarding the educational role of its objects should not shy away from confrontation; indeed, addressing conflicting views will be essential (Mulder 2010, 51). Like Professor Frans Olbrechts, I also want to promote genuine inter­ cultural understanding. And in this respect I would like to quote the Israeli philosopher Ben-Ami Scharfstein, who in 2009 wrote the book Art without Borders. Herein he tells us that "as well as creating, we need to contemplate artll to make our lives fuller and more focused, because in the contemplation of art we learn to demarcate ourselves more clearly, and at the same time become more individual and more social" (2009, 5). This is why in a broader museum narrative I want to do right by these objects, their aesthetic qualities and interesting contexts. Here, the challenge for me as curator is to combine the appreciation of the exhibited objects as art, with awareness of them as elements of foreign ways of life and as witnesses to alternative cultural perspectives, but also as relics of world history. From an ethical point of view it is most important to be open, and above board in showing the past of non-western collections as Belgium's colonial past is still quite taboo. Now the big challenge will be to explore the actual relevance of these non-Western collections within the academic heritage context. As science is invented as a Western "belief system", the museum narrative on modem science will likely also be in tenns of a "Euro-centric" view. Within the history of science this aspect is not to be ignored, but on the other hand museums also have a responsibility to pay attention to objects as cultural objets de memoire as Barbel Kerkhoff-Hader (2014, 33-4) puts it. Yet, non-western ethnographic objects are testimonies of a past that a former colonial power, like Belgium in this case, apparently prefers to forget. These objects are part of and tell stories of the heritage of their makers as 1 1 Scharfstein (2009, 9-10) argues that all experience has an aesthetic dimension. He uses the term aesthetic, as according to him the aesthetic aspect of life is anything in experience that is other than the merely literal or practical. This experience comes with the feeling that the world is in some ways alive and full of vision. He explains that it is the free interest we take in Oill acts, or thoughts, and the flUlctioning of our senses as well as it is in the mode of Oill conscious experience, in the mode of the imaginative response and the associative tie.

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much as they tell the stories of colonial times. They are authentic representatives of a cultural memory which is supported by different groups. Yet, the fact tbat these objects tie so many different stories together contributes to tbeir complexity. The artifacts have tbe capacity of an intelTIlediary, as they may give voice to both sides. They may become key to understanding a complicated past. And this is necessary as tbe colonial past is not yet digested. But this voice is not always claimed by the side of tbe previously colonised, the offspring of tbe makers of the objects. And if this is tbe case, it sometimes is done for purely political and not for cultural reasons. For source communities it is not always easy to reconnect culturally to these objects, which in their eyes were appropriated by the West. This makes these testimonies so entangled. For objects held in a museum in the West, it seems that the O\vner makes the choice of what will happen to tbese objects. And as tbe colonial past is getting more and more problematic, ethnographic museums find themselves at a turning point; they run the risk of closure, or having to tum their names into museums of world cultures. Yet, which role is reserved for the descendants of the makers of these objects who reside in the Diaspora? \\Tho might be permitted to come to a decision on the right to forget? May tbe descendants of the former colonial power decide? And do memories really vanish when they are directed to oblivion? Herewith I want to argue in favor of a broader context then that of science and scientific thinking.

What makes a museum friendly to people who don't know it? A lot of curators see it as their mission to involve source communities and those living in the Diaspora in their collections, and to start a dialogue with them. This is not meant by way of compensation for the course of events in earlier days, but as a "condition of engagement"12. This dialogue 1 2 Olga Van Oost (2016, 19) states in her book Museum van het Gevoel (The Empathy Museum) that there is a growing moral responsibility of museums, and that cmators incorporate a mediating role in this. Museums have, more than ever, a task in stimulating critical reflection and shaping citizenship. But it is not obvious that a museum will take on this challenge. It is a choice that demands courage and can have far-reaching consequences for the person who wants to follow this course. Even more than that it is an "institutional choice", it is often the individual choice of a curator. The "condition of engagement" is a personal matter, and not always welcomed by the muselllll. This topic also arose on the 39th edition of the

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can become a tool for discovering and enhancing knowledge, as well as for social cohabitation. By shifting our perspective, and looking at other paths to knowledge that members of source communities have developed, we might create the necessary conditions for hitherto unknO\vn knowledge to be revealed (Mazzocchi 2006, 463-6). The role of curators is now seen to have changed drastically. Starting from their curiosity and commitment (as the title of curator also holds references to the telTIlS "curious" and "care" or "concern") they want to create openings to contemporary times. Their job now includes entering into relations with new partners and audiences, and building inter-cultural bridges between non-western collections and a diverse society (Nowotni 2015, 61-3). For this reason I am grateful to Griot Tshitenge, a member of the Congolese source community who presents himself as a member of the Bantoe speaking population group, with whom I began working during the national Heritage Day in 2014 (figA). Tshitenge took the public, including his friends and members of the Congolese community he brought around, on a trip through the past. He talked about his native culture, taking points of departure from traditional objects on display. He explained-sometimes accompanied by his musical instrument-how these objects played their role in society, its customs and in its religious beliefs. Tshitenge's perfolTIlance added new layers and new interpretations to these objects, which was very inspiring. Notably, he showed me that commercial collections can be interesting, if they refer to the continuity of a tradition. For instance, I received some Congolese raffia-textiles dating back to the 1970s. As a specialist I prefer the earlier made examples, as these are more refined, and more intricate. However, during Heritage Day, I discovered that his Congolese friends were more attracted to the newer ones, as these reminded them of those O\vned by their grandparents and parents. The aspect of heritage is certainly important, as source communities in Diaspora recognise those objects as their cultural heritage. They took these objects with them from their places of origin, because the objects were made to function as mementos.

American Indian Workshop, titled "Arrows of Time: Narrating the Past and Present," held in Ghent, Belgium (2018). During the session on "Decolonizing Museums" researchers, concerned with topics related to the Native Peoples of North America, noted that the original context of objects of their cultural heritage is often being appropriated and again "colonised" in Emopean museums. For example, these objects are included in a museum's 0"Wll story without an information layer that explains their specific biography.

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Figure 9.4 Griot Tshitenge. Photo VZW Aksanre.

As Griot Tshitenge considers spirituality an essential matter in relation to the treatment of ethnographic objects, his audience was able to grasp the idea that these objects are more than mere things and may embody a wealth of wisdom. His explanation did lead inevitably to interesting questions by the public. He offered the Belgian visitors the opportunity to venture beyond an exoticizing vision of his native culture, by telling stories about how things were then, and how they are now. And in this way, he also informed the young Belgian children with an African background more about the roots of their culture and seemed to instill in them a pride in their heritage. From reactions I got later, I understood that visitors felt they were participating in an emotionally rewarding cultural event. This means that people, who are interested in the diversity of world cultures, do not only ask for information or education, but are also very open to members of these source communities and encourage creating a friendly meeting-place within the museum walls. So fortunately, little by little, visitors from source communities are also seen to enter the Ethnographic Collections, especially since we invite some of them to cooperate with us. Heritage

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Day is a pre-eminent occasion during which out of the ordinary activities can be organised.13 Events such as Heritage Day again make clear that a better knowledge about other cultures does not only contribute to empathy and respect, but also to a better understanding of one's 0\Vll culture. These events promote genuine inter-cultural understanding without trying to erase the past. On the contrary, it makes the past a topic of conversation, as for instance these Congolese raffia-textiles evoked strong memories. And, as mentioned before, the aspect of talking together is so important, as the sense of guilt about the colonial past is still so strong in Belgium that we would like to banish it totally from our minds. Fortunately, as noted earlier, these Diaspora communities are also becoming more and more a party to questions regarding digitization and digital repatriation, and therefore we also have to consider source communities as new audiences. For that reason it should be encouraged that objects and documentation are not only looked at from the point of view of Belgian researchers, but also the vie\vpoint should be integrated of present-day source communities. For instance it might be an idea to create trainee posts for "researchers in residence". It would be great if there were the possibility for research of that sort within the context of the new University Museum. This would help to diminish the imbalance of the past, which is still effective today. Possibly it could be interesting for other academic institutions to work together on this point, to make such research feasible. 14 1 3 The theme in 2016 year of the ritual is of course: rituals! In Ghent we set up a cooperation of heritage organisations and public institutions who work with migrants. We invited people of different origin to function as ambassadors and asked them to select ritual objects from their culture for a small exhibition. Also we asked them to explain more about these things within the program of different comrlllmity centers in the nineteenth century (outlying) districts, where a lot of migrants are housed. Migrants from 158 different nations live in Ghent. Unfortunately, there is not really a direct relationship between the ethnic groups living and trading in the city and those represented in the non-western ethnographic collections. So we focused on those groups which we could provide artifacts for. 14 Meetings between source comrlllmities and collections can be made possible through diplomatic contacts with the Department of International Relations of Ghent University. In 2017 the Ethnographic Collections department of Ghent University Museum worked together with the Indonesian Student Organisation PPI chapter Ghent for two exhibitions. "On Plant Trip" took place in the Botanical Gardens of the University. Here the students, together with Indonesian people who live in Ghent and smrOlmdings, explained more about the cultural context of

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Moreover, participating members of source communities are usually also good ambassadors who welcome people from different backgrounds enthusiastically, to the museum. They eventually make a museum friendly to people who are not familiar with it and do not know its collections.

Conclusion The aim to serve more diverse audiences than the single target public of structured thinking scholars, students and secondary school-pupils, will certainly be rewarding. Within the new University Museum we need to include visitors of all descents, of all ages, of all personalities, and foster their curiosity. We need to play along with their preferences and prejudices, as new knowledge comes into being in places where one puts oneself beyond one's acquired view of what is obvious and start questioning. And of course, in a more global world, ethnographic objects­ whether they are seen as non-western art objects or as heritage objects­ may act as a meeting point of different cultures. These collected objects are, as mentioned before-because of the makers of the objects-shared heritage. They tell us stories of former encounters and also have the capacity to "act" in new contacts with groups of "others" that present-day Belgium has grown to include. Let us hope that it may be possible to build up good relationships with them within the context of Belgian museums and also within Ghent University Museum. I will need the active support of artists and the open-minded visitors of the present day, as well as the source connnunities who are represented by the objects of the collections. It is a great opportunity to start a conversation with members of these source communities to build a more complete "dialogue of cultures". Shared human patrimony goes beyond "Euro-centrism". We need to be aware of the fact that we all have a culturally coloured view on things. And with regard to ethnographic objects we also should recognise that these academic heritage objects have also their 0\Vll cultural context. They may have other meanings than we may see at first sight. They often come from non-literate cultures in which no distinctions are made between empirical and sacred; they may embody Indonesian plants in the greenhouses, as well about the etlmographic objects on display. The exhibition showed objects from traditional daily life. "Inspiring Indonesia" confronted works of artists inspired by Indonesia, with related objects from Indonesia. Both exhibitions were part of the Europalia Indonesia Festival. In this project knowledge exchange with these foreign students and members of SOlU"Ce comrlllmities was useful. Also the Indonesian Embassy showed interest in the project, and plans are made to continue these contacts.

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a wealth of wisdom, strong symbolic dimensions or spiritual knowledge. Talking and working together with members of source communities adds new interpretations and new layers of meaning to objects and creates new friendships. In this way a museum can also a play a role as a haven where people meet who like to make the world a better place.

CHAPTER TEN THE VIETNAMESE WOMEN' S MUSEUM: SOCIAL ROLES AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

LE THJ THW HoAN

Introduction The Vietnamese Women's Museum (VWM) was established in 1987, and officially opened to the public in 1995. Located in the centre of Hanoi, the museum is dedicated to researching, collecting and exhibiting the life stories and experiences of Vietnamese women. The vw:M explores the diverse roles of women in contemporary Vietnamese society, and the great contributions they have made throughout history. The mission of the museum is to enhance public knowledge and understanding of the rich history and cultural heritage of Vietnamese women. The museum aims to achieve this mission by researching, collecting, preserving and introducing key ideas in exhibitions. The exhibits highlight the objects collected through anthropological and gender-specific approaches, involving diverse and multi-directional reflection of women's issues in historical and contemporary life. Most importantly, the VWM notably breaks with notions of the traditional museum in maintaining ongoing dialogue and discussion with the museum's community for sustainable development, which contributes to the promotion of human rights in general and gender equality in particular. Most importantly for VWM's human rights agenda is their partnership with the Vietnam Women's Union (VWU), a socio-political organisation representing the legal and legitimate rights and interests of Vietnamese women of all strata in society. The VWU was initially established in 1930. At present, there are around 17 million members in the union striving for women's development and gender equality.

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The museum reopened i n 2010 following a four-year plarming and renovation process. The current pelTIlanent exhibition embraces three broad themes: Women in Family; Women in History; and Women's Fashion. There is also a special exhibition on religion entitled Worshipping Mother Goddesses: Heart, Beauty, Joy. In addition to the permanent exhibits, there is a discovery room available with interactive and educational activities for children. Arumally, the museum hosts a series of temporary exhibitions, with community participation, in order to reflect contemporary life and issues affecting different groups of women, such as women who are less fortunate economically, including: women who work as peddlers; women who are victims of drugs and Hrv/AIDS; women who are subject to trafficking; women suffering domestic violence; and female entrepreneurs. After a comprehensive renovation and reopening in 2010, the VWM has gradually become a popular museum, not only locally, but also at the international level. The museum's activities have been recognised and appreciated by domestic and foreign publics, researchers, and social activists, as well as museum professionals. The pelTIlanent and thematic exhibitions are well laid out with interesting and fresh content; educational and public programs are well received and articles are published in professional magazines and journals. For five consecutive years the museum has been ranked in the top 10 of Vietnam's museums and the top 25 of Asian museums by TripAdvisor. In 2015, the VWM was awarded the prestigious "Vietnamese Women Award" by Vietnam's Vice President for promoting gender equality and Vietnam's campaign for the advancement of women. This award specifically recognises the VWM's promotion of gender equality and the extensive campaigning for the advancement of Vietnamese women. The museum was also awarded "Best attraction in Vietnam" for three consecutive years 2015-2017 by the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism.

Basic social roles the VWM is implementing The success that the VWM has achieved in recent years demonstrates that the museum has been in the right place at the right time. The museum identifies as a gender-based museum, thus making it distinctive and attractive to an increasingly demanding and discerning public. However, the question remains: "How to maintain this unique position and further develop interesting and diversified content to meet the publics' interests?" At the same time, the VWM needs to stay relevant among competing museums and cultural institutions which are constantly evolving and

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providing innovative and creative programmes. The VWM has the opportunity to highlight current social messages and make practical contributions to benefit the community, but the museum staff need to gauge how best to effectively present topics not only to the present-day community but also to appreciate the changing needs of diverse communities in the future. In order to best address these concerns, the VWM, with consideration of its mission, vision, and available resources, intends to fulfill some basic roles. The roles are seen as: preserving and promoting historical and cultural values connected with Vietnamese women; and educating audiences on these values and associated issues of human rights to progress gender equality.

Figure 10.1 Display of women selling from bicycles at the Vietnamese Women's Museum. Photo Viv Golding, with grateful thanks to the Vietnamese Women's Museum.

Preserving historical and cultural values

Throughout all of their operational processes, the VWM always focuses on and puts effort into scientific research, collection research and contemporary collecting, historical conservation and promoting cultural values that relate to Vietnamese women's issues from the past to the present. However, the

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meaning and the connotation of preserving activities have continuously changed in the practical operation of the Museum. Before 2010, the VWM focused more on researching and preserving historical and cultural values that originated from the past, and their extensive collection of artifacts were called upon to represent characteristic events, and highlight typical and famous historical characters. In recent years, following reopening, preserving activities are more oriented towards inheritance to reflect both the changes and the connections that remain with the past. The existing cultural values, the contemporary human, social issues collected and presented in the exhibitions today, makes the link between the VWM and the society closer and more authentic. Vietnamese women's issues are not only studied and recognised from cultural and social perspectives but also through a gender lens and from gender equality perspectives. In other words, the museum's approach to preserving historical and cultural values has been modified over time and a cultural anthropological approach is now widely adopted when conducting research and developing exhibition content. Themes, objects, and stories are presented in a specific context, and in cultural and social relationships. This approach can clearly be seen in the pemmnent exhibition's three themes noted earlier, Women in Family, Women in History, Women's Fashion, as well as in the thematic and temporary exhibitions. Today the VWM contends that preservation should be closely linked with other activities in order to get the best results and comply with the museum's mission. The VWM recognises that the content of exhibitions does not need to be static and is continuously striving to find ways to engage the community. Historical and cultural values, as preserved in the exhibitions, can be used for promotion, education and research in current social issues as well as offering a vital means to get a particular community involved. For example, the VWM took this approach to engage the relevant communities and develop good quality products in the special exhibition Worshipping Mother Goddesses: Heart Beauty, Joy, and the temporary exhibitions Who Cares?, and Street Vendors. Notably, the trend of civic engagement in this method of preserving historical and cultural values is seen to benefit the museum's programmes and mission.

Promoting historical-cultural values and widening the image of Vietnamese women No matter how much effort the museum has put into its work, if those efforts are not turned into tangible products available for the public, then it is hard to determine the impact of the museum. At the VWM, the role of

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promoting historical-cultural values is at the core of its mission. The goal is to provide many outcomes from the pelTIlanent and the temporary exhibits, to public and educational programmes and events. To effectively implement the promotion of historical cultural values and widen the image of Vietnamese women in contemporary life to the public, the VWM thoroughly considers a range of related aspects when selecting the content, objects, and how best to promote these values. Looking back to the past, the VWM paid most attention to developing the content of the permanent exhibition or the thematic exhibits, but in recent years, the museum has conducted visitor surveys to better understand what the public wants from events and exhibitions. Today each event or exhibition is appropriately linked in a series of different activities such as public and educational programs, interactions, and workshops to better meet the diverse needs of the community. The VWM has effectively developed and maintained cooperative relationships with embassies in Hanoi, museums, a variety of government and higher education institutions, and NGOs. Many cultural events have been co-organised with the museum. The museum is in a unique position to serve as a cultural bridge and exchange centre between Vietnamese and international women. Some examples of cooperation between the VWM and embassies and cross-cultural sharing are as follows: Cooperation with the Italian Embassy to Vietnam to organise the closing and awarding ceremony for the competition "How Great I am", organised by the Embassy and the Vietnam Women's Union with the participation of hundreds of women nationwide. Cooperation with the Belgium Embassy to Vietnam, the UN Women in Vietnam, and the Vietnamese Women's Union to organize the competition "Gender Equality - Picture it!" Additionally a ceremony was held to armounce the winner of the competition and the opening of an exhibition at the VWM. Cooperation with the Japanese and Korean Embassies to Vietnam in Hanoi to hold exhibitions, and festivals introducing their cultures to Vietnamese public. In addition, the museum continues to seek memberships with cultural heritage organisations and other museum associations. To date, the VWM is a member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Association of Women's Museums (IAWM), the Asian and European Museum Association (AS EMUS), and the Inter-City Intangible Cultural Cooperation Network (ICCN).

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Education on historical�ultural values, gender, and gender equality Educating on historical--cultural value This role of education on historical-cultural values is considered an important mission for the VWM and vital in their aim to promote intergenerational understanding. The VWM wants to attract young people and in order to effectively reach this target audience, the museum cooperates with a range of partners to organise activities and provide an interesting and interactive experience for students. For many years, the VWM has been cooperating with schools and organising special educational activities. The VWM brings mobile exhibitions to universities, high schools, secondary and primary schools in Hanoi and the surrounding areas. The VWM also maintains events or temporary exhibitions at the museum and offers education programmes for school-aged children and families in the museum's discovery room. Mobile exhibitions are offered ammally and have evolved over the years. Before 2010, a mobile exhibition, altbough of high quality as outlined below, simply came with a written guide developed by tbe museum staff. In recent years, the mobile exhibition has become more robust and is accompanied with a more detailed guide and a wider range of educational and interactive activities. Some examples of the VWM's educational outreach work are as follows: The exhibition Traditional and modern jewelry of women from ethnic groups in Vietnam (2006) represented a variety of Vietnamese women's jewelry that is diverse in terms of design, type, material, and construction from different historical periods. The VWM collaborated with the University of Hanoi's School of Industrial Arts and the Hanoi Open University in order to reach more students. A number of activities were organised, such as: The Fashion Show "Impression in March", and the display of jewelry designed by students, to which visitors were invited and asked to vote for their favourite, with an award for the best rated piece. These activities promoted the creativity of students as well as celebrating the traditional culture and art that served as an inspiration for the contemporary designs. The exhibition Women-Changing Destiny (2007) told tbe stories of 30 women from different situations who overcame difficulties and

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made efforts to positively change their futures. These stories brought visitors a comprehensive and deep view into the life of contemporary women, leaving the visitor sympathising with and better appreciating these women. The VWM collaborated with the Labour Newspaper and other relevant organisations to launch a writing competition entitled "The women who change destiny" (2007). In Vietnam, there is a phrase, "Gioivi�cnu&c, dfunvi�cnha", which can be loosely translated into "Vietnamese Women: good at national tasks and good at housework." Modem day Vietnamese women are expected to reach this ideal bencInnark and be successful in both the public and domestic spheres of life. The articles produced for this competition provide examples of women who are successfully fulfilling their dual roles as provider for the nation and family. This writing competition discovered and honored many typical women. Alongside this project the VWM also organised educational activities for 450 students from Nguyen Du Secondary School including: visiting the exhibition and taking part in an event that encouraged them to write or draw the image of women represented in the exhibition. The goal of these activities was to have students respect and honour the values of traditional family life in modern society. In conjunction with the exhibition Street Vendors (2008) and a "Train the Trainer" workshop, the VWM launched an event for students of the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities that encouraged them to write about, film and photograph female vendors in Hanoi. Then the students exhibited these works at the VWM.

Educating on gender, and gender equaliIy As a women's museum, the VWM is uniquely positioned to provide a platform on topics such as gender and gender equality. The VWM has dedicated much time and effort into creating a series of events and activities to educate a young audience on gender, sex, and gender equality. The museum has collaborated with schools and clubs to organise a special student tour on the theme "Mom and kid" and to encourage participation in educational programs in the discovery room. After visiting the permanent exhibit Women in Family, school children were asked to watch the cartoon "How Tonnny was born". Afterwards, the children were able to play games related to the content of the cartoon in order to better

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understand the "secret" of mom when pregnant. Older school children received more in-depth information about sexual reproduction through a series of drawings "Where Willy Went, the big story of a little sperm". Through tliis film they received important information, that otherwise may not be discussed in school or at home. The presentation of materials was engaging and interactive, which helped alleviate any stigma attached to tlie subject matter. This activity has been well received by teachers, parents, school children and the media. In 2016, with support from UNESCO Vietnam, the VWM cooperated with experts on gender, the Voice of Vietnam, the Vietnam Institute of Educational Science, and the Hanoi Experimental Secondary School, to hold a series of training courses on gender for museum staff, teachers and school children. The training course equipped trainees with useful knowledge on gender, sex, and gender equality. As a result of the training courses, the "Little Ambassador" programme on gender equality was created for the community. The Little Ambassador delivers messages on gender equality at schools in the community through talks, presentations and special elements presented on Voice of Vietnam. After the training course, the museum staff was better equipped to put gender related topics into practice through education programmes. Additionally the relationship between museum staff and teachers was strengthened, enabling the proposal of future cooperative activity. In 2017, UNESCO continued to support the VWM to renovate the discovery room for children, turned the space into an interactive comer for children to play, interact and learn about the difference between sex and gender; housework sharing; self-protection etc.

Reflecting on contemporary issues and the voices of marginalised groups to review social issues and implement change Recently, international forums and organisations for museums such as rCOM, have discussed how a museum is considered a "safe place for sensitive/dangerous ideas". Each year, rCOM chooses a socially relevant theme for International Museum Day (IMD). The tlieme chosen for 2017 was "Museums and Contested Histories: Saying tlie Unspeakable in Museums" (http://network.icom.museumlinternational-museum-day/imd2017/the-theme/). In today's society a museum is expected to engage tlie community and be a relevant place for reflection on and discussion of contemporary issues. As this chapter demonstrates, this trend is not new to the VWM. In fact, survey results and feedback from tlie public indicate

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that they expect to see current social issues represented in the VWM. Thus in recent years, the VWM has been trying to raise the voice of women, and to reflect on their lives by sharing the challenges, difficulties and sacrifices women continue to make and the efforts made to positively move forward. Many temporary and thematic exhibitions are socially critical, and provide a voice for the marginalised and unfortunate women such as: The life of women in fishing village Cua Van (2004), Who Cares ? (2006) which told the stories of women with HIVIAIDS; Women-Changed Destiny (2007); Peaceful Place (20 1 1), which reflected on the trafficking of women; Shining Night (2012), about migrant women at the night market Long Bien; Stories ofMarkets (2014); Cartoon Drawings on Gender Equality (2015), Stories ofResilience: Women living with disasters, and Stories of Getting Old (2016).

Figure 10.2 Display of women sheros at the Vietnamese Women's Museum. Photo Viv Golding, with grateful thanks to the Vietnamese Women's Museum. A typical example of the museum' s efforts to raise the vOices of marginalised groups includes the following temporary exhibits: Street Vendors (originally opened in September 2008 but a smaller exhibit still remains on display) tells the story of migrant women who are street vendors in Hanoi. Around 200 photos, which reflect

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their multifaceted lives, are vividly represented together with touching yet challenging stories about their existence, and their jobs in the current economic situation. For this exhibition the museum staff interviewed 97 people, captured more than 1000 photos and recorded more than 10 CDs of information. Of the 97 women interviewed, 37 people agreed to tell their stories for the exhibition. There are also two short films, with no "professional" commentary but only the voices of the insiders, both positive and negative, talking about their lives and their expectations when the Hanoi Local Government decided to ban street vendors on certain streets. Those films helped change the public perception of these women, by bringing their thoughts and emotions to thousands of visitors. The VWM has received hundreds of positive feedback reviews on TripAdvisor as well as other sources who specifically mention the significance of the fihns and the activity of the museum in this area. Collaboration was not limited to the pemmnent educational activities that clearly connected the community with visitors, as the VWM also collaborated with Cinematheque in Hanoi to launch the filin Street Vendors-Their Voices with the presence of the film director, and characters. At the launch the audience was offered the chance to interact with the director to and learn more about the lives of the fihn's characters. In October 2016, the exhibition The Stories of Getting Old was presented to the public. It was developed in the context of an ongoing social debate: "Is it inevitable or disloyal to send parents to a nursing home?" Traditionally, Vietnamese society maintains the philosophy that "Young children depend on parents, old parents depend on children" but in modem society, many elderly people often feel lost with the hectic pace of life while their children are busy with work and study. Applying an anthropological approach and a "photo voice" methodology (giving cameras to characters), stories of elderly people's lives are expressed through three themes: Dreams; Intimate thoughts of old people; and Where the New Life Begins. The exhibition focuses on the personal thoughts of elderly people on happiness, love, joy, sadness and loneliness. The Stories of Getting Old also raises the voice of the community on sending parents to a nursing home and gives the following key messages: shorten the gap between generations and cherish and love elderly people. The exhibition attracted a multigenerational audience and brought the elder's thoughts and emotions to visitors of all ages.

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Creating a forum on women's issues with community participation, thus raising public awareness There is no doubt that if the VWM reflected on social issues, such as gender equality, but did not engage witb the community, the public would not benefit and there would be limited opportunities to raise awareness on these important issues. The VWM always tries to engage selected audiences or the subjects of the exhibitions in the museum's activities from the research process through to installation and educational activities. Both the museum staff and the community participate in selecting stories and delivering them to the public. Some exhibitions and events bring long­ term benefits for the community, notably including raising awareness about their cultural heritage, specific artisan techniques, and also the creation of jobs for people with the promise to sell tbeir handicrafts in the museum shop. For example, while working on the temporary exhibition Street Vendors, the VWM organised training courses for 20 female street vendors, equipped them with a better understanding on the importance of not polluting your environment, ensuring food safety and the selling of quality food, and obeying the rules of tbe city. The core of 20 street vendors then delivered the infmmation to thousands of other street vendors through documents and face-to-face discussions. The temporary exhibition Sinr;le Mother's Voices (opened in March 2011) is another example of the VWM's contribution to improving the economic and social position for marginalised women. Using anthropological and social approaches, 20 single mothers in Tan Minh commune, Soc Son district, Hanoi were trained in methods to collect oral histories and document their lives through photographs. They spent two montbs recording their lives and what is important to them with a camera provided by tbe museum. Over 1000 photographs were collected and 100 were selected and displayed with tbe heading "Things we want to share." These were fresh and honest stories of single mothers concerning their family lives, social activities, their challenges and their dreams. Throughout the exhibition, the audience got to know about life as a single mother, how these women overcame gender stereotypes and social biases, their feeling of happiness in raising their children and securing their family's economic situation. The exhibition helped the commuinty to sympathise with and appreciate single mothers-a marginalised group in Vietnamese society. The temporary exhibition Internet and Women-Opportunity and Chanr;e (opened in November 2014) is part of the project "Internet changed the life of rural women", a collaboration between the VWM and Fair Spectrum, an

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internet and communications company from Finland. The exhibition presented the voice of not only rural women, but also their husbands and children. Male and female members from local authorities discussed noticeable changes in the lives of rural women in Hung Yen province as a result of access to the internet. 'When working on the project, the vw:M supported rural women with laptops and internet access. The museum created a forum to train the women in how to access the internet effectively and provided an outlet for the women to discuss and exchange ideas. 'When the exhibition opened, many rural women from Hung Yen and their families came to attend and interact with the visitors. Finally it is worth noting the Bazaar. Every year, the Hanoi International Women's Club organises a Bazaar. The vw:M and artisans, who created the objects displayed in the museum, provide demonstrations of traditional craft techniques, which enables them to share their cultural values and highlight their special skills for the public, who may then be encouraged to purchase their products. The Bazaar, like each thematic and temporary exhibition in the VWM, offers a unique experience from conception to installation, but the end result always aims to raise the voices of the particular marginalised group and increase awareness within the larger community.

Conclusion Museums around the world are constantly evolving in telTIlS of quantity, quality, type and form of operation. While the VWM contends that the "traditional" roles of museums remain valuable, the key challenge is seen as providing the public with richer experiences and promoting more profound discoveries of ourselves and others. As a gender-based museum, the vw:M will continue to promote the personal stories of women in Vietnamese society. This chapter has sho'Wll, through a series of examples, that the museum is dedicated to presenting and widening the historical­ cultural values attached to the image of Vietnamese women. It is by providing venues, in-house and at outreach sites, that communities are actively engaged in dialogue on current social issues that directly impact women in contemporary Vietnamese society.

PART FOUR THE POLITICS OF BELONGING: ART, REFUGE AND CITIZENSHIP

CHAPTER ELEVEN SHARING AUTHORITY: "THE ART OF MAKING A DIFFERENCE" ANNA MARIA PECCI

Introduction The Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography at the University of Turin (Italy) has recently started to explore an innovative path of practice leading to inc1usivity. This chapter will focus on the participatory project "The Art of Making a Difference" (2012 and 2013-2014) which adopted an interdisciplinary perspective to facilitate a relational process among yOlUlg artists, outsider artists, and educators that led to cultural appropriations and fe-interpretations of the Museum's heritage. The disciplines of art and anthropology informed dialogic creative practices which fostered the participants' cultural empowelTIlent and the institution's social agency. A collaborative and multi-vocal approach challenged the Museum staff's comfort zone of working within disciplinary boundaries and role divisions. The classifications and narratives into which collections had been institutionally inscribed were avoided, and rather fe-presented alongside new artworks that resulted from intense actions of negotiation and mediation. As the Museum's external consultant and project coordinator, in order to address these issues I will first introduce the Museum's innovative approach towards heritage with reference to a previous project whose theoretical and methodological premises and outcomes have paved the way to "The Art of Making a Difference" (AMD). Secondly, I will provide a reflexive insight into AMD. Finally, I will outline an overview of the institution's possible future developments.

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A legacy of premises The Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography at the University of Turin was founded by Professor Giovanni Marro in 1926. Currently, its heritage consists of different collections divided into primatological, anthropological, paleontological, photographic and ethnographic material. Due to safety measures, the institution has been closed to the public since 1984 and is expected to move to the Anatomical Institutes of the University of Turin, adjacent to the Museum Luigi Rolando and the Museum of Criminal Anthropology of Cesare Lombroso. Notwithstanding such constraints, in order to face this transition, the Museum has maintained its ordinary institutional activities in the fields of research, teaching, documentation, conservation, and display within its still accessible areas1, while keeping a constant eye on the international ongoing transfOlmations within the heritage sector (Rabino and Boano 2003; Mangiapane and Pecci 2014). In 2008 the Museum took the opportunity to gaui visibility for its "hidden heritage" (Rabuio and Boano 2003) through the participatory project "Tongue to Tongue. A Collaborative Exhibition"2 The initiative allowed for an unprecedented exploration into the intercultural potential of the ethnographic collections, which were for the first time conceived not as mere instruments of knowledge but as means for contributing to social inclusion and cohesion. Museum educators and a group of citizens-mainly working as cultural mediators-coming from Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Morocco, Romania and Senegal were involved in the building of a dialogue between different voices and cultural perspectives in order to challenge the singular authority of the Museum. A Training Course for Mediators of Intercultural Heritages, which embedded a process of cultural empowerment, cuhninated in the collaborative exhibition "Tongue to Tongue" (17 November 2008-31 January 2009), a range of nuie autobiographical 1 Since 1997 several exhibitions have been addressed to school groups, families and visitors in order to show collections otherwise only available to students from the University. 2 The project was promoted by the Musemn of Anthropology and Etlmography at the University of Tmin and was based on an institutional partnership with the Centre for African Studies of Tmin the leading body and Holden Art, a cultural association committed to the application of storytelling techniques to heritage. The initiative was coordinated by the Turin City Council within the framework of MAP for ID-Musemns as Places for Intercultural Dialogue (2007-2009), a wider project supported by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the Emopean Union. Accessed November 24, 2017. http://ibc.regione.emilia-romagna.itlistituto/progettilprogetti­ emope ilmusei e-beni-culturalilmap-for id. _

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showcases conceived and mounted by the group of participants in cooperation with the Museum staff and an architect/exhibition designer. Mediators were free to choose from the ethnographic collections the objects with which they identified culturally and/or emotionally: even artefacts not directly related to their own cultural background, but holding a particular significance as they evoked the mediator's personal history, or revealed a link with hislher expertise and memories. For this reason, participants did not act as representatives of the cultures they come from, but as cultural interpreters or "witnesses". Each of them showed the pieces selected from the Museum's collections together with some personal objects of affection in order to incorporate their O\Vll migratory stories in the display. The final result was a non-hierarchical display, a space in which the act ofjuxtaposing museum pieces with personal objects, and the blurring of the boundaries between tangible and intangible heritages, created a new arena of meanings leading to a reinterpretation and recontextualisation of collections. The installations were not inscribed in a thematic framework but rather juxtaposed in order to create a range of different stories whose peculiarity consisted in the complete absence of an explanatory textual apparatus and the fundamental presence of a cultural mediator and a museum educator as "storytellers". Guided visits were hence replaced by dialogic narrative routes perfOlmed by the mediator/author of the showcase and a museum educator who exchanged knowledge and perspectives about the pieces belonging to the ethnogmphic collections. "Tongue to Tongue" consequently created a multi-vocal space of representation where the tongue of the Museum (institutional, scientific and didactic) engaged in a dialogue with the citizens' tongue (autobiographical, evocative and emotional)3. The process of appropriation and re-interpretation carried by cultural mediators thus allowed both to shift the focus from objects to people and the stories behind objects, and to challenge the interpretive authority of the Museum and curators through a sharing of real power over representations. The temporary "disruption" of the institutional authoritative voice, and its functioning as one voice among many, made it possible for other voices, offering their 0\Vll versions of history, to express their authorship and their 0\Vll interpretation, finding a legitimate place in an experimental inclusive space. The project's experimental dialogic methodology was determined by an anthropological notion of cultural heritage conceived as a social construction, a cultural practice, and a relational and negotiating process of 3 Hence the title of the exhibition, inspired by a song by the Italian group Radiodervish.

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meanings (Beghain 1998). Drawing on reflexive and critical anthropology (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Marcus and Fischer 1986) and collaborative museology (Phillips 2003), our practice was informed by Clifford's tbeory of the museum as a contact zone (1997) concerning the power relations implicit in museum' collections. FurthelTIlore, "Tongue to Tongue" was supported by a museological principle-pertaining to tbe museologie de la rupture practised by Jacques Hainard at the Musee d'Ethnographie de Neuchiltel-according to which objects should be considered as "pretexts" since they are not exposed for their own sake, but because they are inserted in a discomse, because they are becoming argmnents of a history that is putting into perspective one or another of their characteristics, be they aesthetic, functional or symbolic. [They are] in the service of a theoretical subject, of a discourse or of a story and not the contrary (Musee d'Ethnographie de Neuchatel n.d.).

On a practical level, we intended cultural inclusion as an opportunity and a challenge produced by multicultural society, that museums have started to meet in three areas: cultural access, participation, and representation as interpretation (Sandell 2002). Intercultural dialogue was understood in telTIlS of an interactive and bi-directional process-not only an end to reach-implying a sharing of skills and knowledge. On tbe one hand, it contributed to the conception and realisation of the exhibition, and on the other to develop heritage mediation as a practice of cultural empowelTIlent for participants aiming to promote awareness of the right of every citizen to take part in culture, develop social and cultural responsibility, and explore and build the power of a voice within a language that gives new sense and meaning to heritage. "Tongue to Tongue. A Collaborative Exhibition" was a great innovation for tbe Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography which required action as a facilitator, promoting rights to cultural access and participation. \¥bile testing new methods for the inclusive mediation of collections, the pilot project enabled the Museum's educators to meet the needs and opportunities produced by cultural diversity, and to acquire a new competence in the fields of participatory plarming, intercultural mediation, audience development, and cultural representation.

"The Art of Making a Difference" "Tongue to Tongue" finally succeeded in exploring the connecting function of the Museum and in promoting it as an arena of meanings that

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generate knowledge, rather than reproducing it. Its outcomes, then, proved that its potential as a social agent could provide seeds of a greater civic engagement. From

2012

to

2014

the Museum took the challenge of a new, more

intense, and multilayered commitment to diversity and inclusion. The two editions of "The Art of Making a Difference,,4 had a twofold aim: to enhance the Museum's heritage through contemporary art languages, and to support and promote a group of young artists through a process of cultural empowerment aiming to facilitate personal development, social inclusion and active citizenship. By testing contemporary languages of art as critical interpretive tools, the proj ect intended to bring about a reflection on the current dynamics of social and cultural inclusion and exclusion, starting from the participants' needs, experiences, and skills. For this purpose, collections were conceived as a "field" to explore the issue of difference within contemporary society from a perspective of access, mediation, and cultural representation. The group of participants was made up of young people, namely emerging artists, outsider artists-people either with physical or mental disabilities and relationship problems or living in socially disadvantaged situations5-and educators6 They attended an Interdisciplinary Workshop which took place in different urban venues (e.g. museums and sites of exhibition) and the training method of which-informed by empowered peer education-encouraged participants to play the role of both trainers and trainees. Artists together with educators were invited to work with collections in order to enhance the Museum 's heritage through the creation of relational artworks which were displayed on the occasion of temporary exhibitions at the end of each edition. While their shared choice was determined by a process of initial negotiation between different individual artistic and 4

The project was promoted by the cultural association Arteco in collaboration with the City of Turin and the Musemn of Anthropology and Ethnography at the University of Tmin (2012 and 2013-2014), and the University of Turin­ Department of Philosophy and Education (2012). Accessed November 24, 2017. http://\VWW.artedifferenza. it!. 5 One of the project's purposes was to consider how emerging artists and outsider artists can contribute to a principle of mainstrearning here conceived in terms of equal access for all to art and heritage. 6 Young, or emerging, artists were chosen through a public call, a pre-selection (CV, portfolio and a motivation letter), and an interview. Outsider artists were identified on the basis of their personal artistic production, interests and self­ awareness. Educators were selected through a public call. Relational skills were generally highly appreciated.

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professional interests and approaches, their 0\Vll interpersonal relationships were in parallel mediated by heritage itself, through the selection of inspiring pieces for their co-authored artworks. The cooperative kind of relationship that was developed along the first edition of the project (2012) was defined as "threeing", since each of the five groups of participants was formed by an emerging artist, an outsider artist and an educator. The second edition (2013-2014) was based instead on partnership work between a young artist and an outsider artist. The Interdisciplinary Workshop led in both cases to the production of relational and co-authorial works of art through a process of interaction between anthropology and art. Participants in fact worked mainly with objects belonging to the anthropological, ethnographic and Art Brut collections which-by virtue of their commitment to the representation of cultural diversity and difference-encouraged them to undertake a "social work" of challenging stereotypes and prejudices (Golding 2013). The Art Brut collection was at the core of the project for the position it occupies among the ethnographic collections of the MuselUll and for the disciplinary classification that problematises its "anthropological difference": materially it consists of approximately two hundred handicrafts made by patients in the former Psychiatric Hospital at Collegno (near Turin) between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. The relational artworks inspired by the pieces belonging to this peculiar collection neither questioned the binary classification of ethnography vs. art, nor discussed the presence of Art Brut within the Museum's ethnographic collections. They were, rather, the expression of a critical gaze that shed light on unexpected points of view, new material approaches, and thought-provoking imaginaries. Michela Depetris, Daniela Leonardi and Marius Pricina were, for instance, interested in an embroidered fabric which reminded them of a bed sheet. They were also struck by some mummies seen in the storage of the Museum who looked like they were sleeping. Starting from such shared impressions, they decided to work on the subject of dOlmitories. Marius then guided the young artist and the educator in an exploration of diverse urban spaces. Photographs were the media all of them chose to represent the experience and most importantly represent themselves as cultural agents. Their urban jlaneries-consisting in geographical and social displacements which led to exchange, interpretation and (re)construction of roles, spaces of life, plots of meanings and brand new relations-were revealed to be both the field and the creative strategy of collaborative authorship which produced the installation "One on One I

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Provisional Project with Permanent Felt-tip" (2012), made of bed sheets, borrowed from public dOlmitories, on which they handwrote reflections, memories, feelings, and emotions all relating to the issues of social marginality, disadvantage, and the subtle frontier between outside and inside. On tbe other hand Maya Quattropani and Ernesto Leveque's artwork, "The Narrative City" (2014), resulted instead from a practice of exploration and investigation which took the Museum's archive as its "field". The cultural technique of archiving (through photographs and inventory cards) was the starting point and material basis for their artistic co-production. They addressed the museological ordering of objects belonging to tbe European ethnographic collection and transposed tbe method of classification to a series of objects accidentally discovered along a daily practice of derives urbaines. The final result consisted in the production of a parallel, tbough alternative, archive of photographs and inventory cards, integrated by watercolour drawings, documenting contemporary "ethnographic" objects (e.g. an umbrella, a wooden walking stick, a comb) selected on the basis of technical, material, and symbolic affinities with those stored in the Museum. The relational artistic process not only conveyed the fOlmer use of objects, but transferred them to a new use tbrough media of contemporary everyday life which created tbe possibility of bringing tbem back on a symbolic level. These two artworks exemplify the kind of relations each participant established witb the heritage of the Museum which enabled the creation of a shared space. The shared space of creativity-built around tbe appropriation and re-interpretation of the Museum's collections-was lived in terms ofnegotiation, transfer, sometimes even friction between different stories, abilities, personal knowledge, ethical and aesthetical sensitivities and emotions. The methodological approach was grounded in a participatory planning which implied: the engagement of beneficiaries in the conception and realisation of the project's phases; a mediating relation among the participants' competencies aiming to share and enhance them; the adoption of a methodological flexibility; a constant (self)reflexive approach. In other words, the participatory process may be said to have acted as a generative method of shared creativity and artistic plurality. It produced a tangible and intangible dimension tbat implied real potential for transfOlmation, as witnessed here by a few quotations taken from the multiply voiced catalogue of the first exhibition: This experience has made us aware of the fact that there is no art without a "we", without a ''you'' and without an "I". No one creates all alone. Everything is made with and in the relationship. Within the group, each

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person is influenced by the others. The work of art comrlllmicates something about the sensitivity of the artists and allows the artists to express themselves and recognize themselves in it (Virginia Gargano 2012, 43). The relationship between us has gmwn in parallel with our thinking concerning the work, or rather, has grown thanks to the work, which turned out to be the effect of the relationship itself (Giulia Gallo 2012, 67). For those who have always worked alone, it is very difficult to deal with others, and also to lUldertake a path that will lead people to create a work of art. It's a positive fact, instead, that this can create a collective spirit, and above all, finally a way to enhance the work (Ario Dal Be. 2012, 55).

I shall emphasise such processual aspects with reference to a key concept which I deem of relevance to both the theoretical level and the practical development of the project According to Schneider, "appropriation" IS

a defining characteristic of the relationship between contemporary art and anthropology, and of the ways in which both engage with cultural difference (. . . ) [It] is usually charged with the implication of some 'inappropriate' action in taking something from one context and placing it into another. I want to propose a new approach to appropriation, which, whilst not doing away with the implied imbalances, puts the stress on learning and transformation (2006, 30, 36). It operates in the works of artists and anthropologists by virtue of its hermeneutic function and, as "an act of dialogical understanding" (ibid.), it allows them to "negotiate access to, and traffic in, cultural differences" (ibid.). As a means and a process of mediation, appropriation was first experienced by participants within their interpersonal relations since it facilitated increasing autonomy and agency through the acquisition and exchange of knowledge and of individual and social skills. Secondly, it enabled artists and educators to question, transcend, and transpose the "museum life" of collections. This process temporarily renewed the role played by the Museum which reciprocally appropriated relational creative practices and artworks as a means to unveil its social agency. All the projects' actors, including the Museum education staff, were thus engaged in experimenting with an alternative production of knowledge. On the one side, this practice led to a challenge to the interpretive authority of the Museum and to explore its reflexive and critical potential.

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On the other side, participants were encouraged to face diversity and its complexities, not erase them, thus discovering the transforming effects of difference and the condition for a new personal cultural agency. Collaborative interactions allowed participants to inscribe a reflexive approach both in the mediation of the Museum's heritage, and in the creative process based on plural practices of shared art. As these quotations state, they reframed mainstream classifications of art and artist in terms of a non-hierarchical perception and experience of differences: It is a sort of travelogue adventure of a couple of artists encouraged to reflect on the concept of diversity and who find themselves telling a story of equalities rather than differences, the story of a friendship between two people who today cannot distinguish which of them is more "outsider" or more "official" than the other (Maya Quattropani 2014, 76). Q: Art, when compared to "normality", has always been considered an "outsider" field. This time, though, you work beside it. How was yom experience? A: Hard, just like any other experience of artistic involvement (Lia Cecchin 2014).

The subjective experiences of encounter, friction, de-centring and exchange of competencies, abilities and roles therefore produced new meanings for the collections and revealed their unknO\vn cultural, artistic, and social functions in mediating relationships. In this project anthropology did not assume art as its object of study, but investigated the collaborative artworks, which were largely detelTIlined by the participants' 0\Vll discursive and representative practices of identity, as fOlTIls of knowledge and cultural empowelTIlent, not as mere aesthetic expressions. Once we assumed that the anthropological gaze disciplines and frames the Museum's ethnographic collections, we met the opportunity, and the challenge, to overrun such a framework, adopting an oblique gaze able to cross and make connections between the fields of art and anthropology, beyond the disciplinary boundaries that limit them. An anthropological competence was therefore applied to the experimentation with an innovative enhancement of the Museum's heritage, the latter recognised here as a social construct whose meanings can constantly be transformed in the light of new subjective practices of appropriation, interpretation, and exchange. De-anchoring the objects from the fixed and static position they occupy in the Museum-so as to privilege their being mediators of relations-also allowed a reflection on the current dynamics of social and cultural inclusion and exclusion, along a

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transposition of meanings that involved objects and subjects, as well as intertwined artistic, cultural, social and education values. Therefore, art and anthropology were allied here in order to grasp social relationships from within, while producing site-specific relational works that engaged with the issues of nOlmality and non-normality, migration, homelessness, hospitality, and marginality tlirough contemporary narratives of llie institutional heritage.

Future expectations as concluding remarks Using collaborative methods, the Museum met the challenge of sharing its authority with the projects' actors who acted as heterogeneous "interpretive communities" (Hooper-Greenhill 2000) and agents of meaning in negotiated processes of knowledge, communication, and representation. Through "Tongue to Tongue. A Collaborative Exhibition" llie institution first explored the intercultural potential of collections and acknowledged that displaying is an act of power, opening its space to a curatorial embrace of multiple voices and viewpoints. "The Art of Making a Difference" transfOlmed the Museum in a relational field site worth exploring by artists and educators. Both projects encouraged dialogue, knowledge sharing and reciprocal practices of creation, demonstrating that civic engagement "necessitates exchange rather than a one-way dissemination of infOlmation" (Bollwerk and Tate 2012, 142). Furthermore they document a temporary shift from an infOlming to a performing museology which implies that "the museum puts its authority as an infonnation medium into question" (Kirshenblatt­ Gimblett 2006, 374) within a reflexive perspective. Dialogical narrative routes, multi-vocal labels, alternative inventories, or the adoption of an anthropometric instrument within an artistic perfonnance-to mention just a few elements of the practices here discussed-witness such transfonnative power. Although participatory processes led to diverse outcomes-in one case the co-creation of installations and dialogic narratives routes, and in the other the co-production of relational artworks-both were designed to be more affective, evocative, and interpretive than infonnative, stressing "an emphasis that arises as well from a questioning of ethnographic authority and rise of heritage as a way to restore the vital relationship of objects to those who identify willi them as patrimony" (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2006, 374). According to the results of evaluative processes (Mangiapane, Pecci, and Porcellana 2013; Pecci 2016), while emotional and co-creative

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engagement seems to be at the core of a mutually beneficial sharing of power and knowledge among the Museum's staff, projects' actors and visitors, it turns out to be important to consider briefly the distinction between ethnographic authority and cultural authority. The former, according to Karp and Kratz, "involves the means through which cultural objects are represented" (2000, 207), the latter "builds on and encapsulates 'ethnographic authority', but involves larger claims and aims as well" (ibid), e.g. institutional self-representations and missions. It may also be referred to the historical and social contexts within which museums emerge. So, if ethnographic authority may be said to relate to the poetics and politics of representing "otherness", cultural authority concerns the Museum's sociological embedding and its institutional power. Therefore, the projects' outcomes invite the whole Museum's staff-not only educators-to envisage strategies that, besides fostering its intercultural and relational potential and competencies, might employ its cultural authority to broader social ends. Temporary collaborations with interpretive communities allowed the institution to develop a more infolTIled view about audiences' needs, become more responsive to new expectations, experiment with critical works of cultural representation, and question its 0\Vll responsibilities and social agency. The main institutional constraints-such as the closing of the Museum, the "invisibility" of its collections and the academic character of a research centre-finally acted as major resources for these projects whose outcomes serve today to highlight a possible way in which it can contribute to combating social exclusion, promoting rights to cultural access and participation, pluralist values, and new institutional purposes and meanings. The process of renovation leading to the future reopening of the institution is expected to bring about change to the Museum, cultural expertise that supposedly might be influenced by a rearticulation of "older spatializations and temporalities of cultural difference" (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2006, 368) and current participatory transformation (from authoritative to collaborative). Although the issues raised by the projects strengthened the institution's awareness and competence to engage with questions relating to its civic role and responsibility, they only provide a useful point of departure which needs to be taken forward. Since the inclusive approach is still not embedded in its institutional politics, the Museum faces a challenge of moving beyond collaborative projects and building true collaborations. Far from advocating a "radical turn" (Golding and Modest 2013, 1), to grow, at least, from the seeds of change planted the Museum of Anthropology

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and Ethnography at the University o f Turin now has to meet future opportunities.

CHAPTER TWELVE REFUGEES ARE IN FRONT OF OUR DOORS ! ENDEAVOURS BY THE SLOVENE ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUM TOWARDS THE DECONSTRUCTION OF STEREOTYPES AND PREmmCE MOJCA RACIC AND RALF CEPLAK MENCIN

Introduction In the modern ethnographic museum, people rather than the objects, or the relationship between the two in different times and places, are placed at the centre of interest. Presentations of the ways of life of individual ethnic, national and other social groups make sense only in relation to the natural and social environment in which the group lives, and which it shapes according to its needs and abilities. In the Slovene Ethnographic Museum (SEM), the relationship between the human and the environment is sho\Vll in the two pelTIlanent exhibitions. The very title of the first part of the permanent exhibition, Between Nature and Culture l, indicates that this is an, exhibition which talks about the interaction and dynamics between the natural and the cultural about the natural environment into which we were born and about the socio-cultural environment surrounding us. It talks about man's universal striving to master his environment and survive in it; this striving is expressed in culturally characteristic modes of smvival and creativity (Rogelj Skafar 2009).

1 The exhibition was opened in March 2006 and is the collective work of the cmators employed at the musemn at that time.

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The exhibition informs visitors about the tangible and intangible heritage of the Slovenes and of a number of cultures outside Europe, and is derived from museum collections that were built up over approximately one hundred and fifty years. The first part of the permanent exhibition presents the relationship between the person and the natural environment with the help of objects or museum collections and their interpretation. The second part of the permanent exhibition, entitled I, We and Others­ Images of My World! talks about the person and their place in the world through a presentation of individuals' social roles and identities. "It is designed as a reflection on what man is and how to be human and part of the world" (Zagar 2010). The arc of man's connectedness with the environment spans the most intimate, local interaction to the departure to foreign places and the "wide" world, and then the return to the self and reflection on one's personal world. Both parts of the pennanent exhibition are conceptualised in such a way that it is possible to supplement them or make them more topical with various fonns of museum activities. This is an established museum practice and museum professionals (Simon 2010; Golding 2016a) generally feel drawn to this way of working since it breaks down traditional power hierarchies between the active museum expert and the passive visitor. At the SEM, we are trying to attract to these activities as wide a circle as possible of interested individuals and groups, who thus become more than visitors or museum users, since they have the possibility of helping to shape the museum programmes. The second part of the permanent exhibition is constantly being supplemented by occasional exhibitions co-curated with visitors under the joint title My Life, My World. In addition, the exhibition is being supplemented by the Narrators Gallery. The second part of the permanent exhibition also offers a space for meetings in the fonn of discussions, which developed in 2016 alongside the exhibition "#vstopilSEM" ("I entered")' produced by students from the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. These SEM projects build on the earlier exhibition and workshops that took place in 2012 as part of the project Revealed Hands, led by the institution Zavod Oloop, the main goals of which were the creation of intercultural connections, education through work with textiles, the socialisation of a vulnerable group, the creation of a

2 The exhibition was opened in December 2009 and is the collective work of the cmators employed at the musemn at that time. This title is a word play: SEM is the abbreviation for the Slovene Ethnographic Museum and at the same time it means I am. 3

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collection of textile products for sale and a continuing transfer of knowledge.

Participation and Inclusion in Museums This participatory approach exemplified by Revealed Hands allows the representatives of various social groups, including vulnerable ones and those minorities that are overlooked or treated stereotypically by the public, to be seen and heard. Since 2008, tbe SEM has been working witb members of Roma communities, who through the Romano Chon festival or occasional independent exhibitions,4 present their cultural wealth and way of life to our audiences. Most importantly, these collaborative projects challenged the negative stereotype of Roma in tbe wider public and encouraged SEM to develop inclusive practice (Golding 2013a). Between 2013 and 2015, the Museum was the bearer of the project "Accessibility of cultural heritage to vulnerable groupS"5. Members of ten vulnerable groups, including disabled people, and people with mental health issues, not only acquired work experience in the field of cultural heritage in six Slovene national museums, but also organised programmes for members of different vulnerable groups. Through the implementation of such programmes, we "motivated and reached a wide public and raised awareness, disseminated knowledge, openness, adaptability and tolerance, and created the right conditions for the basic human rights, i.e. to equal opportunities in accessing cultural heritage for all" (Rogelj Skafar

2015).

Since tbe 1990s, as Richard Sandell (2002) notes, social inclusion has been among the most important concepts underpinning museum activities. Modem museums are not only institutions that react to current events, offering their premises for meetings and fmming connections or facilitating participation in museum programmes, but they are also increasingly active outside their walls, even to the extent of social intervention during outreach (ibid.). This inclusive practice explains why some of the activities of European museums in recent years, at a time of globalisation, war and conflict in various parts of the world, the needs of millions of refugees and migrants en masse seeking refuge in Europe6, are being addressed. While the "refugee crisis" was widely publicised in tbe 4

For example, You see me-I see you (2009), The copy equals the original (2014) and Birth: experiences ofRoma women (2015) 5 The project was partly financed by the Emopean Union from the European Social Fund and by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia. 6 In 2015 alone, over one million came to Emope.

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media, many European museums, particularly ethnographic ones, were encouraged to reconsider their 0\Vll role, mission, and exhibition and communication strategies during these unsettled times.

Migrations and our Museum Various fOlTIlS of migration have always been and remain one of the characteristics of humanity. Harmah Arendt, in her article "We refugees", originally published in English in 1943 in the Jewish newspaper Menorah Journal wrote very impressively about Jewish refugees.7 Migration was not initiated in the twentieth century and it is not a new theme in museums, for example, the Museum of London offers evidence of African soldiers in the Roman army invading Anglo-Saxon Britain. Today there are museums around the world that are dedicated exclusively to immigration and migration, however.8 Museums that deal with these issues occasionally, or include them in their pemmnent exhibitions, are more numerous. One such example is the SEM permanent exhibition. In the first part of Between Nature and Culture, within the section "Reflections of distant cultures", there is a focus on Slovenes who had close 10ng-telTIl contact with cultures outside Europe and, consequently, their collections of objects are represented. In the second part of the exhibition, "I, We and Others", the focus is on Slovenes setting off into the world to be missionaries or adventurers, or for political and economic reasons. Alongside and reinforcing part two of the pelTIlanent exhibition, the section "My otherness and foreign otherness-the wider world" has less material culture, as it wishes to encourage, through museum visiting, engagement and reflection on otherness and foreignness (Golding 20l6a). The SEM's work in this field can be traced to 1999, when we established a section for Slovene emigrants, Slovenes in neighbouring states, members of national minorities and other ethnicities in Slovenia, within which most activities were carried out in connection with Slovene

7

Slovene translation: (Arendt 2015).

8 For example, Deutsches Auswanderer Haus the German emigration centre in

Bremerhaven, the French Le Musee de l'histoire de l'imrnigration in Paris or the American Ellis Island National Musemn ofImrnigration in New York. In Slovenia, in Rajhneburg Castle, the Brestanica branch of the National Musemn of Contemporary History, there is a permanent exhibition "Slovene exiles 1941 1 945".

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immigrants in Australia and with the "Alexandrian women" in Egype. In spite of this orientation and the fact that the position of the curator for this section has remained unoccupied since 2013, due to the premature death of Dr. Dasa Koprivec, since 2015 the museum has paid increasing attention to the current migrations that have surprised and shaken Europe. In 2015, the "refugee crisis" escalated in Europe and touched Slovenia. In her article "Let Them Drown", Naomi Klein (2016) ascribes the global migration flows to neo-liberal opportunism, climate change and military­ political events. After the closing of the Hungarian border on 16 October 2015, the refugee flow from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Eritrea, Pakistan, etc., diverted to a route across Croatia-Slovenia-Austria. Between September 2015 and March 2016, approximately 500,000 refugees crossed Slovenia. Slovenia was not a target destination and so only a handful of them remained here. Initially, Slovenia was shocked and unprepared for the thousands of refugees walking across meadows and fields and crossing rivers with a final destination in their mind: GelTIlany, Sweden, or Norway. Within a few weeks, Slovenia organised refugee holding centres. But the fIrst to react were the NGOs: ADRA, Slovenska filantropija, the Red Cross and Karitas. This was a completely unforeseen situation. We were aware that refugees were crossing Europe, but until Hungary closed its borders, refugees had not crossed into Slovenia. Public opinion was split. Many people accepted the refugees, but on the other hand fear, ignorance and hate began to spread. The primary news item every day was refugees. Xenophobia was on the rise. Some media, such as Reporter and Demokracija, disseminated partial news, full of prejudice and stereotypes, and even the official interpretation by the government bodies was at fIrst marked by ignorance and lack of clarity. Slovenia is traditionally a predominantly Catholic state and the suppressed historic fear of the "Turks" (Muslims) came to the surface. The Slovene Ethnographic Museum as a "space of dialogue" (Golding 2016a) between different cultures recognised within this historic moment a call towards awareness and understanding for what was happening in society. It expressed a newly defined stance on universal humanity and cultural diversity, and about what unites us more than divides us. Within this context, the museum, together with other institutions and NGOs, organised fieldwork among the refugees and four museum exhibitions on the theme of migrants and refugees.

9 They came from underdeveloped nrral areas close to Trieste and went to Egypt to work as wet mrrses from the end of the nineteenth century up to the first third of the twentieth century.

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Figure 12.1 In mid-November 2015, Tanja Rozenbergar, Mojca Ratic, Gregor !laS and Ralf Ceplak Mencin carried out voluntary work with refugees and migrants in the Sentilj refugee centre, organised by the Slovenska filantropija. NGO. Photo: Tanja Rozenbergar and Ralf Ceplak Mencin.

Figure 12.2 The artistic installation 2016. Photo: Miha Spicek.

Waiting,

3 December 2015 until 1 7 January

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In late 2015, SEM opened a four-part exhibition, Migrations. We wanted to offer space and a voice to those who had themselves been involved in migration processes. We connected with Zavod Apis, an NGO that is dedicated to the informal education of vulnerable groups, mostly migrants, Roma, and the young with a migrant background. In its projects, the organisation encourages participation and social inclusion. The result of this work were the exhibitions Images of Equality and MIGRATIONS­ Love-Disappearing-Welcome.si, which also appeared in the SEM. The first exhibition consisted of photo-stories created by female migrants and Roma within the framework of the training offered under the same title. The second exhibition consisted of photographs and videos, accessible on smartphones via NFC technology, which focused on the reasons for Slovenes moving abroad and for foreign citizens coming to Slovenia. The third photographic exhibition, Migrations and the young, was organised by some students in grade four of the Secondary School for Design and Photography, under the mentorship of their teacher, the photographer Manca Juvan. The students created photographic sequences on the theme of migrations and placed the experiences and life of young migrants, their peers, at the centre. The fourth exhibition or spatial installation, Waiting, was organised in cooperation with the Museum of Too Modem ArtlO, which houses sculptures created by students at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design under the mentorship of professor and sculptor Alen Ozbolt. The project was created in 2010 on the initiative of the European Parliament's Infmmation Office for Slovenia, as part of the European year dedicated to fighting against poverty and social exclusion. Five years later, the spatial installation carne to life in another public space, the SEM courtyard and in front of the SEM Cafe. In the new context of the migration crisis, the figures standing in a row symbolised the waiting lines of migrants on the borders and in holding centres. Like the real people who during those months queued for entry into Slovenia, the figures aroused disgust and disapproval in some and compassion and sympathy in others.

10 This "Musemn" is situated in Spodnji Hotic near Litija, managed by Tomaz Demovsek-Vinci.

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Figure 12.3 Idomeni refugee centre. 20 March 2016. Photo: Ralf Ceplak Mencin.

The exhibition projectMigrations was supplemented by accompanying events. On the eve of Human Rights Day (10 December), together with the organisation Zavod Apis, we organised a round table discussion under the title Fortress Europe about the closing of the ED borders, the neglect of human rights, about racism and Islarnophobia; the round table included the Algerian writer and journalist Said Khatibi and Talha Ahmad from the Slovene Society for Information about Islam, part of the Ahrnadiyya International Muslim community. On International Migrant Day ( 1 8 December) SEM organised an event-a premiere o f short fihns, created by female migrants and women with migrant roots within Apis' s project Images ofEquality. There followed a concert of Iranian, Arab, Greek and Turkish music, performed by the group Vagantes, which is dedicated to researching, bringing together and interpreting various musical traditions. At the time of the staging of the exhibitions under the joint title Migrations, there was also an exhibition of objects from the Sentilj refugee centre, collected during the voluntary work by four SEM employees in

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mid-November 2015 11 A number of objects were acquired subsequently with the help of the BreZice branch of the Civil Protection Service and the Franc Ursie barracks in Novo Mesto. The exhibits also included 10 metres of the "razor wire" or the "technical obstacle" that the Slovene government was at the time erecting on the border between Slovenia and Croatia, which aroused a great deal of disapproval and unease in society. SEM's Migrations project was well received by the public. Within a month, 5530 visitors viewed the exhibitions in the museum, and many more saw the installation Wailing in the courtyard. The exhibitions also received good media coverage.12 The response was positive at the opening of the exhibition, at the rmUld table event and during the showing of the videos created by four migrants with the help of the organisation Apis. Many visitors took photos of the Waiting sculptures or took selfies with them; on the social networks Facebook and Twitter there appeared many comments for and against the Migrations project. On 1 8 March 2016, during the preparations for the etlinological exhibition Afghanistan-Slovene Views, which opened on 25 May 2017 and a part of which was dedicated to the refugee issue, Ralf Ceplak Mencin, Gregor !laS, Jure Rus and the Austrian photographer Karlheinz Fessl set off in a car on a 1000 km journey to the Idomeni refugee centre, then the largest refugee camp in Europe, holding 15,000 people. The aim of the journey was to examine and document the condition of the refugees, particularly those from Afghanistan. A lecture about our field work was later given at the SEM. During the exhibition, the museum shop sold products connected with Afghan artisanal heritage. Since the import of products from Afghanistan is too dangerous, complicated and expensive, we worked with Afghan refugees who have applied for asylum in Slovenia. We wanted to connect them with designers and develop together products for sale, which would also bring some income to the artisans. But the problem was that asylum applications by Afghans were mostly rejected, which means that, sooner or later, they had to leave Slovenia. We are using as a model the projects Revealed Hands (http://www.razkriteroke.si/) and Craft Flow (https:llwww.facebook.com/ TerraVeraAssociationi).

1 1 In addition to Ralf Ceplak Mencin, Tanja Rozenebergar, Mojca Racic and Gregor Ilas. Miha Spicek and Gregor Ilas also carried out one-day volunteer work in Dobova in January 2016. 1 2 Dnevnik, December 4th and 1 1th, 2015; KAM, December, 2015 and National Radio station VAL 202, December 3rd, 2015.

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Figure 12.4 Idomeni on the border between Greece and Macedonia, 20 March 2016. Photo: Jure Rus.

Figure 12.5 Basket-weaving workshop. Photo: Jure Rus.

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On 24 March 2016, Ralf Ceplak Mencin took part in the round table discussion "Syria, the Near East and Immigrants" at Tdic Museum, together with Dr Anica Mikus Kos, Bostjan Slatensek, Klemen Plostajnar and Faila Pasi6 Bisi6, led by Jasa Veselinovic. Through this dialogue, we realised the truth of the paradigm "the museum should get out from behind its walls and among the people" and crossed the borders of our institution. In addition, a wider Slovene audience was reached on 17 May 2016, at Logatec Library, when Idomeni (The refugee issue in words and pictures­ impressions upon visiting the largest refugee centre in Europe) was presented by Ralf Ceplak Mencin, Gregor !laS and Jure Rus. Transnational dissemination amongst peers is also vital to our work on migration and an opportunity was presented to share our ideas on 20 April 2016, when the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester celebrated their 50th armiversary, with an international conference entitled "The Museum in the Global Contemporary". Gregor !laS created a video presentation about the Migrations project at the SEM for the conference since a large part of the programme was dedicated to migration. On 23 February 2016, just over a month after the closing of the exhibition section of the Migrations project, the first group of asylum seekers was placed in the fOlmer workers' dormitory at Kotnikova ulica 8, Ljubljana, very close to the museum. A few days later, the opening of the new part of the Asylum Centre, sparked the gathering of two opposing groups. Under the heading Refugees, welcome around a thousand people gathered in front of the centre who wished to express their support for the new inhabitants in the centre of to'Wll, and on the other side there were a few hundred protesters, who specifically opposed the settlement of asylum seekers at this location and expressed a general intolerance and hatred for refugees, foreigners and everyone who is different. Among the first group were some SEM employees who wanted to express their support and participate in the "defence of the territory". Many participants in this gathering were, in addition to their solidarity with the refugees, also connected by their proximity. A few days after the 23 February gathering, representatives of the Ministry of the Interior, other public institutions, NGOs and numerous individuals met in the Old Power Station, a cultural monument situated opposite the new asylum centre. Asylum applicants were also invited to the meeting with the intention of creating an exchange of information about their needs and about the possibilities of these being realised. This meeting was enriched by the Afghan refugees who shared their cultural heritage, preparing some tasty Afghan food. The meeting was organised

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by the organization Bunker, which was also the initiator of the establishment of the society the Tabor Cultural Quarter. The aim of the Tabor Cultural Quarter, founded in 2012, was mainly to connect and bring together all the individuals and organisations in this neighbourhood in the fields of culture, education, sports, sustainable development and environmental issues, and the inclusion of the local population in the activities taking place in this part of Ljubljana. Over twenty years ago, this neighbourhood was seen as derelict. But mostly because the complex of the former barracks was converted to cultural use, it is slowly becoming a distinguishable cultural landscape and a space of high quality sustainable development. Cultural premises are usually complex, dynamic and complicated, and only a short insight into the history of this space tells us that, due to the barracks, this area was for nearly a century a space of migrations and mobility, both during the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Museum, your neighbour-a

programme for asylum seekers

In the SEM we see and enact our inclusion in the cultural landscape as a socially responsible and involved task, therefore, after the meeting in the Old Power Station we created a programme for asylum seekers. We called it Museum, your neighbour, because we wanted to welcome the asylum seekers living in the next street, as our new neighbours. As the programme had not been included in the arumal plan, we were able to dedicate only limited funds to it, and it was implemented by SEM employees with different prior experience and skills, on top of our other work obligations. This is why we definitely did not make use of all the potential we have as a cultural institution, but we acquired a great deal of experience and new knowledge. The planned programme developed and was supplemented as we went along, according to the circumstances. We started off with guided tours of the occasional exhibition Doors: Spatial and Symbolic Passaxes of Life. Arab and Farsi translations were provided. Because of the symbolism and universality of doors, the exhibition seemed most suitable for establishing the first contact. Even more direct contact with asylum seekers was created at the pottery and basket-weaving workshops, where the participants demonstrated a great deal of creativity. SEM's experience highlights the way hands-on practical activities can provide a powerful route to understanding another culture. Therefore, in the middle of May 2016, we organised a basket-weaving workshop, conducted by the basket maker Janko Marine from Koeevje, who teaches

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basket-weaving at Ribnica Artisan Centre. Every participant created a basket and was also able to try their skills at making the thin strips of wood used in basket weaving. We were joined by some students of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, and, like the sharing of food, this workshop facilitated some intercultural connection. Since we were trying to encourage asylum seekers to come to the museum on their O\vn, another collaborative project was arranged in the museum library where computer and internet access was available, something they at least initially did not have in the asylum centre but that proved to be necessary. Language skills are also vital to asylum seekers and so in early summer 2016, together with the humanitarian charity "Up", we began implementing a Slovene language course with the help of a translator. Initially, the course was well attended, but because of the lengthy procedure of acquiring refugee status or because of the negative outcomes of applications and the departure of some individuals to other countries, the number of participants fell drastically by the end of the year. To address these problems we contacted the representative from the organisation Slovenska filantropija, who offers support to those who have acquired refugee status and live in integration houses, and we are counting on being able to establish more lasting cooperation with them. For the time being, the only thing we have managed to organise was a guided tour for a group of young men living in the integration house in Maribor. But we intend to build on this work and have invited them to participate more actively in the creation of the exhibition Afghanistan-Slovene Views. There is a precedent for such collaboration. For example, in October 2016, we opened a guest exhibition of drawings and texts I Am a Refogee, created by Widad Tamimi (an Italian with Palestiinan and Jewish roots who had been living in Slovenia for five years) and Vesna Bukovec. The exhibition was the result of voluntary work with refugees and the intention was to use personal stories and drawings to draw attention to the hardship of refugees and fight in this way the negative image and fear of foreigners. The SEM migration work is gradually gaining international recognition. To take one example, SEM responded to the invitation by the Museum of Five Continents (Museum Flinf Kontinente) in Munich to attend a meeting entitled "What should we do? An open exchange about cultural mediation programmes for refugees at ethnological museums". The meeting that took place on 1 8 November 2016 was attended by Gregor !laS and Mojca Ratio. They presented the SEM activities for migrants discussed above and the plans for subsequent years, which are to be increasingly oriented towards activities involving migrants.

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Concluding thoughts The activities carried out so far have been directed towards informing the Slovene public, that is, the visitors to our museum, about the reasons for and consequences of migration flows, about refugees and migrants and the cultural environment they come from. They are also intended to infolTIl those applying for asylum about the Slovene culture and the offer of an open, favourably inclined space. The activities were carried out with the intention that the museum, as a credible public institution, should contribute towards a two-sided deconstruction of stereotypes and prejudice. We argue that within museum work, there is much more space available for activities that can contribute towards the integration of people with refugee status and other migrants into Slovene society, the full realisation of their multicultural competences and for infolTIling the Slovene public about the true picture with regard to refugees and migrants. The second part of the permanent exhibition I, We and Others: Images of My World offers many opportunities for the construction of the identity of individuals and communities, which is connected with spatial-cultural concepts. Initially, ethnographic museums were collections of curiosities and exhibited in their display cases "exotic" objects reflecting the "exotic" way of life of the Others, those different from us. But this exhibition offers a space for an intercultural dialogue that takes place in front of a museum display case or even outside the museum itself. In this way, the museum no longer remains a neutral place as it actively contributes towards the shaping of a heterogeneous and democratic cultural landscape.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN SELFIES, YOGA AND HIP Hop: EXPANDING THE ROLE OF MUSEUMS MARIA CAMILLA DE PALMA

Introduction When the painting by Fernando Hayez with the title "The Kiss" was exhibited in the Museo del Risorgimento in Genoa in 2010 on the hundred and fiftieth armiversary of the Italian Unification, as a masterpiece representing patriotism and an icon of Romanticism, nobody could imagine how successful the exhibition was going to be and how popular it would become for the youngest generations: hundreds of couples gathered in the museum to take a selfie whilst kissing before the famous painting, without any apparent relationship to the original meaning of that kiss and the historical period of the birth and development of the Italian State. Even in February 2017, the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, where the painting is permanently exhibited, launched a contest with the hashtag #kissmebrera for those who shared a picture or a mini-video of their kiss before "The Kiss" on Instagram. In 2014, the celebration for the tenth anniversary of the reopening of Castello D'Albertis Museum of World Cultures in Genoa (MWC) included three days of workshops, round tables, performances, films and shows. While this rich programme was designed to engage diverse audiences with the Museum's collections, politicians suggested it would suffice to have visitors take a selfie with the breath-taking panorama of the city port from the Museum's towers and terraces overlooking the sea. This response was troubling. Similarly, visiting the V&A exhibition Botticelli reimagined in Spring 2016 in London cast further doubt in me regarding the value of the selfie, once I found myself in front of a so called "bottishelfie" staged in the exhibition bookshop-but not only there. Was it really true that public engagement could go hand in hand with the fashionable attitude of taking

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selfies that is spreading all over the world among all ages and social classes? Could museums really be satisfied with replicating and mirroring such a behaviour because of its viral nature and very cheap costs? Did it mean museums were going to abdicate to their role of transmitting knowledge or was it contributing to making audiences less passive and raising museums to places where new knowledge could be actively constructed in an on-going dialogue? The scene in front of me, while reflecting on these issues, was the following: those who dared jump on the reproduction of a shell in front of a painted canvas could use it as a background for their selfie, to be sent via Instagram and Twitter, not only for social sharing, but also to partake in a contest created by the V&A. Again, a few months later, while installing a temporary exhibition in Genoa, I found myself positioning a sculpture in a specific comer of a room in order to facilitate taking selfies, and not only to prevent damage to it, which made me aware of how much selfies were inhabiting and shaping our galleries. This chapter seeks to address a number of questions that arise from my recent museum experiences, as a museum director and as a visitor. What are visitors really attracted by when walking through our museums? Are they fascinated by the collections and their display, by the ideas underpinned by the installations, by the atmospheres evoked by the ambience of our halls, by the stories suggested by works of art and artefacts exhibited? Or are they interested in the experience they can personally enjoy among their walls, even if unaware of the subtle connections established therein? To take one example, how is it possible for the British Museum to facilitate in one gallery crowds of schoolchildren filling in the answers to a treasure hunt on the Rosetta Stone, using its window-case as a table to lean upon, totally unaware of its important content? In this case, as in the case of the "bottishelfie", the museum plays the role of a stage where the real actors are the visitors while objects and their stories are kept aside, as starting points or as food for thought for further experiences. Is this what museums are to be meant for today? Should museums be places for representation rather than exhibition, and act as interactive theatres where perfOlmances are staged for increasingly diverse audiences? Does this expansion of the museums' role raise them to a sharpening tool for practices that meet ethical, political and representational challenges posed by our pluralistic society or is it a stepping stone caused by the increasing dominance of consumer-oriented economics?

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Museums as places for multiple meanings Much of the literature argues for how much the visitors' experience IS shaped by and dependent on their reaction to the object and the place, which is made meaningful thiough the objects' capacity both to evoke personal memories and experiences, and to provoke emotion and ideas in the present. Eilean Hooper Greenhill (2000a, 103) argues that the meanings of objects are constructed according to the position from which they are viewed: meanings are plural rather than singular and their interpretation is embedded in already existing experiences and knowledge. Objects, she notes, are therefore polysemic carriers of a past and activators of our faculties depending on our personality and mood, reflecting changes in our perceptions, our interpretative processes and our speculations over time. An example which points out how meanings are always constructed within social relationships and how social relationships are always enmeshed in power networks is the remarkable ceremony she presents of the Maori meeting house called Hinemihi (ibid., 49-75), which is particularly meaningful for museums of world cultures where objects become involved in the construction of identity and difference. The blessing of the carving ceremony that took place in 1995 in the grounds of Clandon Park, a National Trust property in Surrey, England, was arranged in the area in front of the meeting house with its traditional rituals of encounter, challenge, silence for the dead, speeches and greetings by women elders for Hinemihi, an important female ancestor of the Te Arewa tribal confederation. Addressed as a living person, the house was considered a homely and nurturing elderly female relative that all Maori living in or visiting England should see when sad or homesick: a symbol of unity in reference to white, black and hybrid peoples and a point of conjuncture between the past, the present and the future, Hinemihi was purposely left in England by Maori elders to act as an animate mediator between the living and the dead. Gatherings and ceremonies where Maori treasures such Hinemihi are talked over, touched and wept over enable Maori to locate individual subjects within tribal networks and give them a place to stand in the present day. In combination with rituals, the architectural and decorative structures of meeting houses thus embody complex cosmological and genealogical systems that care for its people, provided that they are kept alive passing the stories and exchanging them through particular lines of descent. Hinemihi can be seen from a range of perspectives, as a garden folly, a work of art, an ancestral house and a spiritual mediator between people of today and their ancestors, embodied by the founding ancestor who gathers her descendants into her nurturing

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womb, an accumulation of discourses that work as stimulus for and repository of knowledge, gazes, behaviours and feelings (ibid., 53). According to Iordanova (1989, 23-25), objects are triggers of chains of ideas and images that go far beyond their initial starting point: viewers both reify objects and identify with them, allowing them to generate memories, associations, fantasies, in spite of the manipulative power of museum labels and the blurred borders of museum categories. Facing the challenge of exhibiting a fragment, museums are obliged to practice the art of excision and detachment, deciding where to make the cut between the object and its real life, as Kirshenblatt-Gimblett nicely puts it (1991, 388) when illustrating the multiple meanings of museum objects created by museum curators and ethnographers while defining, segmenting, detaching and carrying them away in metonymic or mimetic exhibitions. This is the way disciplines make their objects, making themselves in the process through exhibitions that are neither neutral nor innocent. Saumarez Smith illustrates the process whereby the meaning of artefacts can be transformed through their history within a museum by three case studies of the way artefacts have been treated in the Victoria and Albert Museum (1985, 12): the apparent awkwardness of a Saxon god in the British sculpture gallery; the complex history of an English doorway dating to 1680; and a panelled room from the Clifford's Inn of the times of Charles II. They all exemplify the processes whereby the museum can either keep multiple meanings open, or shift and adjust the meaning of an artefact losing its history and transforming it into a logo or finally assembling together artefacts that don't belong to the sarne context as in the case of the display of period rooms. In Dudley's Museums, Materialities, Objects (2010) it is inspiring to learn how visitors to the exhibition Australian Journeys at the National Museum of Australia make meanings by linking objects, and by imaginatively exploring various materialities in fOlTIl and structure: they think about and feel their own body interactions with objects and compare their experiences with those of the original makers and users, in ways involving tactile and emotional perceptions as much, or more, than cognitive ones (Werner and Sear 2010, 143-161). Even though Pearce concludes that "objects and humans will always engage in a mutual dance in which meanings emerge as the experience goes further" (2010, xvii), many authors suggest that no object can have an inherent meaning or a character of its O\vn, since every object, inside or outside a museum, must have multiple meanings, none of which can be regarded as superior or prnnary.

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It is, however, encouraging that, in his afterword, Morphy (2010, 276) confitms that the magic of the museum is partly the magic of a personal discovery and exploration of the magic of the place. But in engaging with objects in a museum we are entering a constructed environment at the same time as we carry our dispositions and knowledge with us. The idea that objects in museums are not neutral but complex and subject to changing meanings has introduced important implications for the way museums have thought and presented themselves, in raising awareness of the gap between the way artefacts are perceived and represented by the museum curator and the way they are perceived and represented by the museum visitor. What is happening today with selfie opportunities and viral communication strategies and campaigns noted above seems to be trying to fill this gap, in the desire to face the question of what audience expectations and knowledge are and what ways towards audience engagement, if not audience development, can be explored. The study of our museum publics, that has more and more become a priority in our exhibition making, has revealed that visitors are eager to set themselves free from museum categories and labels, from the authoritative voices of curators and from forced interpretations of places and objects, but are likely to be looking for opportunities to actively engage in a perfOlmance and to give shape to their particular role on a new stage. As we can draw from a growing body of works (Weil 1990; Karp, Mullen-Kreamer and Lavine 1992; Graesser and Ottati 1995; Onciul, Stefano and Hawke 2017), museums today are being used as stages for narrating a myriad of stories and for creating new scenes beyond the ones evoked by the collections. Developing museum spaces beyond their walls and times of foundations as institutions, are visitors engaged in treating them as active centres of investigation into the nature of their relationship with the world around them or are they simply looking for a place to express themselves? These issues will now be considered in the context of the Castello D'Albertis MWC Genoa.

Castello D'Albertis Museum of World Cultures: from Evolutionary to Collaborative Perspectives The Castello D'Albertis Museum of World Cultures is one of Genoa's city museums. The collections are hosted in a castle built by Captain Emico Alberto D'Albertis between 1886 and 1892 over a Renaissance fortification in the style of neogothic revival. Captain D'Albertis gathered copies and miniatures of Genoa's medieval buildings and towers, traces of Florentine

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palaces and castles of Val d' Aosta, to conjure up an ideal image of a romantic castle along the lines of the Bavarian Ludwig castles, including drawbridges, artificial grottoes and ruins, interconnecting terraces and towers, secret passages and cannons, together with whale jaws, tridacnae shells and exotic stuffed animals, as late left-overs from Cabinets of Curiosity and Natural History Museum items. His collections in this castle include archaeological and ethnographical material from his countless journeys to Africa, the Americas, South East Asia and Oceania.

Figure 13.1 Castello D'Albertis Museum of World Cultures, Genoa. Photo by Maria Camilla De Palma.

Today the museum offers a tour through the residence of its creator, Captain D'Albertis. In addition, at the entrance to the sixteenth century bastion, on which the castle has been erected, a second itinerary is offered to the public where the archaeological and ethnographic materials are presented through a display that was shaped by dialogues and exchanges with the peoples from which they originated. These displays aim to suggest new and multiple perspectives that don't freeze objects in a distant past, but connect them with the present and question our certitudes. In this way the Museum is envisaged as place of shared authority and discussion,

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to employ Viv Golding's (2016a) theory, rather than a temple producing classifications and unilateral interpretations of the world. The main point we wish to impart is that Castello D'Albertis is not only Captain D 'Albertis's home, but also our O\Vll "homespace": the home of our fascinations, our fears and our discoveries, of the questions that mark our relationship with the world (Golding's 2016a, 58-59). Museum collections have always been perceived as the principal repositories of primary evidence of objective and scientific knowledge (Hooper-Greenhill 1992). The way Captain D' Albertis arranged the collections he gathered as "souvenirs" of his journeys, set up in colonial trophies or displayed under a tent-like roof in a Turkish-sitting room style a la mode at his time, tells us much more about the European frame of mind and perspective than about the people who made and used them. The modem world came to define itself largely in terms of ownership of goods and has always been oriented at things, objects and material properties. Our complex relationship with objects as producers, O\vners and collectors is itself a characteristic modem meta-narrative and the museums, which grew up and grew old with the capitalist system, have always been equally materially-oriented in the most fundamental sense. The role of museums in this is clear. Artificial constructions playing a highly negotiated role in the building up of Western thought, museums served an educational purpose in the development of reliable and orderly citizens, hand in hand with the establishment of modern society, based on absolute trust in the limitless advance of science and technology and the moral qualities of the Enlightened man. Since the birth of museums as Western cultural expressions, classifying objects according to evolutionary and enlightened categories gave evidence of the possibility to order and classify the world, which was leading humankind towards progress, knowledge and technological advancement (Pearce 1992, 37). The point of museums revolves around the possession of objects, of real things, and it is essentially this which gives museums their unique role. Museums of anthropology, hosting specimens from Africa, the Americas and Oceania have especially represented a way to assess Western superiority and power over what were considered the uncivilized and primitive tribes under the colonial rule. In the context of a solidifying colonial expansion, the European's story about themselves became a story about Man's climb from a low and tribal existence to his culmination in European civilization. The idea of progress was a brilliant solution to the problem of the Other: this narrative located artefacts and the people who produced them at the bottom of the evolutionary scheme. Putting the primitive at the low beginning was a solution to conceptualize these

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people as inferior and to legitimate western intervention to satisfY their urgent need for order and domination (Clifford 1985). The main stairway's itinerary with the colonial trophies of Castello D'Albertis, for example, can be read as the underlying main theme of the residence with a horror vacui flair and exotic extravagance. The apparent evolutionary itinerary from the Australian and African suits of armour on the ground floor, followed by the Oriental ones on the first floor and the European swords, armour and "piano nobile" on the second reveals more about nineteenth century views of non-European peoples than it does about these peoples themselves. Moreover, it reveals how the captain's perspective was strongly formed and confinned by the cultural, historical and political criteria and mental schemes that were instrumental to the promotion of the ideology of his time.

Figure 13.2 Captain D'Albertis's perspective on classifying Others, 1 892. Photo by Maria Camilla De Pahna.

Some background information from the Genoa MWC' s founder are a clear example of these assumptions. In the case of Captain D'Albertis in nineteenth century Genoa, displaying the Other in his museum-residence worked as a strategy to build a Western identity of superiority: travelling, collecting and displaying worked for him as crucial processes of Western identity formation, in an effort to gather a world sensibly around himself.

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He was born in Voltri near Genoa in 1846 when Italy was not yet unified and Genoa was in the Kingdom of Sardinia. After he studied sailing at tlie Navy School, he visited several Yacht Clubs in England. In 1875, together with a group of enthusiastic Italian friends, he founded the first Italian Yacht Club. Violante, D'Albertis's 42-foot cutter, was the first Italian yacht and sailed up and dO\vn the Mediterranean for scientific endeavours. Serving in both the Navy and the Merchant Navy, he resigned at 25, after steering the first Italian sailing ship through tlie Suez Canal. Witli his second vessel, Corsaro, a 72-foot cutter, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean to commemorate Columbus' voyage using the nautical instruments of the fifteenth century (i.e. quadrant, astrolabe and cross-staff). A proficient writer, D'Albertis journeyed extensively, completing three tours of the world, imrumerable trips in Egypt when the Aswan Dam was being constructed and monuments of Pharaohs' times were discovered and freed from sand, a Trans-Siberian railway trip from the United States to Europe and Vladivostok, and tlie circunmavigation of Africa. Very fond of astronomy, he drew more than one hundred sundials all around Italy, and some in Egypt, Libya, and Albania. His love for his country and hometO\vn led him to leave his castle and his collections to the Genoa Municipality, requesting the opening of a museum to celebrate Columbus, to compensate his country for having not been able to help during tlie war. He took more than twenty tliousand photographs, between the late 1800s and tlie early 1900s, from the age of fifty until a few years before his death. He died in 1932 at the age of 86, and played an active role in public life until then. The Castle, with its Gothic Room, its Colombian Room, its Nautical Room, its cabin and Turkish Sitting Room, appears to be an artifice adopted by D'Albertis, who, by accumulating goods, was seeking to reinforce his personal identity, to celebrate himself and even to affirm the superiority of his culture, its centralizing power and the triumphant present of Europe over the extra-European countries he visited. We can therefore say that the site and the collector make our Museum distinct, although sharing common ground with ethnographic, or, to use my preferred telTIl, anthropology museums, around the world.

We are here The way visitors today try to reimagine historical collections, through selfies for example, and the way they enjoy crossing disciplinary and spatial borders tlirough technology and interactivity rather than enjoying objects per se might remind one of the way Indigenous Peoples deal with

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collections, using them as an opportunity to chant, a starting point for telling stories and summoning ancestors, a way for signalling the importance of the process of making them and of the knowledge involved in it. It is very well known how, in 1989, James Clifford experienced such concerns with the Tlingit, a north-west coast Nation from British Columbia (Clifford 1997, 188). Clifford emphasised that it is not that objects were not important for the Tlingit elders: objects were important but they worked practically as reminders, useful in telling rather elaborate stories and in singing various songs. In a certain way, physical objects were kept to one side. 'What really occupied the centre of the stage were the stories and the songs. Most importantly, the stories suggested by the objects, Clifford concludes, were really extraordinary. Cara Krmpotich and Laura Peers (2013) make a similar observation, reflecting on their more recent experiences with members of the Haida community, another north-west coast Indigenous Nation in British Columbia. In 2009, the encounter between Haida Nation members, museum staff and researchers of the Pitt Rivers Museum and the British Museum, revealed the preservation of artefacts for the future was less important than physically interacting with them in the present. This visit was transformative. It resulted in the museums' interest shifting from acquiring infmmation about their collections, to gaining a richer understanding of the relationships between people and objects. The Indigenous need to handle objects in performative and affective ways implied not only seeing but also hearing, touching, tasting or smelling them, together with movement, sound and voice, i.e. dance, songs and prayers, was fully appreciated and permitted. For example, after dancing with masks together with the museum staff, holding hands and praying, grieving the dead, singing a gambling song before the museum gambling sticks which were suddenly used to play a match in the research room, it became clear that what some people call objects, for the Haida members are their living ancestors (ibid, 216). Hopefully representing a model, this museum experience which elects museums as sites of relationships, leads them from an object-centred approach to a community-centred approach, where objects are set aside in favour of their makers and their stories, together with curators/conservators. Something similar, though smaller in scale, happened to us at MWC when Gerald McMaster, a Canadian Plains Cree curator, artist, author and professor of Indigenous Visual Culture and Critical Curatorial Studies at Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) in Toronto and then assistant to the director of the National Museum of the American Indian in

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Washington, accepted our invitation to interpret the museum's artefacts produced by his people, which had been in Genoa since 1892 and were to be Ie-installed in the new museum. From the very moment he entered the museum's warehouse, his collaboration with us brought about a change in the way we perceived and dealt with our First Nations collections. Upon viewing the artefacts, Gerald immediately recognised the presence of his ancestors and felt the need to honor them with an offer of tobacco. He not only provided infmmation outside what can be found in books, but also encouraged us to use our five senses when relating to objects, for example: our nose to smell the smoked leather moccasins (made according to the original Indian technique), our ears to hear the rustle of the leather jacket fringes or the headdress feathers fluttering in the prairie wind, as the primary meanings of tarmed hides or feathers could not be assessed through the static contemplation of their fOlTIlal attributes and decorative motifs, but rather imagining them in motion, activated by sound and movement (Phillips 2005, 96). Visiting several years before the exhibition All Roads Are Good at the National Museum of the American Indian at Custom's House in New York, it was Gerald McMaster's installation of dozens of pairs of moccasins in a spiral, showing us their heels bent and tilted into the positions of dancing feet, that made me involve him in curating our installation. Before leaving Genoa in 2002, the final words he left us with-which now can be read beside his video introducing his installation in the museum-express the way he interacted with them, i.e. as living embodied knowledge incarnating the ancestors' presence: Talking about this collection revived a lot of memories in me. A lot of these objects are now in the musemns. These objects corne from a particular period (1 860-1 890) and from a particular area of Canada that was very important for the trade networks that were set up with Emopeans. \¥hen I look at this collection I see many frames, but I can tell the history of many people of that particular period in that particular area. We can deduce what it meant to trade with Europeans, to be friends with Europeans, to understand Emopeans. There was a lot of trade in language, marriages, names. It's the fluidity of life. This permeability is in the spirit of this land. It's wonderful to see this material so far away from horne. For me, corning from Canada, it is important to see this material and hopefully pass on to you om histories so that your audience can see my people living today and can lUlderstand how these objects are important for us. We continue to live, to speak om language, to dance, pmsuing the values of our ancestors. In these objects you can see who we were, but here I am and this is who we are today (... ).

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Perceiving museum collections in the Indigenous perspective as a process instead of a product contributes to pointing out the complex interrelation between performance and object, as in Tom Hill's (1994, 25) words: "The creative process is still an integral part of growing up Indian", a procedure that takes into account a sort of spiritual evidence, which is integral to the creative activity and makes the object meaningless without it. In some cases, such as sacred quillwork, practiced in many parts of Nortb America, "once finished, the vow had been fulfilled and the piece considered no longer sacred. The product resulted from the vow was of secondary importance to tbe process of creation" (ibid., 137). Embedded in what we simply consider objects-in most of the cases artefacts, and sometimes works of art-whole life systems are materialised, encoding notions of the sacred, identity, cultural memories and the emotional power of those experiences, together with the scars of their life­ histories (Hooper Greenhill 2000, 109). Dealing with what has become a well-trodden path of research in museum antbropology would lead us beyond the scope of this paper, but it is worth mentioning here tbat today there are hundreds of native-controlled cultural organisations, including urban cultural centres, First Nations Arts Councils, professional galleries and emerging museums, where Indigenous People do not simply recreate the types of museums that have made the untimely armouncement of their demise. Instead they are creating living, dynamic community-based organisms, often modelled on the eco-museum concept (Davis 2011), places that look forward rather than backward, where community members are the conservators of the collection and the only ones entitled to explain it to tbe outside world. After being challenged in our own authority and right to exist by tbe Indigenous Peoples, whose objects have always been collected, possessed and interpreted within the white curatorial authoritative frame of mind, we have become more and more familiar with the use of museum collections by Indigenous Peoples as reminders rather than main focus of a visit and source inspiration for narrating stories: the stories created today by selfies and social media around objects could be regarded in a way as more important than the objects of the museums and, even if they are not as extraordinary as the indigenous ones, they seem to have become the main focus of the visit.

I was there What is happening nowadays for mainstream western visitors seems to be going even further: objects don't attract visitors as the main focus of the

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experience in a museum, probably because visitors are so much exposed to images and videos anticipating the existence of objects or substituting their three-dimensional nature thanks to virtual reality and 3-D effects. What visitors are mostly attracted by is affirming one's O\Vll individuality and story, both as a statement of having been there (remember the now obsolete FourSquare "check in"?) but also as a statement of having told one's O\Vll story and of having left one's O\Vll trace. Encouraging visitors to share their points of view and agreeing to share that feedback with the world allows for richer and more personal connections, since many visitors to museums are increasingly looking for personal expression, membership in social groups, learning opportunities and meaning-making (Chung 2014, 188). There seems to be an urge to seek a larger frame for a self­ representation by a public that looks for its space, its souvenir, its personal experience, searching for its 0\Vll role beside pieces of art and trying to document its 0\Vll presence in a new history. This is particularly true for young people, because they tend to perceive a museum as a traditionally passive place, unable to involve them. They ask for stimulation, both on the physical and the mental level, and for a site where they can develop activities, a space of interaction, a space of self-representation and involvement, rather than a place to follow a traditional guided tour or an old-fashioned show and tell (Gofinan, Moskowitz and Mets 2011). The use of selfies and social media like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter allows them to view exhibitions as intense collective experiences: their comments, amplified in their social profiles and blogs, where other people can comment in their turn, result in a multiplication of relationships and open communication systems, in which each visitor participates in the creation of the meaning of the place (Howes, D. S. 2007). The museum becomes a collaborative space where participatory interpretations of works of art can be generated from exhibitions through social media to involve visitors' reactions on different subjects (MacArthur 2007). Discussions can be raised during and after visits through multiple feedback in an ongoing dialogue where traditional curatorial skills are not at risk, but revisited in a diamond-shaped vision made of multiple perspectives, as it happened in our recent exhibition Donne dell 'altro mondo. Fotografie di Enrico Alberto D 'Albertis (1846-1932)1 Women from other worlds. Photographs by Enrico ATberto D 'Albertis (1846-1932). At the end of the exhibition visitors were invited to establish a relationship with the photos, engaging in a dialogue with the people in the pictures and writing down their thoughts and questions related to and inspired by them. Collected every week, these notes left by visitors were to be published on our Facebook

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account where, at the end of the exhibition, they could take the fOlTIl of a parallel narrative to the exhibition itself. To our great surprise very rarely did visitors stick to the reality of the photo, but mostly drew from them a very personal narration drawing on memories of the past, dreams and poems, often telling stories that had little to do with the original inspiration, sometimes confessing love stories or trying to recover from a disappointment. All the authors accepted to be mentioned by their full name and to be published, so that a participated narration could take shape as a co-created story to be told. Our experience with migrant citizens also confirms the importance of giving the chance in museums to find one's 0\Vll place beside the objects thanks to the stories that can originate from them: cultural mediators of extra-European origin can become storytellers for museum visitors, who happen thus to know objects meanings associated with other lives and experiences because of the objects capability of stimulating memories and identification thanks to their own migrant nature (Bodo 2017, 34). The museum becomes an intimate place, where visits change into occasions for insight and exchange, and objects acquire new meanings that become part of our lives. At the same time, the museum becomes an actor of contemporaneity, challenging its capability of interpreting objects with another voice, the self-narrating subjective perspective that tells the stories of the others together with the stories of the objects. In these autobiographical narratives, objects are a device for narrations which become the leading actors in a polyphonic space once bound to annihilate interpersonal relationships and now a site for emotional exchange, social inclusion and sharing. Here again the approach is anthropocentric rather than object-centric and the power of the objects does not consist in notions or labels, but they can even become therapeutic in recovering our past and its bits and pieces scattered in different places and among different cultures. The act itself of narrating documents that the narrator exists, that hisJher memory is a value worth sharing, that hisJher stories have somebody who is listening to them and that they deserve a relationship (ibid., 46). It is now clear that without the visitors' gaze that hands back and restores the collections, they would pointlessly hang on the walls or would be concealed behind glass-cases: it is our gaze that, like a mirror, gives life to their beauty and it is the narration that amplifies that contemporaneity that is specific of masterpieces, thanks to the stories emneshed in them (ibid., 69). Being taken by the hand along the museum rooms by narrations that are part of peoples' lives is a meaningful way to discover that the basic

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stock of knowledge for a journey inside a museum does not come from disciplinary notions: what is really needed are open eyes, open mind and open heart. As Archibald put it: The question is whether we can really still keep telling the same stories the same way and assume we can provide lives of decent quality for those who follow us in om places. I think the answer is no. Part of the solution is to find new stories that have new meanings and new value systems implicit in them. I don't know what stories are. And I don't think it is the job of the historian or the museum to create the story. Our job is to create the context in which people can create those stories and reach some level of consensus arOlll1d them (Bradburne 2016, 228).

These notions challenge the idea of museums as privileged places of truth and authority upon which museums were born as a typical part of modem European cultural expression (Bennett 1995).

From Cannibal Museums towards C annibalized Museums? We could therefore say that nowadays there seems to have come to light another type of "cannibal tour" that stands in opposition to Michael Arnes (1992) notion, which was wittily confirmed by the Musee d'Ethnographie of Neuchatel's exhibition Musee Cannibale (2002). As stated in the exhibition pamphlet: With 'The Cannibal Museum', the staff of the Neuchatel Musemn of Ethnography has dedicated its temporary exhibition to the cannibalistic desire to feed on others, a desire which originally led to the creation and development of museums of ethnography. The collections of ethnographic musemns, made up of vast nmnbers of objects acquired over a long period of time through expeditions in the field, bear witness to the desire to incorporate what is different, or other. The more radical the difference, the more it seems to be appreciated. In order to feed the visitors of their exhibitions, museologists take from their reserves tiny scraps belonging to the world's material cultures. To prepare these objects they use recipes meant to show the contrasts existing between similarities and differences in the worlds of here and there. They prepare a banquet, in which the social lUlion of mankind is consumed. Sometimes they even manage to feed on themselves by exposing their 0\Vll practices and visions. In so doing, they examine the links between questions of identity, violence and the sacred, territories haunted by cannibalistic representations, in which sacrificial communion, symbolic creation and the approach to lUlderstanding others are simultaneously acted out (Texpo 2002).

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In other words, while Ames (1992, 3, after Parezo 1988) recognises that museums are carmibalistic in appropriating other peoples' material for their 0\Vll study and interpretation, confining their representations to glass box display cases, what is taking place today is the cannibalisation of the museum itself and its collections, irrelevant of their type. Museums are being used for more personal goals of individual pleasure and consumerist exploitation, but rather than merely branding this carmibalistic attitude as negative, it can be seen as a consequence of the breakdown of the traditional museum model-organised by disciplnie and around a stable taxonomy that includes an encyclopedic approach to exhibition making, and in which the visitor occupies a marginal place. Losing ground since the last quarter of the twentieth century, this model has been widely challenged since the emergence of the New Museology (see Vergo 1989, Weil 199, Rein 2000, Weil 2002, Phillips 2005, Black 2005, among others) and of various factors such as the rise of the communication driven model, which focuses on a two-way dialogue and the visitors' experience (Golding 20l6a). The departure of traditional curatorship, which grew out of the desire to narrow the gap between museum and society, has slowly turned community engagement and citizen participation into a central institutional objective, thus producing museums without scholar curators, exhibitions made through collaborative curatorship and with increased shared authority with communities engaged for consultation and collection making (Golding and Modest 2013). As a consequence, research conducted in museums is becoming less and less discipline-oriented, having a much more post-disciplinary form through interactive displays that raise questions concerning broader social needs. The recent exhibition at the Milan Triennale 999-Una collezione di domande sull 'abitare contemporaneo-A collection of questions on contemporary housing displays hundreds different ways of livnig ni domestic space, from daily life situations to hosting refugees, on a crucial theme of our society, involving fifty co-curators from different disciplines interacting with the public thanks to a series of physical and digital environments, including social media. The generative and collaborative exhibition that takes the shape of a hub of ideas and proposals, becomes a collective game with the polyphonic questions raised by curators, visitors and participants on Instagram and Facebook to improve the quality of life of each and every one of us. Contents are generated by communities, firms, activists, schools, multinationals, research centres, artists, designers with the idea of community under scrutiny. It is a real narration where each subject involved offers hisJher point of view on the idea of housing. Visiting the exhibition becomes an experiment in a polyphonic choir that

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crosses material and immaterial worlds, tradition and innovation. The exhibition goes hand in hand with a website (999domandesullabitare.org) where all questions are gathered starting from "Have you got a house?", to "Would you like your house to be displayed in an exhibition" via "What if we never went out of our house?", or "What if our homes become prisons and not only nests?", or "Does our hosting attitude change in relationship with the host?". The catalogue itself is made of a series of booklets that are being published in progress through the self-publishing Amazon method and many liveable houses can be found in the stories told within the series of booklets that spawned from this question: "Will you tell us a story about a house and its inhabitants?" Houses that act as a backdrop, houses that are the protagonists or silent witnesses of stories and ways of living. There are no technical rules on how this story has to be told. "Everybody is a curator", moreover, is an invitation to take part in the creation of the digital image of the exhibition as real curators do, a dialogic space where visitors, professional web designers and museum curators meet to share their ideas and experiences. One museum that has moved away from being the sole guardian of cultural authority and social memory and instead has become facilitator in promoting and sustaining memories that arise in our day-to-day lives is the Museu da Pessoa (Museum of the Person), founded in 1991 in Sao Paulo, Brazil (Worcman 2016). This is an open and collaborative museum based on the premise that anyone can become more than just a visitor, that anyone can become part of, and be actively involved in, the construction of the museum collection. Founding Director Karen Worcman observes, Over the years, the Museu da Pessoa has developed tools to docmnent people's life stories in order to build and sustain a collective social memory. Recently, the Musemn presented a pilot project designed to give curatorial authority to the community. Using technologies readily available to the general public, and employing the Internet and social media, Monte sua Co/ec;iio (Build yom Collection) allows individuals to develop their own collections based on the Museum's online archive. The project promotes participation and awareness in the comrlllmity about the means through which social memory is constructed and about tools available through cultural institutions that make it possible to safeguard these memories. (ibid).

The museum collections-comprised of digital recordings, photographs and written testimonies-has grO\vn to include more than 17,000 life stories, 7,000 of which are currently accessible through the Museum's portal (www.museudapessoa.net). These life stories have been viewed over one million times by visitors from all over the world.

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The focus on visitor participation can be read as a transfOlmation of museum spaces from sites where knowledge is transmitted to passive audiences, to what Bryony Onciul (2013) terms "engagement zones", where historical collections are re-imagined and community perspectives are integrated into curatorial practices: this constitutes a new scene, whose borders are being continually redefined and renegotiated with other spheres of life. Wayne Modest (2013) provides an example of such pmctice, co­ curating with teenagers and an artist, at the Homiman Museum London. Under the need for visibility and social impact, another factor responsible for the relative abandonment of the traditional museum paradigm is a marketplace ideology (Lasch 1994; Montanari 201 1 and 2013; Seltis 2005) adopted by museums increasingly permeated by economic and management models, since the global fmancial crisis in 2007. Turning to the spectacular as a practical survival strategy, museums aim at amusing and entertaining, frequently being transfOlmed into a location for perfOlmances and concerts that take place within their walls. They become the picturesque frame that leads somewhere else, the departure point of a personal trip of exploration, an active public space where things are taking place, mther tban being shown. The flourishing branch of a market-oriented cultuml entertaimnent (Tobelem 1997, Kotler 2000 and 2001) made of special media events, exhibitions with commodified masterpieces sired to tourism, and political exploitation contribute to the carmibalisation of the museum and its collections (Montanari 201 1 , 53) without producing culture, intellectual advancement or the raising of consciousness regarding the inherent power of our heritage.

Artist Interventions and Performance in Museums As a survival strategy to attract new audiences responding to current sensitivities, today co-curated projects undertaken with artists can be found in many museums and exhibitions all over the world. Critically approaching the museum's historical role, they can be seen also as a suitable way to offer new narratives in the contemporary arena in which museums are coming to telTIlS with their role and raison d'etre. Community members, both indigenous and non-indigenous voices of artists, dancers and perfolTIlers are becoming new active presences III museums, where museum objects are left aside under the motto of audience engagement, multiple readings and networking (Chung 2014). Areti Adarnopoulou and Estber Solomon (2016) discuss how tbe museum's historical role, its epistemological background and its power to legitimise culture are being critically assessed by curatorial projects

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undertaken by artists who have chosen artistic installations and redisplays of historical collection through contemporary Wunderkammer, the now fashionable display format of Renaissance cabinet of curiosities. They consider how, in current exhibition designs, especially in museums other than art museums, a tendency to create cabinet-of-curiosity-like exhibitions seems to embody a playful space of investigation and interaction between objects and viewers, based on artefactual density, unusual juxtapositions and a display system that presents metaphors and allegorical themes visually (ibid., 40). Entrusting curatorship to artists, who visit and reinterpret museum collections distancing themselves from classificatory exhibitions of the past, speaks to a broader public and enables awareness building much more than typological displays did, contributing to cultivate relationships with the visitors in an expanded context. Undoubtedly, this allows a degree of free association on behalf of the viewer, who can navigate in these collections in a rather rhizomatic way akin to the Internet experience, while it enables curators to tell an array of stories, re-enacting a universal world of knowledge as conceived prior to its division into current disciplinary categories. For example, in the case of the Wunderkammer digital experiment proposed by Lisa Meyer and Chris Creed to the British Library Labs in 2014, virtual visitors could display selected objects and images from a database, thus subverting the authority of the curator and of the artist co-curator as well (ibid., 46). In this way, not only could members of the audience re-contextualise the huge digitized collection of The British Library in a Wunderkammer of their O\vn, but they were allowed personal choices concerning the inclusion of specific objects into invented collections that represented the visual production of a flexible and personal display system. These kinds of artistic interventions and heritage-based perfOlmances in museums of anthropology in close synergy with museum professionals depend on the museum and the artist being open to using perfOlmance as a way to increase people's understanding of heritage and heritage-related issues, while providing freedom and less rigid rules regarding space and disciplines. PerfOlmance, as a key instrument for cultural mediation, has today become a recognised fundamental element in the general museum setting in order to revitalise the heritage and to establish linkages between traditional cultures and the most avant-garde expression of culture (Poirson 2015). When objects that are on display are freed of their intrinsic perfOlmative potential they can become depositories for the gesture and the word (ibid., 160). Performances can therefore return to the objects their nature as living entities and spiritual unities, enshrining cultural and

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spiritual presence and embodied knowledge, as we saw earlier for example with reference to the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Haida collaboration. As mentioned above, contemporary Aboriginal artists are engaged in a critique of representation, of authority, of power and of modernity, and challenge the museum practice through their voices and obtaining international recognition for works that transcend disciplinary boundaries. To mention just a few native artists' voices in museums we should start from the oldest generation of northwest-coast painters and sculptors­ Mungo Martin, Tony and Richard Hunt, Bill Reid and Tim Paul-to the most recent, including Michael Kabotie, James Luna, Gerald McMaster, Edward Poitras, Rebecca Belmore, Joanne Cardinal-Schubert and Jane Ash Poitras, some of whom are members of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective/Collectif des commissaires autochtones (ACCICCA). In general, living artists' work encourages the elimination of stereotypes, prevents sacred or religious objects from being trivialised, and validates the beliefs and practices of subjects in native groups, who are no longer willing to be defined by anthropologists and others as objects of academic study. This collaborative activity can transfOlm museums from cemeteries of dead objects lying behind glass, to active places where culture is performed through the participation of the whole community, as part of their social and religious activities. The museum itself is a living organism in a constant state of development and evolution and audiences become key players in an immersive participatory process or in re-enactments driven by the desire to provide new readings of heritage. Introducing a continuous flux of interactions and perfOlmances in the museum, involving the lives of the artists and of the visitors, means engaging the mind and the body, fostering multiple senses of vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch, as "the profound resonating in the things of the world we experience is vital to the museum experience" (Golding 2014, 16). Removed from life, collections in museums are inevitably relegated to a static condition as relics from the past, imprisoned in the desacralizing space of a glass case, which is not natural to them and to the reality of their continuing vitality: perfOlmances are a way to make museums alive and associate them with real people, using the body as a vehicle of social values capable of incorporating a cultural memory. The coexistence between the museum as a site of pemmnence and the performance as a site of impelTIlanence builds an interesting apparent contrast capable of generating a creative process that frees the performative potential of its objects, the enactment of an object's meaning. Museums themselves should be perceived as theatres, as sites where both objects can enact the play of their lives and the site can be a performative space where it is

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possible to observe and analyse tbe ways in which people think about tbe past and negotiate its legacy in the present (Phillips 2005, 104). For the MWC Genoa, establishing a dialogue witb tbe objects' special resonance has recently culminated in hosting the perfOlmances of Federica Loredan, a danceriperfOlmerimusician, who in 2017 decided to embody the condition of migrants and refugees dancing with a costume that produces sounds like the African masquerade costumes or the Mamuthones from Sardinia. Under the title SireneiMermaids, using a highly iconic musical geme like hip hop arranged in a personal mix with African rhythms, the costume reveals what is invisible and gives voice to the condition of those who get stranded, running from one nation to the other: the costume, the body percussion technique and the instruments played become vehicles of stories and changes, enabling the violation of cultural and geographical boundaries. In Loredan's piece tbe body becomes a powerful object, with its keys and charms resounding like chains, incorporating invisible and magical forces. The perfOlmer, spit out from the sea, engages in a transfOlmation that can be compared with the process producing the museum object, hosting memories and knowledge, in a struggle for survival, searching for tbe key leading to a safe shelter. This work results into comparable cathartic experiences for the dancer, the visitors and above all for the migrants invited on these special occasions. It demonstrates how this kind of collaboration can make museums special places that contribute to the wellbeing of the public, distancing themselves more and more from the traditional stereotyped image of the museum of the past that relegated them into austere sites of silence, which generated fatigue and an inferiority complex (Golding and Modest 2013). Going hand in hand with the ongoing demands in terms of accessibility, our museums can become spaces for voices to resonate and for bodies to perfOlm, thus acting as places of multivocality and multi-sensoriality, allowing the plural character of contemporary societies to be performed rather than represented. Opening the museum to diverse "worlds of sense" (Classen 1993), stepping outside the contemporary European ordering of just five senses with the sense of sight positioned at the apex of "civilization", is a fundamental acknowledgement for twenty first-century anthropology museums, as Golding puts it (Golding 2010). Furtbermore, the privileging of visual experience and the assignment of music, oratory, storytelling, dance, lineage histories and other expressive fOlms to the discrete modes of inquiry that are imposed by the Western academic system inhibit the recovery of the more holistic understandings of the role of the material object in indigenous cultures that are primary for community members (Phillips 2005, 105).

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Figure 13.3 Dance Workshop. Photo by Maria Camilla De Palma.

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Museums as places that care for us The healing ofour own community is the primary goal of this museum; and by honouring the oral tradition and engaging in truth telling, they are taking important stepsforward in that direction. Bonne Ekdahl, [mUlding director, Ziibiwing Center for Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways (Lonetree 2009, 335)

The Bloody Memory space of the Ziibiwing Center for Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways is an attempt to provide a healing space so as not to leave open wounds in the heart of their people (Lonetree 2009, 333-335): it has a curvilinear, almost womb-like design and a healing smell of cedar. The singing of three women from the commlUlity helps pull visitors forward towards the display of beautiful objects ("Creating beautiful things in difficult times") embodying the strength of the ancestors and their endurance. The Effects of Colonization Gallery and the Bloody Memory Gallery represent one of the most effective methods that a tribal rnusemn can use to assist community members in the truth telling and healing process. C . . . ) Alongside difficult stories the Center provided a healing place where tribal members could gain strength from lUlderstanding and reclaiming their rich cultural inheritance and identity (ibid., 334).

By narrating their history in this museum, the community does not shy away from speaking the hard truths of colonisation, nor does the museum avoid telling the difficult story of land theft, disease, poverty, violence, alcoholism, loss of language and culture, and forced conversion at the hands of Christian missionaries (ibid., 330). Historical objects displayed embody the strength of their ancestors, because they are witnesses, they were done then and bear their makers' marks in their weaves, textures and shapes: they have a compelling agency to cause people living in the present to enunciate their relationship to the past (Phillips 2005, 108). As seen before, the museum as theatre offers a site where cultural processes and divergent constructions of the past can be observed and where the reception of particular historical representations can be studied (ibid., 88), but in its post-colonial critique it can even go further, as argued by a number of museum theorists (among others, Phillips 2011) who have advocated that museums can be therapeutic institutions and places where communities that have previously been excluded can gain recognition through representation to settle unbalanced relationships (Harris and o 'Hanlon 2013, 12).

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With the exhibition Mon histoire c 'est I 'histoire d'un espoire/My story is a story of hope at Saint-Martory Castle in rural France, four tableux vivants embodying the effects of the new arrivals of refugees in Saint­ Martory were set up by French photographer Patrick Willocq to narrate the global story of peoples obliged to live together without having asked to, and to understand how very different communities can learn to live together. In the scenes, arranged and photographed outdoors and exhibited in Saint-Martory castle, each one impersonates himJherself: those who are in favour and those against hosting refugees. Someone lends a hand, someone turns hisJher back, both the descendants of the Spanish migrants and the asylum seekers who have accepted to live back again a dramatic episode of their life re-enacted in the photo settings. 'Who was against their presence did not change hisJher idea, but they managed to overcome some stereotypes and raise awareness in those who were indifferent. Creating a scenario calmed things do\Vll and at the same time allowed some freedom without giving room to violence. It has allowed us to say who we are, we were not obliged to agree altogether. This is how we feel and live.

-a participant of the project said in the twenty-three-minute video shot narrating the conversations among the participants involved in the enactments. At the MWC in Genoa, we are increasingly engaged in making it a place that raises and uplifts, vitally progressing the wellbeing of our publics and the peoples where the collections come from. The Bororo's crying before their bows nailed to the walls of the warehouse of an Italian Missionary Museum (Museo Salesiano di Colle Don Bosco, Alessandria) in November 2004 could be considered therapeutic: the young community members of the Brazilian Bororo group of Mato Grosso engaged in an exhibition at MWC Genoa (Boe nure imiil am Bororo: an indigenous people of Brazil between rites and football, October 2004-April 2005) could not find anything more cathartic than crying when they unexpectedly saw the symbol of their past as warriors, the bows and arrows collected in huge quantities together with hundreds other artefacts in the 1920s by Salesian Missionaries in Mato Grosso and sent to their mother house in Italy. They could only recognise that those kinds of weapons belonging to a distant past were no longer in use and they cried honouring their ancestors who once proudly defeated their enemies with them. Combined senses of homage and resignation spread all

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over the place where a new awareness seemed to take hold, thanks to the visit to this museum. It was the sound of a rattle played in the warehouse of MWC Genoa that ignited the process of recognising an old gourd-no longer covered with yellow and red feathers-as belonging to their group and clan: a young Bororo father cried again when he discovered that the rattle, hosted in our city since 1 892, was not destroyed at the time of the death of the O\vner, as his tradition prescribes. Following tribal rules, Ie-uniting object and connnunity would have filled the gap created by the object's withdrawal from its natural fate, but as such a long time had elapsed, this re­ unification would have provoked the mourning of the elders and no recovery would have been obtained. The wise decision taken by the group, after quite a controversial discussion, ended up in being happy to have been able to gain a glimpse to tbeir past through that old rattle which belonged to a member of their community: happiness for having seen it and happiness for its being an ambassador of their culture in such a distant land was the final state of the five Bororo who came to Genoa to co­ organise the exhibition, and they thanked Levi-Strauss, the anthropologist who wrote about them first, making them well known to the world. In times marked by insecurity and conflict like ours, adds Thomas (2016b), museums can help to sustain and emich society. They stimulate a curiosity that is vital to understanding and negotiating the cosmopolitan but dangerous world we all now inhabit. At a different level, wellbeing for our publics is much needed because of the hectic rhythms of our lives: meditation and yoga classes are being offered in our museum spaces, perceived more than ever before as suitable environments due to the aura raised by its collections. Rather than filling the space for promotional events to be marketed for commercial purposes, yoga sessions can more adequately fill the silence required for enjoying a museum and its collections, stimulating inner knowledge at various levels. In this way, yoga can contribute to raising awareness that heritage is a basic element for fmding ourselves and our inner richness, that culture and museums are fundamental, not only to produce profit, but to make us more civilized and more human. Inhabiting the spirit of the place, yoga in museums can therefore foster our wellbeing, engaging audiences in a holistic way, focusing on that sense of unity among human beings, which constitutes the foundation of our museum. With wellbeing in mind for all, large and easy to read prints and iPads with images and Sign Language videos have been implemented in recent years at the MWC in Genoa, together with 3D tactile models to explore tbe museum with your fingertips. Thanks to special fimds witbin the project

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Figure 13.4 Sensoriale, 2017. Photo by Maria Camilla De Pahna.

"Museopertutti" (Museum for all) by the Fondazione De Agostini, we can now offer social stories and maps of the museum, accessibility tools for families with children with disabilities and caregivers. "Sensoriale" is fundamental to this wellbeing agenda. "Sensoriale" is a new space in the museum intended as a quiet location with multisensory-based interactions that can help visitors recovering from emotional and stressful situations and conditions. "Sensoriale" is a place where time is dilated, space is comfortable and cosy, senses are delicately activated. Background videos and images are comprised of light fragments and flowers captured in nature, shot in a way to better focus the vibration of the colours. This space created by Echo Art is composed of individual elements that can be combined in different formations: five instruments, one soft seat and a big cushion, ordered in space according to an arithmetical progression. Each

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element composing "Sensoriale" is a vibration, a musical instrument inserted in the wooden structure itself, cedar wood, which prompts relaxation and detachment through the sense of smell. Built to welcome and accommodate anybody and more specifically persons with cognitive disabilities and autistic spectrum disorders, "Sensoriale" is equipped with musical instruments, seats, sounds, colours and aromatic essences in a single composite object, to provide multisensory experiences to develop "multiple intelligences" (Golding 2010 after Gardener 1993). These concepts of healing, multi-sensory perspectives and objects as processes invites us again to give back to objects their status as repositories of the embodied knowledge of their makers. As Phillips reminds us, when an elder lifts up a moccasin or a mask in a museum storeroom and begins to sing a song or recOlUlt a story, we realize the lUlique potential of musemn objects to trigger memories of and offer access to aesthetic and cognitive systems that are not, in the first instance, visual, but have to do, rather, with hearing, touching, smelling or tasting. (Phillips 2005, 97).

Concluding thoughts In this historical phase, a time of shared authority, polyvocality and interrelationships at all levels, we must recognise that new technologies and new social habits demand new voices to utter their words beside the traditional curatorial ones, for a more inclusive and choral accomplishment, tailored to our publics. As much as we can say for sure that selfies will not be the saviour of our museums, a main challenge facing museums today is to identify the character of new fOlTIlS of vibrancy that are in tune with the cultural and social changes that herald the twenty-first century. This chapter has outlined the ways in which one museum has been working on this agenda, breaking down barriers between disciplines and hierarchical categories of expert curator and diverse publics, to promote inclusive and caring approaches for the wellbeing of each and everybody. Like Menohimi, which was buried because of the eruption of Mount Terawera and left for derelict until it was bought and shipped to England where it was used first as boat house then as a shelter, our museums can now become meeting houses and places for recovering that sense of unity of mankind that is so inherent to our collections when perceived from a physical, emotional, spiritual and cultural perspective, which, according to their makers intentions, opens up to performances and processes, the only

Selfies, Yoga and Hip Hop: Expanding the Role ofMusemns

conditions capable of assuring our well-being and survival beings in a global world.

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PART FIVE COMING TO OUR SENSES IN THE DIGITAL AGE

CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE ROLE OF THE MUSEUM IN THE DIGITAL AGE YOSHIKAZU OGAWA, MOTOKO HARADA AND MIKA MATSUO

Introduction In Japan, the idea of "life-long learning" and the "knowledge circulating society" have been rising in prominence with the government in recent years. The "Basic Act on Education" was recently revised for the first time in 60 years. In this act, "life-long learning" is understood as a social issue: "a society must be brought into being in which the people can continue to learn throughout their lives, on all occasions and in all places, and in which they can suitably apply the outcomes of their lifelong learning to refine themselves and lead fulfilling lives." (Basic Act on Education, 2008). The main reason why Japan focuses on this policy is a decline in Japan's international competitiveness, like the reduction in its score in the OECD PISA test (Ministry of Education, Cultures, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, 2005). The Japanese government think the way to solve these problems is to grow "zest for living (Ikiru-chikara)", which means, for example, the ability to learn and think for oneself (Central Council for Education, 1996) as a skill of all Japanese people. To raise "zest for living (Ikiru-chikara)", it is necessary to respond to diverse learning needs of a new era, in cooperation with not only schools, but also societies, communities, and individuals who have various learning histories or learning achievements (Central Council for Education, 2008). The significance of the idea of this act and policy means that people should be able to make use of what they have learned in museums back in their societies. This chapter suggests ways in which museums, of all kinds, could provide continuous learning experiences for the public and how museums could return the outcomes of people's learning back to their

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societies by using current digital technologies in the knowledge circulating society. The authors are writing this chapter from the position of scientists who work in The National Museum of Nature and Science in the capital city of Japan. The chapter outlines current work generously funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) on developing museum audiences in general and not just those who are interested in science. Indeed the chapter, while focusing on Japan, points to the importance of international museum audiences stepping outside of their traditional comfort zones and areas of interest to explore a wider range of ideas and Issues.

Science Literacy in trans-scientific issues Society has been changing rapidly in recent decades, and the position of science in society is also subject to change. Regarding these changes, the chapter argues that the future social roles of museums should be considered as urgent. After the Great East Japan Earthquake, it was widely realised that the scientists do not have all the answers in particularly complex situations where multiple elements are combined. In these situations, risk-related issues which can be asked of science and yet which carmot be answered by science are abundant. Such matters are called "trans-science" issues (Weinberg, 1972). In contemporary times, the authors emphasise that it is part of the social role of the museum, and most necessary, to prompt deep thinking on the implications of science and technology. Japan has 449 science museums, the majority of which offer knowledge-sharing learning programmes, although interactive programmes with life and social themes corresponding to real-world situations are scarce. As institutions for informal education, museums present many educational programmes for citizens to acquire scientific knowledge, but there are doubts about the effectiveness of promoting thought on trans-scientific issues. 'What is an effective learning programme for considering trans­ scientific issues? As part of their attempt to create a lifelong learning system, The National Museum of Nature and Science endeavors to create opportunities where citizens can ponder trans-scientific issues. Through these specially designed programmes, participants are encouraged to acquire the appropriate thinking and communication methods and tecliinques that will enable them to contemplate risk-related issues, including trans-scientific ones, which it is hoped will lead to the application of continuous learning and thinking in their daily lives. Science literacy is vital for people to

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respond properly to these issues concerning science and technology that they may face in their lifetimes, like problems about epidemic disease, radioactivity, and so on. Science Literacy is defined as a cluster of comprehensive abilities in science. 'When people have it, they 1) possess appropriate knowledge and ways of thinking regarding science and technology, 2) are equipped to deal with changes ui the natural world and human society, 3) can make reasonable decisions and take appropriate actions. Although we use the telTIl "science," here we do not confine this ability only to the context of science, as science literacy also includes elements related to human society.

PCALi Project The National Museum of Nature and Science (2010) developed the "Continuous Educational Programme Framework to Foster Science Literacy" (Fig.14.1) which is composed of a contuiuous leamuig system that seeks to foster science literacy over a human lifetime. Ogawa et al. (2014) proposed a network of science museums that would share these frameworks and educational programmes by usuig [CT. With this background, we started a new research project to develop an interactive online database system with two objectives in mind. The first was to establish a model of museum usage in which science literacy is fostered in a knowledge circulating society. The second was to establish an interactive lifelong learning system as a new function of museums. The interactive online database system is called the "Science Literacy Passport V system, which we call PCALi (passport of Communication and Action for Literacy) (Fig.14.2). Data on the museums' educational programmes are keyed into the database by museum staff usuig the Continuous Educational Programme Framework. Educational programme data, for example, includes: the objective of the programme, the target participants, the maximum number of participants the programme can accommodate, an abstract of the programme, the flow of the programme, the items to be prepared, and other matters. The PCALi system has over 20 partner institutions, which are composed of museums in five regions of Japan and a science center abroad. In this system, the data on the museums' educational programmes are shared among all the users. Once the data are

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shared, it is possible for any museum curator to try out the programmes at their site, in much the same way as consulting a cooking recipe. 'While the educational programme information is shared online, the entire system is intended to encourage citizens to visit museums and is thus not limited to online activity. Museum users who are involved in this system have a special card called PCALi. There is a unique barcode dedicated to each user on the back of the member's card, and when it is scarmed, the user's participation history is recorded on their personal account. Surveys on each educational programme are held online; visitors answer online surveys and museum staff can receive feedback from museum users, which can help the former run better educational programmes or develop new ones. Thus, staff in one museum can learn from those at other museums in the network. Within the PCALi system, data on educational programmes serve as a medium of communication between museum audiences and museum curators. There are three basic ways for this communication to occur: 1) between museum users and museum curators; 2) among museum users; and 3) among museum curators. And this process has three outcomes; these are detailed below.

Collaboration with humanity and science Through our educational progrannnes, museum users sometimes acquire the cognitive ability to consider risk-related issues, which leads to continuous learning and thinking regarding social issues in their ordinary daily lives. Those museum users demonstrate, in their attitude and behavior, a desire to give back what they have learned, to their friends, families or to wider society. They do it sometimes by Social Network Services (SNS) like Facebook, sharing their experience, emotion and new knowledge in words, or sometimes they create artworks that illustrate the making of this personal meaning, which are then shared on PCALi's blog pages. This blog is the place to practice sharing participants' thoughts in museums during or after the visit. To make their artworks, museum users have to obey only one rule. They should choose one of the words from a words list the museum made and take a photo that matches the word. Museum users can thus express their impressions about exhibited objects simply in one word. These artworks are created not only in science museums but also in other types of museums, and sometimes the museum staff reply to the creators of the artwork. In a certain sense, users directly take their personal understanding of the museums visited and share this with the wider public as if they were museum staff. The artworks are gathered

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for publication in albums, by the museum users and museum staff directly involved, as well as by subsequent museum users, curators and other museum staff, who can access and make use of albums. Shonaka-Harada (2015, 2016) regards this programme as one productive way to survey upcoming exhibition themes for curators and museum staff. Furthermore, through the sharing of data on the educational programmes, this research shows museum staff working at different museums can establish mutually beneficial relationships and cooperate in running programmes. Owada and Sugimoto (2016) reported one case in which a curator in the museum who majored in history made an educational programme about elephants in ancient Japanese documents. Then a zookeeper in the zoo next to that museum made an educational programme about elephants living in the zoo and elephants whose lives were threatened in the wild. The curator and zookeeper joined these two programmes, so that history lovers would go to both the museum and the zoo during this collaborative project. Another example of collaborative programming might involve audiences appreciating animals depicted in an art museum and animals living in a zoo. These are just two examples to illustrate the benefit of the PCALi work for museums of all types, not just science museums, since all collaborative programming aims to entertain and educate the participants through involving them in museums throughout their lives.

Social impact This system is expected to have the following social impacts. Within the system, knowledge circulation is generated. Such knowledge circulation can be regarded as a means to break dO\vn the traditional hierarchies of power in the museum, since the PCALi system democratises knowledge, traditionally understood as the one-way flow of infOlmation from the museum to the audience, by opening up a new field of power to enable curator and audience to collaborate to take action on social issues. FurthelTIlore, our research shows that contemporary social issues carmot be solved simply with scientific knowledge, as in many cases a grasp of the social sciences is also necessary. As they become participants in knowledge circulation, museum users will develop their science literacy, which will lead to the identification of new challenges and the creation of new museum utilisation models, and in this way, we can ultimately generate social values. The PCALi system is a small step towards generating social values, and we want to emphasise here the continuing need to promote social inclusion and science communication

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throughout our future work. The authors consider that museum curators are scientists first but scientists who need science communication skills. Science communicators with those skills can view social structure deeper and multilaterally, so they might be a key to solve the problems about social inclusion (Ogawa 2017), for example. They argue that the PCALi online database system can help facilitate science communication between museum curators and the public. A concrete example could helpfully be introduced here. Data on one of the educational programmes stored on the database details an outreach programme in Fukushima Prefecture related to radiation. After the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, Fukushima Residents faced the danger of radiation exposure. The outreach programme was intended for them to learn exactly what radiation is and how to protect themselves from it. The programme included experiments and observation sessions. After taking this programme, participants left personal comments on the programme's website, and the museum curators replied to them. Such communication between museum and people who call1lot readily come to the museum for reasons of residential area or various other obstacles, can be viewed as the beginning of museums progressing in social inclusion.

Museum literacy Museum literacy is defined by Stapp as not simply "competence in reading objects (visual literacy), but. . . competence in drawing upon the museum's holdings and services purposefully and independently" (Stapp, 1984). Furthermore, Stapp argues that "the public should be able to draw upon all the resources of the museum purposefully and independently, from exhibitions, publications, and programming to library, study collections, and staff expertise" (Stapp, 1984). According to this definition, museum literacy involves both sides; the museum users and museums. It is an interactive competency of museum users and museum staff. These competencies will be transfOlmed according to the changing role of science and museums, so-called "trans-science" and knowledge circulating society. One of the main functions of the PCALi system is to record and keep the personal learning histories of individual museum users. Through this system, museum users can come to recognise their tendencies and motivations in selecting museums' learning resources and then evaluate their learning pathways. Museums can use the system as a database to analyse usage trends and extract the key topics of concern to the public. Museum managers can accumulate and transmit examples of museum

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utilisation by topic, generation, and museum type. Analysing personal learning histories reveals the types of motivation for using museums across users and our research has identified certain types of motivation underpinning individuals' use of museums. Although policymakers and museum managers focus on the number of visitors as one of the key perfOlmance indicators in evaluating museums, an understanding of visitors' personal histories regarding their museum experiences is useful for qualitative evaluation and significant in highlighting the cultural value of museums in society. As the authors move towards the end of this chapter this paper will report on the images of museum users revealed through the PCALi system (Fig. 14.3). Okuyama (2016) found that museum users who use this system repeatedly can be classified into two groups. One group is the so-called "heavy users", users who use multiple museums, who are called "Nomads". The other group of users, who use only one museum, are called "Residents". These telTIlS allow us to analyse how users grow by utilising museums from a marketing perspective and enable the provision of important guidelines for the museum's 10ng-telTIl business strategy. Notably, this model of Nomads and Residents gives important knowledge for museum marketing. Over time, museum marketing can be more precisely directed and encourage wider museum usage. Programming can take account of whether the user has become a heavy user due to some particular activity, whether they became a Resident, or whether they changed from a Resident to a Nomad. Museums can see the development of an individual's museum literacy, such as how to use museums throughout their lives, and work more productively from this personal knowledge base. This is a new way to view audiences. Traditionally, museum users are considered quantitatively as numbers of visitors used for museum evaluation (Kato and Maekawa, 1980), but understanding the users qualitatively and seeing their transfolTIlations can offer more productive indicators for museum evaluation. In short, PCALi enables museum staff and museum founders to take into consideration the fuller potential of the visitor. The project has been valuable in focusing not only on heavy users who readily participate in learning activities but also on light users such as viewers of single exhibits, who, as we have sho'Wll, can develop not only richer visiting and learning patterns but also deeper thinking across wider fields of knowledge. For future research we suggest museum staff paying further attention to the development of personal museum literacies, and for this it will be necessary to advance 10ng-telTIl impact studies across a range of different museums.

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There are disadvantages of publishing the contents of educational programmes online, specifically regarding copyright issues. Museum staff are not all familiar with the rules and regulations covering the internet and the management of digital contents can be challenging for tbern. This research uncovered this area as part of the new role for the museum and we specifically highlight the need to raise the literacy levels of museum users and museum staff and museum founders in the contemporary digital age. Shonaka-Harada and Sakai (2017) made it a key point of their work that curators and other museum staff in Japan should learn about these matters and increase their museum literacy for the management of digital contents. For example, some museum staff have unwittingly committed piracy. Those accidents occurred because of a lack of knowledge on the part of museum staff regarding copyright, or full digital literacy. They think to share many photos or other information about the collections on the web is effective to attract foreigners for inbound trips, or to raise new business using those contents. For that, Japanese museum staff have to think how they can achieve those goals properly.

Discussion The role of the museum in the contemporary digital age is represented in Fig. 14.4. Firstly, the transmission model [1] assumes tbe existence only of a single "source" and a "receiver". Historically it has been a very common fOlTIl of knowledge/culture transfer. In this situation, the museum acts as an encyclopedia, positioning itself as expert and not allowing for any agency or infolTIlational authority on the part of the audience. Hence the one-way transmission model has been criticised for transmitting information from "expert" to "lay public" - implying that tbe public is somehow deficient in their understanding of science. Society has been changing, and the positioning of science in society is also about to change. In the trans-science situation, with the increasing recognition that dialogue and interaction are crucial factors ill underpinning sound decision-making in science, it has become accepted that two-way communication is a more satisfactory way to address all of these objectives. Thus, museums have a function as locations for science communication between experts and the lay public [2]. After the Great East Japan Earthquake, it was realised that the scientists do not necessarily have all the answers in complex situations. Risk-related issues which carmot be answered by science are abundant. In these situations, science communication involves many "stakeholders" who contribute to tbe message in different ways. Therefore, tbe !bird [3] oftbe

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chart demonstrates CHI-SAN CHI-SHOo In Japanese, CHI means Knowledge, SAN means Creating, and SHO means Sharing. The phrase CHI-SAN CHI-SHO ultimately refers to a Knowledge Creating and Knowledge Sharing Model in the Digital Age. In the case of local issues, many stakeholders engage with the questions and create shared senses of both value and values through the Digital Landscape. They have different cultural backgrounds. Museums and museum practitioners must, then, recognise the diversity of their cultures and connect among different stakeholders and encourage the generation of shared cultural values. If they can do this, they have a chance to be a cultural hub in the local community.

Conclusion This paper introduced the interactive online database Science Literacy Passport p, PCALi, which stores data on museums' educational programmes and enables information sharing between museum users and curators. It showed, with examples, how PCALi also accumulates data on museum users' personal learning histories, which museum curators can use to analyse learning trends and peoples' preferences in learning outcomes. Overall, this chapter has demonstrated how the PCALi system works as a tool to promote science communication between museum curators and museum users. The authors argued that science communication skills lead to enhanced museum literacy and may eventually generate social inclusion. They look forward to subsequent international research, in museums of all sorts, for example, museums of world art, museums of local history and zoos or aquariums. Acknowledgement: This work was supported by JSPS Kakenhi Grant Number JP24220013

CHAPTER FIFTEEN MIGRATION AND CULTURAL SOUNDSCAPES CURATING THE SOUNDS OF DIVERSITY IN OSLO, NORWAY HANS PHILIP EINARSEN

And then - listen - there is the way a city comes to us in memory and reverie, its cadences, whispers and sighs like the voices of sorrowful women. The babel of the crowd and the wordless solitude of the individual in a noisy city capture in sound a larger urban tension between collective and subjective life. Sometimes it can be hard to hear anything, hard even to listen to one's own thoughts, amongst all the noise (Fran Tonkiss 2004, 303).

"There is a different sound in Gronland" On Gr011land, there is a kind o["gnmlandsound". As soon as you walk out of the district, to what is the central station, there is a completely different kind of SOlll1d (Sayeda).

Our everyday life is always filled with sounds. Some loud, olliers weak, some close, others at a distance. Some sounds invoke our attention, as when a child cries. A cello concert can be beautiful, while dripping water is irritating. Our sound environment is like a real life "soundtrack", an important source of infOlmation that creates our experience of reality. In what way does the sound environment tell us about cultural and social changes in society? Is sound a key ingredient in the construction of identity and difference, continuity and changes, tradition and innovation? If you walk eastward from Oslo city center, you have to cross the Aker river (Akerselva), which has always constituted the symbolic border between Oslo's east end and west end. On the east side of the river, you will find Grenland, an area rich with immigrants and a diversity of cultures. Approximately half of Ilie inhabitants (53 per cent) in Gmnland

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are immigrants, and 42 per cent of them have a background from countries/nations outside the ED, such as North America etc. (Heydal 2014) 1 Some people think this diversity is a source of enrichment; others are uncomfortable with all these foreign people and simply will not go to this area. Grenland has become a symbol of a multicultural Norway, and the diversity is made visible through clothing, shops, restaurants and mosques. If there is news about immigration, the report will probably be accompanied by images from Gmnland to illustrate the diversity, otherness, hatmony or conflicts, whichever the news happen to be about. The diversity in Gmnland has been used to illustrate the idyllic and exotic picture of multiculturalism in marketing when apartments are to be sold, but also as a warning of what happens if the immigration is too high and religious groups become too powerful. It is in this area Sayeda listens to what she calls the "grenlandsound", as a sound she carmot find in other areas. The term "gmnlandsound" was unknO\vn to us both when our conversations began, and first emerged in the statement above when Sayeda described the differences between sounds at Gmnland and sounds in the nearby areas. Other informants narrate similar experiences when they describe the sound of Gmnland, but use different labels for the sounds: By diversity smmd I mean what I see and hear armmd me. It makes me feel that I am in a particular place. Diversity sound emerges when people from different places of the world get together. (Yomali) Gmnland is more multicultural. The sound is corning out of it. There are lots of different people who speak different languages. Then there will be different sounds. Like a multicultural sound, perhaps. (Khaled)

The statements are presenting the idea that there is "something" in the sound structures in Gmnland that differs from sound structures in other districts. What could this "something" be? What kind of ingredients is it possible to find in this soundscape? 'What affects our sound perception and how do we interpret it? Do people in Gmnland use sounds to connect themselves to the place and to a community? A brief examination of what sound actually is might be helpful before we explore these questions in greater detail.

1 EU, North America etc. is an abbreviation for EU/E0S, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Including also Switzerland.

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What is sound? In technical telTIls, sound is waves, or oscillations, which move through the air and hit the ear with a certain frequency. The eardrum is set in motion and the brain receives messages about the sounds (Rudi 2000). Yet sound is much more than a mere physical phenomenon. Most sounds have a receiver, a listener who will perceive the sounds as meaningful in one way or another. It may be tones from a cell phone, a car engine or a beautiful cello concert. 'When the fIrst female cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova, was in the soundless space together with thousands of beautiful stars, it was the sounds she missed. The further into silent space she went, the more she longed for sounds: especially the sound of rain (Hirviluoma and Wagstaff 2002). Sounds lead us to experience, act and react. 'When we hear a car, we become aware of potential danger. Birdsong and waves from the sea may provide memories from last summer, and church bells can be armoying or place us in a religious mood. When we hear a sound, it is already culturally produced through our historical relations and experiences, our social life. The call from a mosque makes me think of holidays in foreign countries, while for others it is a sound linked to religious rules or a reminder for prayer time. How the sounds are perceived depends on the listener and the listener's experience. Sound is more than what you hear. Sound is a way of understanding the world, or to use Michael Bull and Les Back's words: "Sound connects us in a way that vision does not" (Bull and Back 2004, 6). With this as a starting point, I conducted 1 8 interviews with people who have a relation to the Gnmland area, seven women and eleven men. Five of the respondents were born in Norway. Two of them are over 80 years old, and have lived in the area most of their lives. The other respondents have backgrounds from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Bosnia, and Romania. The conversations took place in various places: in my office, located in Gmnland, at the homes of respondents, in cafes, on a bench in the square or walking on the streets listening together. It is not easy to have a conversation about sound. Few people have any awareness about the surrounding sounds, and the conversations lack common references and concepts for analysis and interpretation of what we are hearing. The respondents were unsure what they were telling me, and as a researcher I was unsure where to look. Soundscape studies and acoustic ecology are areas of research which have begun to be internationally established. Such research focuses on how soundscapes have changed over the years, and provides the research field with a

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constructive and useful analytical framework (Schafer 1977). However, in what follows we will shift the focus from the sound to the listener, and use Charles Sanders Peirce's theories of semiotics as a point of departure to understand how my respondents experience and interpret the sounds at Gmnland (peirce 1994).

Listening to our own history To investigate what the "gmnlandsound" consists of, I brought the recorder with me out into the streets to catch the sounds in the area. In an attempt to find the particular sound of Gmnland, I recorded nearly a hundred soundtracks from various street comers, squares and shopping areas. There are a lot of interesting sounds to listen to, including sirens from the city police station nearby, and the main street Gmnlandsleiret which runs through the area with bus stops, taxi stations, seven traffic lights and lot of pedestrians that force the cars to drive slowly. In the southern part of the area, it is possible to hear the city tram, while the northern part is a residential area with fewer people in the streets. Although the recordings are interesting, so far they provide no more information than what we hear when walking the streets. Hence, the recordings do not give us access to the listener's experiences and their interpretations of the sounds. Anthropologist Steven Feld considers the meaningful interpretation of sound as a social activity. We perceive the world around us by placing situations and associated sounds into different categories. As Feld notes, it is easy to believe that we have a shared experience of these categories, and to believe that they are social (Feld 1994, 79). Moreover, "Sounds are embedded with both cultural and personal meanings; sounds do not come at us merely raw," claim Les Back and Michael Bull (Bull and Back 2004, 9). Nevertheless, our interpretation of sounds is not necessarily congruent: the "gmnlandsound" is perceived as quiet and loud, strange and familiar, depending on who is listening. Most sounds that we hear have connotations to previous listening experiences. 'When we are listening to a sound, we collect details and nuances in the sounds that provide knowledge and insight about the situation we and the sounds are in (Feld 1994). The listener is thus involved in the sound as a social and historical individual with varying skills, experiences and interests. By this, we can claim that when we hear familiar sounds, we listen to our 0\Vll history. To find the social meaning of gmnlandsound, it was important to know the listener's experiences and expectations of the sounds in the area.

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Sound and semiotics "A sign is something, which for some represents something else", according to the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (18391914), which brings us to the theory of semiotics that seeks to understand how people experience the world by creating and interpreting signs (peirce 1994, 94). There are many variations of signs: words, smells, actions and sounds can all be signs. The sound of an alann can, for instance, be a sign of war, an attack or another danger, while the sound of a marine engine may be a sign of summer, sun, sea, fishing or grandpa, depending who is listening. "Nothing is a sign if it is not interpreted as a sign", continues Peirce, and notes at the same time that everything can be a sign as long as someone considers it meaningful and it represents something other than themselves (Chandler 1999). The process of ascribing meaning to signs, called the semiotic process, consists of three basic elements; the sign-which stands for "something else"; the object-which is what the signs stands for; and the interpretant­ which is the effect a receiver accomplishes by bringing the sign and the object together (Turino 1999, 224). Hence, to make a semiotic analysis you have to define the sign, the object and the effect on a person. It is important that the sign leads to an effect, or to an interpretation by an individual. If not, it will not be a semiotic process. In other words, not all sounds are signs, but if the sound has an effect on a receiver, a semiotic process has started.

Index, symbols and icons The most influential part of Peirce's work is his construction of a triad to analyse and classify the relations between the sign, the object and the interpretant. The main concepts Peirce uses in this triad are icon, index and symbol (Berkaak and Fr0Iles 2005; Turino 1999; Peirce 1994). The term icon is used when the sign is related to the object by similarity, like an image, which is the actual meaning of the tenn "icon". If the sign and the object act together as a couple, then the relation between them is an index. "Fire and smoke" is a useful example of such an index, "sun and summer" is another. Familiar themes or vignettes on radio can be an index for the program, and the national anthem an index for the national day or, as is the case in the US, for the arumal Superbowl. If the sign is strongly linked to the object and there is a consensus about what the signs means, it is a symbol. Words and music sheets are examples of symbols. Symbols differ from icons and indicies by their

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special function, and by the fact that they are context-free. People mostly agree on what the symbols mean, and the latter cannot be changed without any arguments: the sound of sirens refers to an emergency situation, and the sound of car engines refer to traffic, without generating a lot of questions. In short, we can say that symbols are signs based on consensus, while icons and index are signs referring to personal identity and human relations. Peirce argues that there are potentially many meanings contained in one sign. 'What the sign refers to depends on the situation and the interpreters' history and experience. A man who is running can either be a sportsman, a fugitive from the police, or someone trying to catch the bus. How we understand the situations depends on how we interpret the sign "a man running". In short, it is the way we as observers defme the situation that decides how we interpret the sign. To have a meaningful interaction, we therefore need to share our experience of the situation. Ifwe do not, we risk cheering on the fugitive and not the sportsman. Meaning is created in the relations between the signs, the interpreter and the social situation the sign is a part of.

Sound and sign The anthropologist of music, Thomas Turino, explains how he uses Peirce's theories as a point of departure for his own theories in the article "Signs of Imaginations, Identity, and Experience: A Peircian Semiotic Theory for Music" (Turino 1999). Except for the note system, where hannonies, rhythmic patterns and pitch can be read directly from written symbols that there is general agreement about, music consists primarily of icons and indicies, the type of signs that contribute to making feelings and social identification. When we listen to music we prefer, there is generally something familiar or similar to something we have heard before (icon), and which is connected to previous social experiences. It is in this way we create and sustain a social identity, as Turino notes. FurthelTIlore, differences in music and social styles contribute to categorisation of others. When we are listening to unfamiliar and strange sounds, we are at the same time listening to "the others", people outside who are not equal to "us". Such processes are well knO\vn from the daily interaction between people and how we express ourselves. The indexical signs in music, signs that act together with objects in pairs, maintain social identification, says Turino (Turino 1999). The relation between sign and object arises through personal experiences, and

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the way the various signs are interpreted depends on the interpreter's history and experiences. That is what is happening when sounds from a minaret bring out travel memories for me, but probably memories from a religious community or a prayer situation for a believing Muslim. Indexical signs are, in other words, based on individual's personal and social life and contribute to the maintenance and creation of identity. Turino provides some interesting reflections and several examples in his article about how musical experiences can be analysed on the basis of semiotic approaches and concepts. However, he limits himself to music and musical experiences, situations where a sender (or the sound source), has a clear intention to produce the sound. The question which then arises is whether the same perspectives and approaches can be used on a sound environment such as the Gmnland area? Is it possible that sound, which does not necessarily have an intention to create a significant experience, nevertheless contributes to meaningful experiences in everyday life, and consequently may be analysed by the same concepts? In other words, may these concepts contribute to the identification and analysis of "gmnlandsound"?

The language of the city There is a difference between hearing and listening. 'When you walk in the city, you can choose to be aware and listen to the sounds around you or be unfocused and shut the sounds out of your consciousness. To listen is to interpret and classify on the basis of your previous experiences and knowledge. Contrary to hearing, which we do automatically, listening is an intentional action. Many of us perceive sounds in the city as noise and something unpleasant, and perhaps use smartphones or mp3-devices to separate ourselves from the city sounds and to connect ourselves to our favourite artists. However, if you choose to listen to the city, you may experience how sounds are changing with time and place, and how urban life creates its own sounds belonging to the city. It may be the city bells, trams, voices from the pedestrians or music from the many shops and cafes. Sounds give the city meaning. A married couple from Turkey, living in an apartment block nearby Oslo city centre, express this in the following way: It is important to hear people visiting each other, go to parties and walk in the stairs. Listen to trams and the traffic. Trams and street sounds are a particular reminder that I am living in a civilized part of the world. It is not an option for me to stay somewhere where I do not hear the traffic.

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Her husband added: "The silence is dangerous. It is the absence of the social. " Sayeda lives in a flat at Gmnland square, together with her mother, brother and sisters. She is in her early 20s, born in Norway to Moroccan parents. 'When asked to defme what "gmnlandsound" is, she immediately highlights the many and varied social activities in the area, activities with sounds she finds very different from the sounds in other areas, where she only hears traffic. A few blocks away, it is so quiet. There are only houses and apartments, and nothing else. The only thing you hear are cars driving arOlUld. But here, at Gmnland, there are lots of shops, pavement cafes and a lot of noise something happens all the time. There are restamants, children playing lots of different immigrants talking loudly, sitting in the cafes with their friends, and a lot of women are shopping. .

Sayeda describes Gmnland as a place with life and energy where something happens all the time, a clear contrast to the quiet neighbouring areas. "It could be quiet for several hours," she said, before she adds: "That's why I feel at home in this area. I'm not so different here. It's perhaps because of all the colours, people from different cultures and all the languages." Sayeda distinguishes between sounds in the neighbourhood areas and sounds in Gmnland, referring primarily to more, louder and different sounds in Grenland. Cafes, squares and shopping areas are emphasised as typical spaces with sounds connected to people. The sounds have a place together with the colours, people and languages, and for Sayeda it is a sign (index) of belonging. Gmnland is the place where she can be herself and not stand out from other people. She will not have to answer questions about where she actually comes from. Her statements illustrate what Roland Barthes labeled "the language of the city", a term he used to develop an urban semiotics (Barthes 1997, 168). Barthes made it clear that "the language of the city" was not intended as a metaphorical and soundless sign. What gives sense to the city is sounds and resonance that touch our ears, as it does for Sayeda. "The city speaks to its inhabitants, we speak our city, the city where we are, simply by living in it, by wandering through it, by looking at it," said Barthes (Barthes 1997, 168). If you are walking in the city, you may hear local languages, slang and different expressions by youth groups on the square or ethnic groups gathering in cafes or at mosques. It is possible to listen to various scenes of sounds, where every sound appears as a sign which refers to elements of the city, both together constituting the city as an object. Taking this as a starting point, and with reference to Peirce and

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Feld, we may then ask how we experience sounds and make them into signs of various objects.

The sound of community Language is an important ingredient in "gmnlandsound". If more than half of the inhabitants are immigrants, or Norwegian-born to immigrant parents, and even more are visitors during the day, it goes without saying that there is a mix of languages in the area. When we listen to foreign languages, we are not merely listening to unfamiliar sounds. We also listen to a social phenomenon which is heard, experienced and interpreted in a context and by social individuals. Sayeda describes how she is able to divide Gmnland into smaller sonic areas, each with their own community. I always hear Somali. It is in the background all the time. If I am at the square and walk left, I pass the cafe where there are lots of Norwegians talking. If I walk further, I arrive at the Turkish grocery there I hear Turkish or Kmdish language, just before corning to the river. At the river I hear more Norwegian again. If I walk the other way from the square, I hear mostly Somali. I never think about it, but there are different languages to be heard all the time.

Some places she can hear Somali, other places Turkish or Norwegian. In her 0\Vll way, Sayeda uses social activities and languages to map the various soundspaces of Gmnland. The sOlmds are changing with seasons, weekdays and times of the day. On Fridays, there are a lot of people outside the mosques meeting for prayer, and on a cold winter day, people are inside shopping malls, cafes and other meeting places and it is quieter outside. It is all about the sound of human beings, their social relations and interactions. Khaled is the son of an imam, and has a large network in the area. He arrived in Norway from a rural district in Pakistan when he was 13 years old, and has witnessed major changes in Gmnland in recent years. He speaks five or six different languages, and uses all of them daily in Gmnland. "Community" is the word he uses to describe "gmnlandsound": c. . . ) That's why I say comrlllmity. I actually use most languages daily here in Gr.0llland, but I use them rarely elsewhere. Just think of the mosque, youths you speak Norwegian to, the elderly you speak Urdu to, suddenly there comes a need to speak Arabic, or Afghan. Language is community.

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Khaled is probably talking about the common frame of reference shared by two or more people speaking the same language, and he, as a "master of languages" takes part in several communities. However, while few of my informants speak many languages like Khaled, many of them still experience the diversity of languages and voices as signs of civilization, belonging, community and life. Many of the inhabitants in Grenland are born in soundscapes which are different from what we usually find in Norway today. In all probability, this affects their listening experience. Sounds we hear from the time we are born have an impact on our identity and self-knowledge later in life, and will very likely be experienced as "home" (Seidler 2004). From this, we can understand tbat "gmnlandsound" is complex and carries elements from all over the world. It is a sign (index) of diversity, community and globalisation.

The sound out of pJace Greta is also living in Gmnland, but has a different experience of "gf0nlandsound" tban Sayeda and Khaled. She moved from tbe countryside into the area in 1963, and has been happy here. She talks about small shops in the streets with additional services to regular customers and several meeting places. Both people and traffic were present as they are today, but the sounds were nonetheless different from today. "They don't talk like we do" says Greta, pointing to the majority of immigrant populations in her district. Greta has been a part of the changes in this area during the last 50 years. "It's like living abroad", she says. \¥hen I sit do\Vll at a cafe in the pedestrian area to look at the people passing by, it is like being in a completely new city. There are foreigners everywhere. Of course I reacted in the beginning. People talked and talked armmd you, and I didn't lUlderstand a word.

Greta is not using expressions such as "gmnlandsound" or "multicultural sound". However, I would argue that she could very well use those telTIls, since her descriptions and references to the sound sources largely correspond with those of the other infolTIlants. She recounts how the demographic changes tbat have been happening in the area over the past 50 years have led to a diversity of languages which stand out in tbe soundscape in Gmnland. Language consists of two elements; the structure of sound, and a concrete meaning. For Greta, the concrete meaning is absent in the voices in Gmnland, and all she is left with are the incomprehensible structures of sound, which contribute to underlining the

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diversity of the people in the area. The concept of listening to foreign languages, where you do not understand the content or topic of the conversation invites a free interpretation of the situation, where the cadence and the sounds of the language are given emotional qualities based on how we experience the situation, instead of on the real content of the conversation. This is because the real content of the conversation is not accessible to us. From time to time a Kurdish friend of mine is misunderstood as being aggressive or armoyed when he talks, due to the cadence, the intensity and the gestures which are part of the way he talks. 'What do we hear when we listen to foreign languages we do not understand? From a semiotic perspective foreign language is a sign referring to inequality. It is the sound of "The Others". lmmigration, inequality and social changes are audible. There are sounds that do not belong to the area as Greta knew it in the '70s and '80s. Peter Bailey borrows Mary Douglas' famous definition of dirt as "matter out of place", and describes noise as "sound out of place" (Bailey 2004). Perhaps we can use the same term to describe sound of migration, globalisation and foreign languages? These are signs that refer to other places and locations and which make diversity audible. Signs and object are the same thing for Sayeda, Khaled and Greta, but the effect on the receiver is different due to differing backgrounds.

The sound of class They shout in front of you or they shout behind you. You see, these foreigners doesn't speak like we do (Greta). They talk very loud, you know. They scream at each other. You can't hear people talk like this at the other side (west end) of the city (Julie).

Greta and Julie express their frustrations about how immigrants talk to each other. It is not just that they do not understand what the other people are saying, but that they talk very loudly to each other, the elderly ladies explain. At the same time they mention the west end of Oslo as a quiet area with no loud voices. It is tempting to ascribe their experience of "gmnlandsound" to their old age, however other and younger people describe the same experiences: If you walk in an area with many Norwegians, they talk calm and quiet. In Gmnland, however, people speak very loudly (peter).

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Earlier, people on the street were shouting to each other and talked very loudly. Now it is more quiet. That's what I feel. . . (Yomali). Sometimes, when I am out on the street I hear people shouting. Maybe it is "Wrong to call it shouting, but they talk very loudly, anyway (Sayeda).

These common experiences of people in Gmnland talking very loudly to each other are interpreted differently. Khaled claims that shouting in the area is because people recognise and greet each other at long distances. The shouting, and sometimes whistling, to get attention, are for him audible signs of social relations, friendship and a feeling of community. Greta and Julie do not agree with this opinion. They shake their heads when they talk about the loud voices, and think it is a source of noise in Gmnland. Noise can be described as unwanted sounds. It is an unnecessary category of sounds as it is often perceived as armoying and confusing and is often referred to as pollution. Throughout history, noise has been used as a means of frightening people and as a sign of power and authority. For instance, warplanes have been knO\vn to be equipped with loud sounds to frighten the enemy (Bailey 2004), and when generals shout their commands, the most wild and overexcited recruit will be quiet. However, when this category of sounds becomes a part of everyday life, it goes against our understanding of how to behave in a civilized society. An excellent example of this appears in Odd Are Berkaak's research of the soundscape around the famous stone circle Stonehenge (Berkaak 2014). Berkaak recounts how English Heritage and the National Trust initiated a project to create an experience of tranquillity around the stone circle. The background was a source of continuing conflict about the physical and acoustic environment around the stones. Some were of the opinion that the sounds were one way of destroying the stones' dignity. The vision of the project was to regain the lost dignity by creating tranquillity in the surrounding environment. . . . tranquillity includes an element of being elevated above the profane and secular everyday life, and is at the same time an indication of something noble, as a morally pille life. It also refers to something simple in contrast to the complexity in the modem city life.

claims Berkaak, emphasising that there is a connection between the experience of tranquillity and the category of dignity (Berkaak 2014, 237). Similarly, Karin Bijsterveld recounts how associations against noise emerged in many European cities in the 30s, with an aim to create

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tranquillity and silence for the bourgeois elite. "Making noise was still seen as a sign of being uncivilised, of having no marmers", as Bijesterveld notes (Bijsterveld 2004, 179). Contrary to noise, silence often refers to solemnity, respect, dignity and control, be it in churches, museums, courtrooms or at memorials. "God's language was silence", says Frank Meyer and explains how silence was the tool for good deeds; silence would help the monks to listen with their hearts, and not only with their ears (Meyer 2015). Silence is still an important value in society today, and can be used as a resource for property sales in "quiet areas", and as a tool for disciplinary conditions in schools and prisons (Meyer 2015). With this as a background, we may ask what the informants actually hear when they refer to all the shouting at Gf0nland. In addition to listening to foreign languages as a sign of "the others", the experience of screams and shouting may be taken to refer to something uncivilized, vulgar and of a lower social class. 'When Julie claims that there is no such thing as shouting in Oslo's west end, she implies at the same time that the shouting and screaming belongs to Oslo's east end, which is associated with lower social class. The lack of reference to noise from the traffic, constructions work and emergency vehicles may be interpreted in the same way, namely that there is a confusion between ethnicity and social class. Technological development is something that belongs to the upper middle­ classes. Sounds from traffic and construction equipment are signs which refer to civilisation, development and prosperity. Sounds from people meeting at squares, especially during the daytime, become signs of unemployment, idleness and shirking.

The sound of social control One afternoon in the springtime, I met Sayeda at Gmnland square so that we could listen to "grenlandsound" together. It had rained earlier that morning, and we took a seat on a wet bench. There were many people in the square, some were in a hurry and passed quickly, others were in groups and talked loudly together in a language I did not understand. Some were alone, leaning on a wall. It looked like they were waiting for someone. "Do you often sit here?" I asked Sayeda. "No, not here. It is usually only men sitting here. I have hardly seen any girls sit here. If they do, they are not used to Gf0nland" responded Sayeda, adding that it can be uncomfortable to sit here. Thinking about it, I could not remember seeing any women or girls sitting there either, except some senior citizens who could hardly walk. I suggested that we move, if she felt the situation to be

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uncomfortable, but she did not think it necessary. She described recent changes in the area. Grenland has been a meeting place for more people than those who live there. Men who are there during daytime do not necessarily live in Gmnland, but come from other neighbourhoods. Several are unknO\vn to Sayeda, which makes them less frightening to her. As we sat there observing, more men kept coming, shook hands, laughed and conversed. I could hear that men influence the soundscape. Male voices on the square is an important ingredient in "gmnlandsound", and it is possible to listen to it outside the mosques. Youmali express it in the following way: Gmnland is a boys' place. There are very many boys here, isn't there? As soon as you see a girl on the street, then the parents call each other and say "I saw your daughter at the street on Gr.0llland", and things like that. So Gr.0llland is not a place for girls. You can see for yourselves that there are a lot of men here (Yomali). ...

Several of my infOlmants have similar stories to tell, when we talk about "gmnlandsound." They talk about "the glance from the Somali men", about "men who sit on the stairs here and there . . . " and about "boys dominating the communal youth house." Hence, the "gnmlandsound" is related to gender, fear and social control, a phenomenon that sometimes appears in the daily news. Aftenposten, one of the leading national newspapers, had a series of articles a few years ago on the matter of "moral control on Oslo's immigrant streets" (Lundgaard and Stokke 2010). The articles focussed on how young people who do not live according to religious rules were stopped in the street by older men and given reprimands. In this sense, male voices became the sign, and control, discomfort, lack of freedom and gender segregation became the object. To summarise, the main ingredient in "gmnlandsound", as explained by my infOlmants, consists of people who interact and talk together in different languages, often unexpectedly loudly. The sounds are prominent in the squares, around the cafes and in front of the mosques, and they vary depending on the groups. In addition, a main component tends to be male voices. According to Peirce's semiology, the sounds are signs that refer to community and affiliation, but also to strangeness, fear and control.

The visualisation of sounds Is there actually a specific, distinct signature sound that sets Gmnland sonically apart from other communities?

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I have replayed several of my sound recordings from both Gmnland and other urban areas for several of my informants while sitting in an office. For most of them it was quite difficult to pick out the "gmnlandsound" from other sounds. This may be a coincidence, but it may also be that I haven't succeeded in capturing the "groolandsound" on my recordings. The most probable explanation, however, is that they are unable to differentiate "gmnlandsound" from other soundscapes when it is played devoid of visual references to the sound sources. 'What happens if we remove the visual sense? How would we perceive "gmnlandsound" if we could not see it? I had a long conversation with Javed, an Iranian man, born blind in Iran, who has been living in Gmnland for over 22 years. He is employed in another district in Oslo teaching Norwegian to immigrant children. He did not understand the question when I started to ask about a specific sound of Gmnland. On the contrary, he explained his difficulties in differentiating the sounds of his neighbourhood from the sounds he heard on the other side of to'Wll. "Both are urban areas", he claimed. "It is first when we leave the city and go to the country-side, that it is possible to hear a difference from one place to another", he said. Musicologist Le Tuan Hung claims that the hearing experience consists of a combinations of senses: "It is the sense of hearing in combination with other senses that gives human beings a holistic experience of events" (Hung 2009). A hearing experience involves more than one sense. All sounds include a network of people, structures, objects and events in time and space. It is the often complex dependency and collaboration between all of these units that finally create the total listeners experience. Other sound-scientists argue that listening is strongly linked to other senses, such as smell and sight (Feld 1994, Howes, D. 2007). "The senses are not segregated. Hearing is intimately related with sight and also with smell", explains Howes (Howes, D. 2007, 38). The experience of sound is acting together with other sensory experiences such as sight, smell, taste and sensibility, which together give a total experience of a phenomenon. In other words, a sound experience is a process of interpreting where different senses, earlier experiences and what happens here and now intersect. This complexity of sensory relations varies from culture to culture and between different groups within the same society. "Other cultures do not necessarily divide the sensorium as we do", explain Howes and Classen, and continue: "The senses interact with each other first, before they give us access to the world, hence, the first step, the indispensable starting point, is to discover what sorts of relations between the senses a culture

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considers proper" (Howes and Classen 2016, 1). The senses give us access to perceiving reality, and help us to recognise similarities and differences between cultures and people, as my research has sho\Vll. Does this mean that there does not exist a particular "gmnlandsound"? Are all my informants claiming to hear distinct sounds of Gmnland mistaken? Before concluding, let us again have a closer look at how they describe "grenlandsound": "By multicultural sound, I mean it includes what I see around me", explains Youmali. "You can hear many different languages, people with different clothing, long dresses, many mosques . . . ", says Sayeda. 'What is it that influences the listener? Do we actually hear what we see? Steven Feld and Helmi Iervilouma explain that experiencing sound is not merely experiencing the acoustics from a sound source, or the human voice-it is a social phenomenon (Feld 1994, Hirviluoma and Wagstaff 2002). This implies that sounds are heard, perceived and interpreted in a context-and by a social participant. It is the listener's 0\Vll experience, conditions, and expectations that give meaning to the sounds that flow towards us. Therefore, I argue that there is a close connection between what you see and what you hear. If we remove the visual part, we no longer perceive the sound in the same way as before. From this, it follows that the "gmnlandsound" is not a sound as such, but rather a cultural construction­ consisting of many ingredients, such as languages, figures-of-speech, traditions, scents, interactions, memories, expectations, and what we see at the time of hearing. "Gmnlandsound" is both the sound of community and the "sound out of place". My informants are in fact themselves part of the "gmnlandsound" through their history and experience.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN INDIGENOUS MAKERS AND THE ANIMATION OF DIGITAL NARRATIVES HEATHER HOWARD, MARSHA MAcDoWELL, JUDY PIERZYNOWSKI AND LAURA SMITH

Introduction and Background: Anishinaabe Movement, Migration and Belonging Migration and movement are fundamental aspects of Anishinaabe cosmology l As Anishinaabe scholar Adam Haviland (2017, 1 1) writes, they are "as important as place in constructing relationships and worldview." Anishinaabe origin (Benton-Benai 2010) and other stories (Johnston 1990; Webkamigad 2015; Doerfler, Sinclair, and Stark 2013), oral histories and the scholarship of historians (McClurken 1991; Williamson and Benz 2005) all center migration and movement in the intertwinement of Anishinaabe identity and belonging (Haviland 2017, 1 1). Moreover, the Anishinaabe language is verb-based and agentive; it highlights the ways socially-fortified metaphor and the connectedness of energies, or spirit, as Vanessa Watts (2013) delineates, flow between people, places, material and nonmaterial beings, and are relationally embodied (Gross 2014; Noodin 2014). It is these kinds of "quickening" principles that we seek to center in our work with Anishinaabe master and apprentice makers and the Michigan State University Museum collections they and their communities have created. As we describe in this chapter, the MSU Museum stewards both historical collections created from processes typical of institutions established 1

Cosmology is used here as an Indigenous frame distinctive from episternological­

ontological framing explained by Vanessa Watts (2013: 22) as one with which it is "impossible to separate theory from praxis [and] complex [Indigenous] theories are not distinct from place."

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in the nineteenth century, and contemporary collections that have resulted from decades-long engagement with Anishinaabe makers since the 1970s. The latter collections were formed through the MSU Museum's Michigan Traditional Arts Programs (especially its Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship program, Michigan Heritage Awards program, and folklife festival programs), and other exhibition and research projects, including with Indigenous museums and Tribal cultural heritage partners. While earlier forms of collections acquisition generally, though not always, silenced Indigenous voices, there is great potential for the animation of these materials alongside the ones more recently acquired through the relational practices which characterise the latter ongoing community-based collections-building processes, as we detail in this chapter. These more recent practices have included attention to the generation of paper, video, and oral archives related to Anishinaabe makers and knowledge, which can be animated in association with materials that span the MSU Museum collections. This is particularly so through our recent opportunity to connect this work with the efforts of the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC). GRASAC collaborates internationally to "digitally reunite" Great Lakes Indigenous heritage (Bohaker, Corbiere, and Phillips 2015). In 2017, GRASAC supported us in ascertaining the needs of Indigenous makers and communities with regards to the virtual tools and networking potential of GRASAC (https:llcarleton.ca/grasac/about/), and their relationships with the MSU Museum collections (https://carleton.ca/ grasacI2017/making/). We relate some of our results from this project, "Nitaawichige: Skilled at Making Things," in the second part of this chapter, which we situate in the context of the relational responsibilities of making and Indigenous nationhood. Moving forward, we are setting up Anishinaabe community-driven strategies to meet these needs, taking into consideration intergenerational knowledge transfer and sharing, the creation of media and other actions to contribute to and benefit from involvement with the GRASAC database and net\vork, and animation of the MSU museum's cultural collections through building effective relationships in alignment with Indigenous community priorities.

Anishinaabe Paradigms Our approach takes up Indigenous paradigms as "not just a well of ideas to draw from but a body of thinking that is living and practiced by peoples with whom we all share reciprocal duties as citizens of shared territories," as Metis scholar Zoe Todd (2016, 17) writes. Our stance challenges

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museum practice to reconsider how ontological interpretation, collaboration, translation, or process (Boast 2011; Silverman 2015; Matthews 2016; Shannon 2014; Peers and Brown 2003) may sustain intellectual coloinalism by making Indigenous story an "abstracted tool of the West" (Watts 2013, 28). Situated in the context of broader Anishinaabe knowledge-making frameworks, our work seeks to open up the possibilities for Indigenising authoritative knowledge production and transforming museum practices (McGregor and Plain 2013; see also Howard 2016, 2018; Abel, Freeman, Howard and Shirt forthcoming; Ross 2006), toward being conditioned by the dynamics of relationships and what it means to be a relation in Anishinaabe country (Howard 2018). This understanding also underpins GRASAC practice. GRASAC began in 2004 as a digital repatriation project of collaboration between Indigenous communities and institutional museums and researchers (Bohaker, Corbiere, and Phillips 2015; Willmott et al 2016). The iintial question GRASAC sought to explore was if it would be possible to use information technology to digitally reunite Great Lakes heritage that is currently scattered across museums and archives in North America and Europe with Indigenous community knowledge, memory and perspectives. The privileging of Indigenous intellectual traditions in the relationships GRASAC has evolved through its activities are transforming material culture work in significant ways. As GRASAC founders Ruth Phillips, Heidi Bohaker, and Alan Corbiere (2015, 49) describe, "the cognitive and the ethical goals [of Indigenous partner institutions1 are fundamentally interconnected because the creation of access to heritage removed from Indigenous communities years ago is an enabling condition for restoring historical memory and stimulating the articulation of traditional Indigenous knowledge." This has important implications that moves GRASAC work beyond digital repatriation to forms of co-curatorial relations of the materialities of Indigenous sovereignty. The "animation" of collections, as we call it in our current work with Anishinaabe master and apprentice makers, references the relational responsibility we share in the flow and movement of life between the human and non-human beings that make up the museum space and requires our engagement in the "good power" of storywork (Archibald 2008). As scholars, collection managers, makers, and apprentices, our coming together extends varied and growing Indigenisation experience from prior and into future and other parallel domains of citizenship in Anishinaabe country. In practical telTIlS we have several aims which include:

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promoting local knowledge and resource sharing, culture-based organising, strategic partnerships and outreach initiatives; bringing together regional makers whose works are in the MSU Museum collections with interested local urban Indigenous community members including Elders, Knowledge Keepers, seniors, adults, and youth; linking an archive of paper, video, and oral ephemera related to Anishinaabe makers and knowledge to the museum's collections and to the GRASAC database; ascertaining needs from makers/communities for their relationship with the collections; setting up Anishinaabe community-driven strategies to meet these needs, especially with regards to intergenerational knowledge transfer and sharing; plarming the creation of media and other actions to contribute to and benefit from involvement with the GRASAC database, and examining how to best promote community and public engagement while working towards long-term sustainable projects. These aims have some roots in the MSU Museum's unique decades­ long history of engagement with Anishinaabe makers to which we now tum.

MSU Museum History The MSU Museum, opened in 1857, is one of the oldest public museums in the United States. It holds nearly one million objects categorised in association with the disciplinary fields of natural science, anthropology, history, and folk art. From its founding until the mid-1970s, museum­ based scientists of natural history and anthropology, humanities scholars, and professional curatorial staff acquired collections through donations from individuals (MSU faculty, other researchers, collectors), from transfer of collections from other institutions, and from their 0\Vll individual research. Collecting activities primarily reflected the research interests and teaching needs of museum-based staff. They were not guided by strategic plans and had no focus on community-based needs or on general public education. In 1974 and 1976 the university was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grants to conduct ethnographic surveys of historical and contemporary traditional arts in Michigan led by Kurt Dewhurst and Marsha MacDowell. This work located Indigenous historical items as well

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as initiated relationships with contemporary Indigenous makers (MacDowell and Dewhurst 1976). By the early 1980s, the museum established a partnership with the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA) to strengthen traditional arts research and education, and enter into partnership programs with other agencies and organisations, including Tribal govennnents within Michigan and regional and national organisations focused on Native American culture (Hansen 1999). Within this museum context and structure, many Indigenous culture­ focused activities have been implemented, the overwhelming percentage of which have been conducted in partnership with Indigenous artists and organisations. These activities have resulted in bodies of archival data, exhibitions, publications, artist service and recognition programs, and educational programs. For example, in 1985 the MSU Museum began producing an annual festival of traditional arts, which showcased Indigenous artists and knowledge-bearers every year and continued until 2017. Over the years, these have included Anishinaabe tradition bearers of song, dance, foodways, architecture, occupational lifeways, and older-style crafts as well as new arts (MacDowell and Lockwood 2004; MacDowell, Dewhurst, and Hunt 2006). In 2018, after a new museum director cancelled the event, the Indigenous showcase of the festival continues under the sponsorship of State of Michigan and the MSU Native American Institute as part of the Lansing East Folklife Festival in Lansing in collaboration with the Allen Neighborhood Center. Many Anishinaabe artists have been part of two major activities of the Museum's Michigan Traditional Arts Program (MTAP) which includes an apprenticeship program and arumal heritage awards. Indigenous artists and cultural specialists have consistently been part of the nomination and adjudication process for these programs and dedicated efforts are made to acquire examples of work from those artists who have participated in the program. The nomination and application forms submitted by the artists, their written reports on their work, and the reports by program personnel who conduct site visits with artists all have provided data that is used to describe the work and adds to the museum's archives. A number of exhibition projects also speak to collaborations, including three Great Lakes Indian Basket and Boxmakers Gatherings, and exhibitions such as Sisters of the Great Lakes: Art of American Indian Women (MacDowell and Reed 1995), Anishnaabek: Traditional Artists of Little Traverse Bay (MacDowell 1996), and Contemporary Great Lakes Dance Rer;alia (MacDowell 1997). National leadership in the Carriers of Culture: Native Basketry in America project in Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2006 is also an important part of this history (MacDowell,

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Dewhurst, and Hunt 2006). Through all of these projects, the MSU Museum acquired samples of works from the participating artists, interviews with artists, and furthered more collaborations (MacDowell and Dewhurst 1993; MacDowell 1996, 1999). In these projects, artist-makers had exclusive or substantial engagement in selecting what they wanted in the collection, or making items specifically for the collections. Even so, there were not always strong strategies for including cultural knowledge or worldview. For instance, collection records seldom contain Indigenous telTIlinology for patterns, object type, tools, processes, and materials, or the stories associated with objects, or the reasons why the items selected to be preserved in a museum would benefit the interests of the Indigenous maker and their communities. This highlights the importance of the priorities of our GRASAC work moving forward.

Dialogical Digitisation Museums have become digitally dependent for critical aspects of their operations and programs. As institutions dedicated to the preservation and use of material culture, museums were early adopters of digital tools and have steadfastly worked to use new digital tools to strengthen their abilities to meet their missions. Digital practices have also been transfolTIling fundamental assumptions about what the museum is and where its boundaries might lie (MacDowell and Jackson 2017, 306). Digital tools have allowed for a fluidity of knowledge between communities and museums which is having profound impacts on primary museum activities such as what objects and related materials are collected, who collects, how this material is preserved, who has access, and how it is interpreted. Innovative digital projects are changing the very nature of how museums engage with communities in ethnographic research, challenging longstanding museum notions of curatorial authority, and enabling a multiplicity of voices and knowledge to be preserved and better understood. Some of these projects have been established specially for Indigenous cultural knowledge. For instance, the collection management system Muknrtu was originally developed for a project of the Aarumungu Aboriginal community in Australia and subsequently has been used by many Indigenous communities. Fittingly, the word Mukurtu is a shortened version of a word referring to a special safe-keeping place used by members of an Australian tribe who were early users of the tool. The Mukurtu is a bag in which special possessions could be stored in older times, safe in the knowledge that anyone who defies the command would be cursed (http: //www.mukurtuarchive.org/about). Some digital repository

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projects, like GRASAC and tlie Reciprocal Research Network, allow for multi-institutional and multi-community collaborations. This rise in digital collections has fostered attention to ethical considerations including issues of repatriation of digital collections and intellectual knowledge ownership. One notable effort to insure Indigenous knowledge is respected appropriately is through appending Traditional Knowledge [TK] licenses and labels to data. TK licenses "recognize that Indigenous, traditional, and local communities have different access and use expectations in regards to their knowledge and cultural expressions" (MacDowell and Jackson 2017, 313). The MSU Museum, as an institution devoted to both culture and science, uses a variety of digital tools and databases for its overall adininistrative work and for its collections. As of2018, tlie MSU Museum maintains two digital databases for its cultural collections; ARGUS is used for all of tlie cultural collections and KORA undergirds three digital repositories-the Michigan Barn and Farmstead Survey, Michigan Stained Glass Census, and the Quilt Index, the latter of which contains data on quilts made by Indigenous artists of North America that are included in multiple private and public collections. As may be the case witli databases used by most museums, botli ARGUS and KORA have a number of limitations with regards to the integration of its own inventorial information and diverse archival materials with the knowledge and resource sharing informed by Anishinaabe makers and community needs and relationships to the collections. Because our GRASAC work focuses on Anishinaabe arts and the collection held by the MSU Museum, only tlie ARGUS database is considered here. The relationship with GRASAC is tlierefore dialogical in its potential for the data on MSU Museum collections held in ARGUS to grow the GRASAC database, but also for the GRASAC database model to enhance the MSU Museum's priorities to continue to promote Anishinaabe community-driven museum practice especially with regards to Indigenous intergenerational knowledge transfer, balanced witli community and public engagement. Face-to-face engagement will thus always be a necessary practice of GRASAC work.

Nitaawichige: Skilled at Making Things Meeting with key makers with long-standing connections to the Museum's activities is thus a logical starting point moving into the future. In August 2017, we had an initial meeting focused on partnership development with GRASAC, in the territory of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa in Petoskey, Michigan, home to several of the makers (Figure 1). This

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meeting was facilitated by Heather Howard, Laura Smith, and Judy Pierzyuowski, with additional support from Judy's husband, Michael Rosencrans, with recording the event. Four makers, their apprentices and family members participated, along with co-author Judy Pierzyuowski who is herself a highly skilled maker and a member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa.

Figure

16.1 Anishinaabe Makers and Apprentices, Meeting in Petoskey, Michigan, August 26, 2017. Photo by Heather A. Howard.

Rosie Deland, also a member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa, was a participant who lived for some time in the Lansing area near MSU but now lives in her Tribe's territory. Rosie describes herself as a "beadworker, mostly." She has been a teacher to Judy and many other people in the area over many years. She carne to the meeting with one of her daughters, and explained how she found her design inspirations from visiting museum collections with her husband throughout the Great Lakes region, and developed her techniques and focus primarily on floral designs in pow wow regalia-making. At the meeting, she shared several binders in which she has organised pictures of many of the pieces she has made, and patterns she has sketched over her life-time visiting heritage items such those in the Field Museum displays in Chicago. She brought a number of examples of beaded regalia items she made or was in the process of completing to pass around, which stimulated a lot of discussion about patterns, hours of labor, and intellectual property issues.

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Renee Dillard Wasson is a highly accomplished master black ash basket maker and educator, also from the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa, who attended the meeting. She also works with basswood, cedar bark, cattail and bulrush making mats, bags, and hats (Figure

2).

She is a

devoted educator and often relates the importance of her Scottish mother's influence on her development as an Anishinaabe artist and culture bearer. As she explains, she learned the art of finger-weaving sashes from her mother as a girl, and basket-making from her grandmother as a ''way of life."

Figure 16.2 Wasson (Renee Dillard) at MSU Museum stores with an example of her family's finger-weaving and woven bags May 5, 2017. Photo by Laura E. Smith.

While Wasson did not bring with her a specific apprentice that day, she is a teacher to Judy and works closely with several other key apprentices. In an interview recorded during "the Great Lakes Folk Festival in 2017, she

related how she is glad to teach anyone who wants to learn. She is especially

dedicated

to

intergenerational

learning

in

Anishinaabe

communities throughout the Great Lakes region, where she has travelled extensively to share knowledge and techniques. She emphasises that

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making engages a complex holistic process that includes an intimate and ongoing learning relationship with the Anishinaabe landscape, and balanced physical and spiritual reciprocity with the plants and animals who are transformed. The individuality of the maker is also important in that is her specific relational experience that goes in to the designs, forms, and colors used in each piece. Yvonne Walker Keshick was accompanied at the August meeting by her son Jacob Keshick and daughter Kimberly Worthington. Yvonne "has the distinction of being one of the fmest quillwork artists in North America." She was taught this skill by a long line of quill-workers. Her family is known for creating quilled designs of wildlife with exquisite realism (Figure 3). Yvonne is honored as a leading and respected force in preserving quillwork and other aspects of the cultural heritage of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa (http ://museurn.msu.eduls-programlrnh_ awards/awards/1992yk.html).

Figure 16.3 Yvonne Walker Keshick with her granddaughter demonstrating and teaching quillwork on birch bark at the Great Lakes Folk Festival, East Lansing, August 8, 2015. Photo by Pearl Yee Wong.

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In the spirit of Wasson's statement about the importance of relationships between teachers, teaching, and the whole process of making, Yvonne described how she learned to do quillwork in a recording for the Michigan Traditional Arts Program in 2014. She shared how after watching Susan Shagonaby do quillwork at the arts and crafts co-op they both worked at, she told Susan, "I think I would like to learn how to do that and she said 'Good. I'll teach you. '" As Yvonne narrates, "One day she came in and said, 'today I am going to teach you quillwork.' And I said 'oh good' and went to the table [to sit] . . . [Susan] said 'no, you are going to learn like I did,' and she took me out in the back and had me clean this great big, dead, rotten porcupine. After that she showed me how to wash them [quills], dry them, sort them out, and process them, and store them. She taught me everything." (https:llwww.youtube.com/watch?v�weXYgH XLfew, published October 14, 2015; see also Harbor Springs 1983). In an earlier interview, Yvonne described the significance of teaching in cultural context, as well as why recordings and their availability to Anishinaabe learners are so important: \¥hen I teach a class-I had a great aunt named Irene Walker, and she was one of those native women who did everything. She could do weaving, sewing, quilling, basket maker, storyteller. She was all of those things. And she was recorded telling the stories and so I read the stories and retell them then to my students, how the porcupine got his quills. And we tell that­ when I'm teaching the class, the students get that, that along with the quill lesson. And then when we're doing the white birch tree then we tell the story of how the birch tree got it's white bark. So there's different stories. The only thing we don't have is a story for sweet grass because sweet grass is a ceremonial grass. It's a spiritual gift, so there is no story that I know of that was made up to tell why we have sweet grass other than it's a gift from the creator. Same way with sage, tobacco, and cedar. There are no stories made up about how they came to be. It's just that it is a gift (Walker Keshick 2014).

Elizabeth Kimewon attended the meeting with her partner Leonard Kimewon, an Anishinaabe language native speaker and teacher. They are from the Wikwemekong Unceded Territory and live in the eastern end of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They incorporate language and making in their roles as teachers. Elizabeth is also a very fine quillwork artist and teacher. She learned quillwork on birchbark from her mother, Julia Flamand, as a very young child, making items like small canoes and tipis for the tourist trade. Elizabeth and Leonard lived in Lansing for a long time before moving to the Upper Peninsula and were involved in the now defunct Lansing North American Indian Center. She and Rosie Deland

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taught beadwork classes togetber. In 1989, Elizabeth and her motber Julia received a Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Award from tbe MSU Museum that enabled them to spend extended periods of time together and Elizabeth was able to deepen her knowledge about quillwork (MacDowell 1999, 29; see also https:llwww.youtube.com/watch?v�SL Y01_06Rzw). As underscored by all the meeting participants, Elizabeth also emphasises the importance of the teaching process and recognising one's teachers. Each of the Michigan makers and their apprentices who participated brought items tbey had made. Always first introducing tbemselves by stating their clan and name in Anishinaabemowin, they discussed their creative processes and intentions, their teachers, and the importance of sharing tbeir knowledge to keep Anishinaabe artistic practices alive. Each expressed a commitment to teaching their arts to both Indigenous and non­ Indigenous peoples in order to develop and sustain relationships with educators, scholars, museums, and potential patrons. They were further motivated by their hope of inspiring a younger generation of Anishinaabe makers. Being careful to credit their 0\Vll teachers, the makers affirmed the importance of acknowledging and maintaining connections to their knowledge sources. One maker asserted that individuals who take cultural information to make a living and don't recognise their teachers create a break in knowledge similar to tbat created by boarding schools. These were aspects of teaching tbat tbis maker also found difficult to convey to non-Indigenous people. Makers discussed similar infOlmation ruptures related to the representation of objects created by museums, collectors, and scholars who have prioritised the documentation of surface qualities, i.e. colours, dimensions, designs, shapes. Missing from records are the intentions of the artists and the stories of how tbe objects came into being. By focusing solely on tbe external characteristics, relationships are missed. This applies to, for example, when articles such as basswood cordage are used to create designs on clay pots, the two are seldom linked together in a database or exhibit. Or, as one maker noted, tbe difficulty of preserving in a digital archive the kinds of things she learned from non-human teachers such as trees. There is a general lack of awareness among most non-makers about how long it takes to produce Anishinaabe arts. This process includes the gathering of materials and the time an artist spends searching for and processing them. Additionally, there are experiences, events, histories, and dreams that may have also inspired their creations. Each object has a unique intention; the uses of and desirability for Anishinaabe arts has evolved and is constantly changing. But rarely does tbis information get

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documented in the collection databases of museums and therefore restricts the usability of the objects for research and teaching-by Anishinaabek or anyone else. In meeting the needs and interests of Anishinaabe communities related to the access, research, and the interpretation of material culture items, the MSU Museum's current collections management system, ARGUS, has its limitations. Object records have not been consistently or systematically co­ managed with communities, although the Museum has regularly welcomed Indigenous consultants. The contributions of Anishinaabe cultural authorities can sporadically be found online as supplements to the collections' documentation but are not well-integrated. A typical MSU Museum ARGUS object record, which is available for public viewing, conveys the object's identification number, a description of its physical characteristics, its dimensions, and its cultural attribution. Generally, one photograph and one perspective of the object is provided. The work is largely presented in isolation for interpretation and registration by museum curators and staff. Access to representative samples of any particular geme, style, type, technique, or community is limited to that which only the museum has collected.

GRASAC Enhancement of Anishinaabe Maker / Teacher / Learner Relationships An important point made by all the makers is the fact that ongoing, life­ long learning is fundamental. As teachers they would never claim to know everything there is to know, and so a number of suggestions were made by the makers for ways in which the GRASAC database could be useful to them as teachers, learners, and in relation to preserving self-detelTIlination over these processes while also being open with non-Indigenous learners. 1 . GRASAC object records can offer more specific and detailed infolTIlation on materials and techniques, i.e. beads . . . the type, size, color, kind. 2. GRASAC allows for videos to be linked to objects. Videos could provide demonstrations of how designs were created, how objects were used, or artists telling their stories, processes, and intentions. 3. GRASAC offers contemporary makers a place to display their works. 4. GRASAC can offer the artists' teachers to be acknowledged in object records.

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5. GRASAC offers makers an archive of designs and patterns that

they could use as inspiration for their works. 6. GRASAC offers makers who have been separated from Anishinaabe teachers'/relatives a means to learn how to bead, weave, make pottery, etc., and to connect with teachers and teaching processes. 7. GRASAC could be a resource for Tribal members to do research and publish their 0\Vll books and articles on their works. 8. GRASAC allows for contemporary Anishinaabe makers to be in conversation with museum objects to provide more insight into them. These are some of the preliminary findings of the "Nitaawichige: Skilled at Making Things" project. Since the makers' meeting we have continued to work on aspects of our original aims including preparation for longer term engagement with GRASAC. In 2018, Anishinaabe makers who are present and past recipients of the Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program will be featured at a summer festival, as noted earlier. A second makers' meeting will be held to coincide with the festival, and will involve work with the MSU collections as well as collections at the Michigan History Center in Lansing and other venues. This second meeting will bring together regional makers and interested local urban Indigenous community members including Elders, Knowledge Keepers, seniors, adults, and youth. It will also build Anishinaabe-driven strategies to meet maker/community needs with regard to collections, intergenerational knowledge-transfer and sharing, and plan actions to contribute to and benefit from involvement with the GRASAC network. Judy Pierzynowski has been interning with the MSU Museum on two projects that will contribute to these efforts. She has worked on the accession of a recently donated quillbox collection, and made a selection of thirty heritage items, which include some of the new quillbox acquisitions, and materials from both the historical cultural and contemporary Anishinaabe collections held by the Museum to add to the GRASAC database. In carrying out this work, she has been particularly attentive to the perspectives and needs of makers. For example, she and collections coordinator Pearl Yee Wong have been working on photography of the materials that takes into account angles and close-up images makers will be interested in, and selecting rare and unique types of objects.

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Figure 16.4 Judy Pierzynowski with a woven cedar mat held in MSU Museum

collections (320ICW). Photo by Pearl Yee Wong.

Judy has also contextualised the items she selected in broader cultural, historical, and political relations in terms of how these will shape the future of the changing dynamics of the museum and Anishinaabe communities, and in ways that are consistent with GRASAC' s commitment to community-driven purpose. Figure 4 shows a mat from the historical cultural collections that is very fragile and stored in three pieces. This is the first time the mat has been photographed in its entirety with the pieces assembled to show the continuity of the pattern which may refer to alliance or a significant event of the time in was made, likely during the nineteenth century. The mat may have been used for feasting during a negotiation lending to its importance. It carne to the MSU Museum in 1952 among items received from the Chamberlain Museum of Three Oaks, Michigan located in the heart of Pottawatomi territory on the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan. The Chamberlain Museum opened in 1916 as a "Pioneer Museum" and featured items representative of settler exploits such as farm tools, war uniforms and guns, Native American artifacts, and other ethnological items collected from around the world.

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Figure 16.5 Hummingbird design quillbox made from porcupine quills and birch bark signed by the maker M. Aguonie. 9" x 3 1 /2" dimensions. (MSU Museum collections 201 7:24. 1 1 3). Photo by Pearl Yee Wong.

Figure 5 shows one of the quillboxes Judy selected for the GRASAC database from the new acquisition. The maker of this quillbox, M. Aguonie, used a tufting method which is done by inserting one end of each porcupine quill into the birchbark base and trimming the exposed ends to the shape of the bird. Tufting pops the hummingbird from its background adding texture to the effective use of different hues of color in the wings and body of the bird and contrast of the flat white natural quills to produce a three-dimensional result. Physical descriptions like this can be linked to the recorded perspectives of makers like those cited by Yvonne Walker Keshick, above, to the context of the relations between Anishinaabek and other beings, as Judy has added, and ongoing intergenerational dialogues which will be "always becoming" in the GRASAC database capabilities. Connections can be built as well to the relatives of this quillbox in many other collections which are or will be recorded in the GRASAC database, linking and growing knowledge through more conventional

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fOlTIlS such as ethnographic fieldnotes and other archival materials associated to the collectors. This quillbox was acquired in 2017 by the MSU Museum from the collector Katherine C. Vail who donated one­ hundred and sixty-four pieces she acquired between the 1970s through to the year before the donation was made. The collection is made up of items she either purchased directly from makers or from local retail shops in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan, Manitoulin, and north shore of Lake Huron. This one was purchased from the Ten Mile Point Trading Post at Sheguiandah, Ontario, Canada in August 1994. When added to the GRASAC database, these and the other items Judy has selected will benefit makers and researchers, while the reciprocity of knowledge sharing of the GRASAC network will add depth to the information (or lack thereof) currently is associated with these materials. We aspire to making this work support Anishinaabe-driven goals as we continue to connect the archival materials, oral histories, video and other recordings in our repositories to the GRASAC database, contribute Anishinaabe language components, and build community relations in the Lansing area, throughout the region and across the nation-state border that transects the Anishinaabe territories.

Concluding Thoughts Indigenous people's engagement with the MSU Museum is entwined in relational responsibilities with their communities and nations. This includes a mandate to protect and revitalise Indigenous traditions. This needs to inform the ways the MSU collections may be featured in the GRASAC database and potentially contribute to Anishinaabe goals such as language revitalisation and the strengthening of governing structures (see Bohaker, Corbiere, and Phillips 2015; Willmott et al 2016). Grounding our approach as fIrmly as possible in the relationalist understanding of movement, place, and belonging of Anishinaabe cosmology, our work seeks to expand perspectives on human-heritage item relationships and the complexities of human material-affective entanglements. This would redefine the experience of the museum withlfor/by Indigenous peoples in meaningful ways. It further problematises the boundaries between the public/outside and privatelinside spaces of museums, and changes the authority and rights to transgress these boundaries (Boast 201 1 ; Peers and Brown 2003; Lynch and Alberti 2010; Shannon 2014). Museum engagement with Indigenous people around museum collections has come a long way since James Clifford talked about the "predicament of culture" and identity central to the survival of both Indigenous peoples and

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museums as institutions (Clifford 1988). And yet, we are also only beginning to consider the human constitution of materials and the constitution of humans by materials as engagements with Indigenous futures.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN WHO WERE THEY? REPATRIATION AND THE REHUMANISATION OF HUMAN REMAINS IN MUSEUMS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA WENDY BLACK, CATHERINE C. COLE, WINANI THEBELE, MORONGWA N. MOSOTHWANE,

ROOKSANA OMAR AND JEREMY SILVESTER

Introduction In the colonial period, museums collected many human remains for "research" purposes to support prevalent theories of white supremacy. In the early twentieth century, South African museums actively collected remains from Indigenous communities, particularly from Khoesan and Khoekhoe communities. The manner in which these remains were collected and the purpose for which they were collected were unethical. In a postcolonial context, extensive work has been done in other parts of the world to begin healing the wounds that such collections have caused in source communities. A core principle is the need to "rehumanise" people whose bodies were catalogued and treated as "specimens". This chapter considers the issue of re-humanising, which has just begun to be addressed in southern Africa. It outlines the work museums, universities, governments, and Indigenous community members have begun, developing a cross-cultural human remains management strategy which, it is hoped, will provide a tool for museums in southern Africa. The project, which has been supported by the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Young Canada Works at Builduig Careers in

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Heritage, CAM, [ziko Museums and [COM (the International Council of Museums) Special Project funding incorporates internships, collections­ based research, discussions with regional and international experts, consultation with descendant communities, workshops, a travelling exhibition, and a website.

Developing ethical practice The Human Remains Management Project was initiated in response to the Commonwealth Association of Museums' (CAM) commitment to developing a participatory governance initiative, and a concurrent review by the [ziko Museums of South Africa, which identified a large number of human remains from Namibia and Botswana as well as South Africa in the collections. In 2016 CAM, Iziko, the Museums Association of Namibia, and the National Museum and Monuments of Botswana initiated a project to develop policy and guidelines for human remains management in southern Africa. In 2017 the partnership expanded to include [COM [CME (the International Council of Museums' Committee for Museums and Collections of Ethnography) and [COM Botswana, [COM Namibia and [COM South Africa, and in 2018 to include the University of Botswana and AFRICOM (the African Council of Museums). It is becoming a much broader network. Human remains have found their way into museum collections in different ways. Visitors may assume that human remains in museum collections are the result of archaeological excavations. However, many, whether in Africa, Europe or other parts of the world, were collected during the colonial era for racially-based scientific research purposes. In the early twentieth century South African Museums were involved in the illicit and illegal collecting of human remains, particularly from Khoesan and Khoekhoe populations. Museums that have inherited remains that have been acquired unethically, or indeed illegally, need to address past institutional wrongs, develop relationships with source communities, correct this situation, and support reconciliation. Southern African museums are reviewing the human remains in their own collections to identify those that were "unethically" collected. Museums are also being called upon to act as intelTIlediaries in government efforts to repatriate or return remains from foreign museums. For example, in 201 1 , 20 human skulls belonging to prisoners who had died in GelTIlan concentration camps in Namibia during the GelTIlan colonial period were returned to Namibia, and a further 35 skulls returned from Germany in 2014. The National Museum of Namibia is now responsible for decision-making regarding their future exhibition and/or

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internment. Extensive work has been done in other parts of the world to heal the wounds that such collections have caused to source communities, yet this issue has not been properly addressed in southern Africa. Discussions with community members are essential to developing policy and guidelines for future practice through participatory governance. The Human Remains Management project was conceived within the context of international agreements such as the VelTIlillion Accord on Human Remains (World Archaeology Congress, 1989), the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRlP, 2007), the [COM Code of Ethics for Museums (2016), and national legislation where it exists. 1 The VelTIlillion Accord respects the mortal remains of all, the wishes of the dead concerning disposition, the wishes of the community, relatives or guardians of the dead, and the scientific research value of remains when demonstrated to exist. It notes that agreement on the disposition of remains shall be reached by negotiation on the basis of mutual respect for legitimate concerns of communities as well as of science and education. UNDRIP states that, Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practise, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains. [and] States shall seek to enable the access and/or repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned (UNDRIP, 6).

'Whilst UNDRIP focuses on human rights issues relating to descendant communities, the International Council of Museums' Code of Ethics focuses more on the management of human remains within museums. The Code of Ethics includes several references to human remains management including that collections ofhuman remains should be acquired only if they can be housed securely and cared for respectfully . . . Research on human remains . . . must be accomplished in a mallller consistent with professional standards and take into account the interests and beliefs of the community, ethnic or religious groups from whom the objects originated, where these are knm.vll . . . Human remains . . must be displayed in a manner consistent with professional standards and, 1 In South Africa, such legislation includes the Human Tissue Act (1984), The National Heritage Resources Act (1999), the National Health Act (2003).

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where kno'Wll., taking into account the interests and beliefs o f members of the commilllity, ethnic or religious groups from whom the objects originated. . . [and] Requests for removal from public display of human remains . . . from

the

originating

communities

must

be

addressed

expeditiously with respect and sensitivity. Requests for the return of such material should be addressed similarly. Musemn policies should clearly define the process for responding to such requests (ICOM, 2013).

The Code of Ethics asserts the importance of working with origin commlUlities where possible in the acquisition, research, exhibition and removal from public display of hmnan remains. In many cases musemns would not now acquire human remains but need to determine how to manage those in their care, and in fact whether they should remain in the musemn's collection or be returned to the origin commlUlity and potentially (re)buried. "Whereas many Europeans consider death as an end, "many Africans believe in life after death and hence seek to give their dead ones proper burials in accordance 'Nith customary rites" (Opuku 2008).

International Context

.

.

Figure 17.1 Photograph showing skulls and bones in western Ovamboland near Mwanyangapo's homestead, a fortified baobab tree, in Ombalantu, northern Namibia in 1917. Photo. NAN 14157 R. Dickman.

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During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, major museums and universities in Europe collected and studied human remains. Although those of white Europeans were collected, skeletal remains of the "other", those individuals who were not Caucasian, were of particular interest. This led to illicit collecting practices in the search for human remains from Africa. The trade in human remains was relatively lucrative and there is considerable evidence of grave robbing and other, often horrific, illicit activity, particularly in southern Africa where the local Indigenous population, the Khoesan, were targeted. These unethically collected remains often ended up as specimens in museum stores, were rearticulated and studied, measured and compared, moulded and cast. Independence is relatively recent in some southern African countries, with other pressing issues needing to be addressed first.2 But the time has come to address human remains management as a human rights issue. There is increasing international support for the repatriation of remains from overseas museums to the originating country and community. For example, President E. Macron of France recently committed to return "African heritage" to Africa within five years (Macron 2017).

South Africa There are human remains collections throughout southern Africa, a number of which were historically collected unethically (Legassick and Rassool 2000). Universities and museums including the [ziko Museums of South Africa, the National Museum in Bloemfontein, the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, the Albany Museum in Graharnstown, the University of Cape Town, the University of Pretoria, the Dart Collection at the University of the Witwatersrand, and the Kwa-Zulu Natal Museum, among others, hold collections of human remains. Remains that have been collected under pelTIlit, permission or through recognised archaeological excavations are used for scientific study including, for example, medical studies, comparative work and archaeological investigations. Unfortunately not all institutions have the resources (or, perhaps, political will) to conduct the necessary provenance research that can identify human remains as unethically collected. [ziko Museums of South Africa (formerly, the South African Museum) has been able to conduct such a study and currently holds one of the largest of these collections.

2

For example, Namibia 1989, end of Apartheid in South Africa 1990-1993.

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Figure 17.2 Major Pritchard, the first South African officer t o visit northern Namibia, in 1915, inspects a skeleton from the famine in Ondonga Photo. NAN 14167 R. Dickman.

In the early 19OOs, the South African Museum's French Director, Louis Peringuey, was intrigued by the physicality of the Khoesan and although he was involved in the human remains trade, he also wanted to catalogue "pure" samples of the different Khoesan (previously knO\Vll as Bushman) "physical type". He enlisted taxidermist and modeller James Drury to make casts of Bushmen living in Prieska, a small to\Vll in the Northern Cape in 1912; many comrmmity members were not willing participants and one almost suffocated during the process. These casts were later used in one of Iziko's most recognised exhibits, the Khoesan Diorama. Popular from the 1970s, the diorama was a much visited and sought after exhibition. It was removed in 2001 following a number of protests and objections about the depiction of Khoesan as dehumanised natural history specimens rather than people from a diverse community with a rich, dynamic and continuing culture. By 2013 all human cast material had been removed from Iziko exhibitions and placed in secluded storage where no access is permitted. Developed in conjlUlction with academics and stakeholders, in 2005 the Iziko Museum introduced a Human Remains Policy that provides a framework for human remains

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management. There are approximately 1450 human skeletons at [ziko Museums, 157 of which have been categorised as unethically collected (of which as many as 100 may originate from Namibia and Botswana). The museum currently provides restricted access for research purposes on the Physical Anthropology Collection (collected under permit! excavation) but no access is allowed to those individuals collected unethically. Iziko is also in the process of deaccessioning this collection with the intention of repatriating to their source communities and/or reburying locally. In 2014, Iziko deaccessioned 30 individuals from localities in Namaqualand, Namibia, Northern Cape and Australia. South African museums now await the completion of a national policy that will drive repatriation and restitution efforts linked to human remains and associated artefacts. One prerequisite for dialogue between museums and Indigenous communities in southern Africa is accurate infOlmation about the scale and scope of collections held in South African museums. The boundaries between these countries are political and historical, not cultural, and do not reflect the lives of those people whose remains are held by museums.

Namibia Namibia has been confronted with the challenge presented by the return of a significant number of human remains. The returns from GelTIlany were mainly associated with the genocide of 1904-1908 and this has fuelled a debate within communities about the appropriate way to deal with these remains. An initial proposal was that the remains should be given the status of national heroes and buried in Heroes Acre. However, the cultural diversity of the victims means that it would be difficult to agree on the appropriate ritual for a mass burial. Arguments have also been made that the ancestors should be returned to their homes and the descendant community to whom they belong. Finally an argument has been made by the Paramount Chief of the Herero and others that the remains should be displayed as evidence of the genocide (in the spirit of memorials that mark the genocides that took place, more recently, in Cambodia and Rwanda). Namibia needs to develop a strategy for resolving divergent views and deciding on the ultimate fate of the remains that have been returned. Policy development is particularly important given the fact that it is highly likely that there will be further returns of human remains.

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Figure 17.3 The remains of a San child that were on display in Swakopmund Museum (provided by "Native Commissioner" Harold Eedes). The remains were later removed from display. Photo. NAN 20124. Swakopmund Museum.

Racial science is a common factor that links the unethical collections of human remains in European museums and in South African museums. However, the profiles of the collections differ: German museums benefitted from the availability of bodies from "concentration camps" and the remains predominantly carne from the Herero and Nama communities (with other remains defined as Damara and San). Despite the fact that prisoners were known by name they were catalogued as ethnic types. South African museums focused on "salvage anthropology" and focused on the San and Nama communities of central and southern Namibia which were believed to be in danger of extinction in their "pure" form. One exception was that the South African Museum collected a large number of "Ovambo" victims from the Ondjala yekomba ("the famine that swept") in the early years of South African rule (the Native Commissioner for Ovamboland sent two large consignments by train in 1919 and 1921).

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Botswana

Figure 17.4 One of several photographs showing the body of Ohamba (King) Mandume ya Ndemufayo, being displayed by South African soldiers, after his death in 1917, fuelled the belief that he was decapitated and that his skull might be in a museum. Photo NAN 19991.

There are a number of human remains in the collection of the Botswana National Museum and at the University of Botswana, most of which were

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collected through rescue or archaeological excavations. The collection of human remains in Botswana started fairly recently (late 1970s) while the collection of artefacts and other museum objects dates as far back the late 1800s. At present there are no remains of individuals from outside the country but there are remains of individuals from Botswana in places such as [ziko Museums, the USA and Europe. There are no legal tools to provide direction for human remains management in Botswana, just as there are no tools to protect against the illicit trafficking and restitution of cultural property (Mosothwane 2013). As a result, the Botswana National Museum and private archaeologists follow international professional standards for the exhumation, collection and management of human remains such as the VelTIlillion Accord on Human Remains, The Tamaki­ Makau-rau Accord on the Display of Human Remains and Sacred Objects, World Archaeology Congress First Code of Ethics as well as drawing from the neighbouring South Africa. In the last 20 years, Botswana has witnessed the return of a number of human remains, the best knO\vn example of which is EI Negro, who was a middle-aged Mosarwa man taken in the nineteenth century by the Vereaur brothers, taxidemists, who later sold his remains and displayed them at a museum in Banyoles, Spain. Eventually, due to pressure by OAU and UNESCO in particular, he was repatriated to Botswana in 2000 and is now buried at Tsholofelo Park in Gaborone, Botswana. The exact origin of El Negro is unknO\vn as he was labelled as coming from the Kalahari, a vast desert that covers several countries. It was these countries that resolved to have the remains of EI Negro sent to Botswana. Some artefacts that were part of the display, i.e., the spear, remained in the Spanish museum (Parsons and Segobye 2002).

Moving Forward: Results to Date In many cases internationally, the museums themselves would like to return the remains and distance themselves from their role in the racist science of the past; however, the challenge is to develop, in collaboration with Indigenous people and governments, effective and acceptable mechanisms for restitution. Museums face a number of challenges in trying to address these issues, including: the lack of institutional and government policies that would allow repatriation, the need to identify culturally appropriate solutions for the southern African context, the lack of staff capacity and resources, inability to identify the source communities of many remains, and the lack of funding for community consultation, engagement and education, repatriation and reburial. In Phase

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Figure 17.5 A letter from George Lennox (A.K.A. "Scotty Smith") to Louis Peringuey, Director of the South African Museum (dated 19 November, 1910) describing a collection of "specimens" that had been obtained from fanners and described as "Bushmen". Photo courtesy IZIKO Archive.

I of the project, CAM provided intern Keely McCavitt (with funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage's Young Canada Works at Building Careers in Heritage), and the South African Department of Arts and Culture intern Jurika Esterhuizen, to work at Iziko Museums for six months (October 20 16 to March 2017) to produce a report listing, as far as possible, the human remains in various collections. Iziko Museums hosted a workshop on Human Remains Management and Repatriation on February 13-14, 2017. Nearly 70 participants from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Seychelles, and Canada discussed the state of repatriation practices locally and globally. The workshop covered a number of topics including, among others, human remains management in southern Africa, international case studies, and the role time and intention play in defining remains as ethically or unethically collected. Participants included a unique combination of Indigenous community members, academics and government officials, as well as museum professionals. We explored the current status of human remains collections within South Africa, Namibia

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and Botswana; discussed case studies of successful and unsuccessful repatriation experiences; explored current efforts to develop policy and legislation within South Africa, highlighted the scientific value of research conducted on human remains, and discussed the process of repatriation from an Indigenous perspective. We had a lively discussion with the full group of participants about how to move this work forward, followed by a more focussed discussion among the partners about next steps. The workshop was funded by CAM and [ziko Museums. Phase II began in March 2017 with the armouncement of [COM Special Project funding to support the project and the addition of [CME and [COM Botswana, [COM Namibia and [COM South Africa as partners. [n June 2017, delegates from South Africa, Namibia and Botswana participated in a panel on Human Remains Management in Southern Africa at the Commonwealth , Association of Museums Triennial General Assembly in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. In October, CAM intern Paige Linner began working at the Museums Association of Namibia, focusing on community consultation, development of a travelling exhibition and website, and preparations for a second workshop. The University of Namibia hosted the second workshop on Human Remains Management and Policy Development on March 22-23, 2018 in Windhoek. The workshop was organised by MAN, CAM, [ziko Museums, the University of Botswana, [COM [CME, and [COM Namibia. The goal of the workshop was to break open difficult topics, approach sensitive questions in an all-inclusive way and begin the development of policy. Thirty-five participants from seven countries (Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Seychelles, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Canada) participated. This workshop was supported by [COM and CAM. One of the topics of discussion that encouraged a dialogue between museum workers and community representatives was the importance of telTIlinology, what is meant by human remains/ancestral remains, repatriationirestitution, etc. Participants highlighted the need to evaluate how international codes of museum ethics and the treatment of remains in collections might be applied in southern Africa as well as the urgent need for an assessment of the relevant legislation and guidelines in each country. A panel discussion of cultural practices and community consultation revealed that cultural diversity is reflected in traditional burial practices and the difficulties that this raised for any proposal to organise a mass reburial at the national level. A presentation from the Namibian Forensic Laboratory gave insight into the way in which the discovery of unidentified human remains may result in the opening of a "cold case" file or an accession to the museum. Finally, small group discussions tackled questions such as: how do we

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more effectively involve communities in policy development? What are the commonalities between the issues affecting southern African countries? 'What are the pros and cons of displaying remains in museums and how should we approach this issue?

Conclusion It is clear that there is an urgent need for museums in southern Africa to develop effective guidelines on human remains. A wave of Ie-evaluation of the provenance of collections is sweeping through museums across the world. One of the most significant features of this attempt by museums to distance themselves from the unethical practices of the past is the movement to return significant numbers of human remains to descendant communities. The network established by the Human Remains Management in Southern Africa project is providing an important framework, especially given the ambiguity regarding some human remains that are associated with transfrontier regions such as the Kalahari or Namaqualand. The network now being established will provide an important focal point for museums needing to engage with both nation states and Indigenous communities. The return of human remains that were unethically removed from the soil is likely to be lengthy, but is an essential and central component for the decolonisation of the museum. Policy development on such a sensitive matter is by necessity a 10ng-telTIl process; however, for the first time, these difficult conversations are being held-between colleagues in museums, universities and governments, and between institutions and communities. We are listening to one another and moving forward. This project has been initiated by southern Africans to develop a common understanding and voice that can then be taken to international museums to request the return of remains. A number of future outputs for the network have been identified. In 2018 these include the launch of a small mobile exhibition as a resource to facilitate community consultation and a web site to enable the sharing of resources within southern Africa and to provide an interface for public consultation (www.humamemainsinsouthernafrica.org). A large-scale discussion forum with participation of community members is also planned to begin establishing common guidelines for human remains management and repatriation practices between South Africa, Namibia and Botswana and eventually a pilot repatriation. It is hoped that standardised guidelines and principles for the management, conservation, storage and repatriation of unethically collected human remains will be developed at the end of 2018. In March 2019 a workshop will be held in

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Botswana to finalise a model policy and a set of guidelines. The project culminates with a presentation as a keynote part of the [CME meeting at the [COM triennial conference in Kyoto Japan in September 2019 and a pre-conference workshop on collections management of human remains as well as a panel at the CAM triennial conference tentatively scheduled for Cape Town in 2020.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Wendy Black

Dr. Black is currently the curator of archaeology at Iziko Museums of South Africa. She obtained her PhD at the University of Cape Town in 2014, specialising in the population history and bioarchaeology of the indigenous hunter-gatherer people of southern Africa, the Khoesan. Her current research interests are broadly related to population dynamics, genetics and cultural identity. More recently, Wendy has become involved with indigenous rights and transfOlmation issues as they relate to human remains collections and group representations within South African institutions. Pi-Chun Chang

Dr. Chang is an Associate Professor in Department of East Asian Studies at National Taiwan Nonnal University. She got Ph.D. in communication at State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. She was the secretary­ general of Taiwan Cultural Studies Association. Her research interests include Southeast Asian Studies, overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, cultural politics, representation and cultural geography. Her publications can be seen in Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, Asian Ethnici/y, China Media Research and some others. She can be reached at [email protected] Catherine C. Cole

Catherine Cole, MA, FCMA has been Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Association of Museums since 2013 where she manages the association and organises international projects, workshops and symposia, and professional development activities including the distance learning and internship programmes. She has been Principal Consultant, Catherine C. Cole & Associates heritage consultants for 25 years working throughout Canada, primarily on management consulting and collaborative arts and heritage projects. She is Metis and much of her work is within Indigenous communities, over the past decade particularly teaching heritage management and interpretation for the Inuit Heritage Trust, an Indigenous organization established through the Nunavut land claim. She is an historian and previously worked as a curator.

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U1f Johansson Dahre

Dr. Dahre is associate professor in Social Anthropology at Lund University, Sweden. For some years he was the Head of the Ethnographic Collections at the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen. Currently he is working on a project concerning the revival of the Cabinet of Curiosities. He is also teaching and researching in human rights, particularly regarding Indigenous peoples and the issue of universalism and cultural relativism. Hans Philip Einarsen

Hans Philip Einarsen (1965) is a sociologist and work as director of Randsfjordmuseet in Norway. He has fOlmer worked as senior adviser at Art Council Norway and research manager at Oslo museum. His main interests are cultural diversity, sound and identity, and museums' role in society. Viv Golding

Viv Golding is Emeritus Associate Professor at the School of Museum Studies, and Chair of ICME. She gained her PhD in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester in 2000. Her thesis, "New Voices and Visibilities at the Museum Frontiers", brought together the philosophical helTIleneutics of Hans Georg Gadamer with black women writers including Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde to infolTIl a liberatory praxis in the ethnographic museum. She also serves on the editorial boards and committees of Curator: The Museum Joumal, The Horniman Museum Publications, and Best in Heritage. Motoko Harada

Motoko Harada completed a science master's course. After work for patent section at manufacturing machine company, she studied learning and communication in museum with smartphones as assistant researcher at National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo. Now she teaches "museum infolTIlation and media theory" at Yashima Gakuen University. She also works at an intellectual property management company and is in charge of IP education and engineer training for Japanese manufacturing industry. Her recent interest is recording attraction of each museum through photography took by museum audience. She is making an archive of those photos and trying to apply them to museum evaluation or "kaizen" (Japanese manufucturing philosophy for continuous improvement) for museum.

360

Contributors

Le Thj Thuy Hoan

Le Thj Thuy Hoan graduated from Hanoi University of Culture in 1994 and has been pursuing her museum career since then. She got her PhD on Folklore ni 2010, then she jonied the Vietnamese Women's Museum in 2012 after having worked for 1 8 years in other museums in Hanoi-the Vietnam Revolution Museum, and the Vietnam National Museum of History. She is responsible for international cooperation and project development, Communication and Education. She has been dealing with various exhibitions and projects in collaboration with foreign museums, NGOs and embassies located in Hanoi, Viet Nam. She is also working on projects to get support from NGOs in order to improve her museum's activities. She has participated in a variety of international forums and conferences on museums and heritage. She is the author of many articles on museum work for Vietnamese magazines. Heather A. Howard

Heather Howard teaches anthropology and American Indian & Indigenous Studies at Michigan State University, and is adjunct staff with the MSU Museum. She is also appointed with the Centre for Indigenous Initiatives at the University of Toronto. Her work is collaborative and community­ driven centering on the value of Indigenous knowledge frameworks to scholarship and research that is meaningful to community. She is interested in evolving practices of museums, educational, social and health services providing culture-based programming, Indigenous women's work in urban education, community history, and heritage item making, and memory and meaning-making with materials of social and cultural significance. Francesca Lanz

Francesca Lanz is a lecturer in Interior Architecture and Exhibition Design at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano, undertaking research in the field of interior architecture, museum and heritage studies and teaching interior architecture at BA and MA courses in Interior Design and Architecture. Her interests lie in the role and evolution of interior architecture in the context of the current socio­ cultural scenario and evolving living behaviours. Most recently, her research activities notably focused on museum and heritage with a focus on museography and exhibition design investigating the interhvinement between emerging heritages theories and contemporary architectural critic and practice. In the past six years she has been contributing to several national and international research programme, many of which have been

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grant awarded. Among these the ED funded projects MeLa: European Museums in an A;;e ofMi;;rations (201 1-2015) and TRACES: Transmitting Contentious Cultural Heritages with the Arts (2016-2019). Marsha MacDowell

Marsha MacDowell is curator and professor, Michigan State University Museum where she also directs the Michigan Traditional Arts Program (a partoership with Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs) and The Quilt Index (www.quiltindex.org). Her work, as a publicly engaged scholar, is grounded in an interdisciplinary approach to material culture and a commitment to collaborative endeavors, and is infOlmed primarily by art historical, folkloristic, and etlmographic theories and methodologies. While tlie focus of the majority of her activities has been io Michigan and the Great Lakes region, some projects have been national and international III scope. Mika Matsuo

Mika Matsuo is a graduate of MA Museum Studies course at University of Leicester. She is also a fOlmer staff member of the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo (NMNS) who worked as an assistant researcher for Yosihkazu Ogawa's research team. Using her experience working internationally in the field of museums, she is currently working as a consultant for learniog English at a private company called GRIT Inc. Ralf Ceplak Mencin

Ralf Ceplak Mencin was born in 1955 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, graduated Ethnology and Psychology (B.A.) io 1981 in Ljubljana and fmished his M.A. in Museum studies io Zagreb ICroatia in 201 1 . He has 34 years of work as a curator in different museums (provincial, city, ethnographic) in Slovenia. For eleven years he was head of the Ethnographic Museum in Goricane castle near Ljubljana. His research work is focused io the field of Sinology, Tibetology and Museology. He is the two mandates chair of Museum Association of Slovenia (1991 - 1995), two mandates chair of ICOM (International Council of Museums) Slovenia National Committee (1997 - 2003). He is also a member of tlie board of ICOMlICMFJ International Committee of Etlmographic Museums (1989 - 1992, 2007 2010 and 2016 - 2019)) and ICOM - Europe (2002 - 2007), and a member of the ICOM Task Force on National Committees and Regional Organizations (2005 - 2007). He has published 190 articles and three books, was co-autlior of the Museums Guide in Slovenia (1992) and organised (was author or co-author) 38 museum exhibitions.

362

Contributors

Maria Teresa Milicia

Maria Teresa Milicia is Assistant Professor of Cultural Antliropology at the Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and the Ancient World of University of Padua. She conducted ethnographic research on the social and political impact of Marian apparition in two village in the South of Italy that is her primary research area. She is currently involved in an ongoing multi-sited fieldwork and digital ethnography on the symbolic uses of the past in the construction of the Southern identity politics and the process of etlmicization of Italian society. Her writings and teaching also focus on history of racial anthropology, scientific racism and repatriation studies. Among her publication, Lombroso e il brigante. Storia di un crania conteso, Roma, Salerno editrice, 2014. Morongwa Nancy Mosothwane

Dr. Mosothwane is a senior lecturer at the University of Botswana and has worked there since 2010. She specializes in human skeletal remains, burial archaeology and forensic anthropology. She has been involved in several grave relocations and the management of burials in recent and archaeological contexts. Moreover she has studied human remains in museum collections in southern Africa and beyond and has written several articles including a review of legal statutes and ethics of human remains collections in Botswana. She is a member of several international heritage organisations and secretary of [COM Botswana. Carsten Viggo Nielsen

Carsten Viggo Nielsen has an MA in History of Religions with a special focus on museum studies and cultural encounters. He has previously been employed in ethnographic collections respectively at the University of Arkansas Museum Collections and at the National Museum of Demnark. His contribution to this anthology is in continuation of his participation in ICME's arumal conference in 2016 in Hanoi. As a museum representative, Carsten Viggo Nielsen has been working actively to facilitate collaboration with ritual-practicing religious representatives (ie. Lakota, Navajo, Baha'i, MOlTIlon, Orthodox Christian and Asatru) in order to broaden the interpretation of etlmographic museum objects and exhibitions of contemporary religious relevance. Presently Carsten Viggo Nielsen acts as a private consultant and author of educational material concerning the history of religions.

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Yoshikazu Ogawa

Yoshikazu Ogawa holds a PhD in Education. He is the Director of the Center for the Promotion of External Affairs and Education at the National Museum of Nature and Science (NMNS) and Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School at University of Tsukuba. His career started as a biological teacher in high school and transferred to NMNS as a Science Educator. He has experience of working as an intern at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Over 20 years, his research has focused on museum education and science education. Recently, he researched science communication and developed the Science Communicator Training Program in NMNS. He is now Vice President of the Japanese Association for Science Communication and Japan Museum Management Academy. He is also an editor for Museum Studies of Japanese Association of Museums and th eJoumal of Science Education in Japan. His recent publication is "Getting Started with Science Communication" (Maruzen, 2017). Rooksana Omar

Rooksana Omar is the Chief Executive Officer of the [ziko Museums of South Africa, a national Flagship Museum, comprising of 1 1 museums, a planetarium, the Social History Centre located in Cape To'Wll, South Africa. She is a Director on the Groote Constantia Trust and a board member of the Castle Control Board. Rooksana has worked in museums since 1987. From 2001 to 2003 she was the President of the South African Museums Association, she has also served as an Executive Board Member of the International Commission on Museums in South Africa (September 2006-September 2008) and President of [COM-South Africa (20102013), President of the Commonwealth of Museums (201 1-2017) and is on the Ethics Committee of the International Committee of Museums. She has extensive experience in transfOlming heritage institutions in the post­ apartheid era. Maria Camilla De Palma

Museum anthropologist, founding director of Castello D'Albertis Museum of World Cultures in Genoa-Italy since 1991, Maria Camilla De Palma has been developing exhibitions, workshops and educational programs on indigenous peoples of Africa, the Americas and Oceania through the dialogues with them and migrant citizens, for the accessibility for all kinds of publics and cultures. She did field research among the Wayuu in Venezuela, the Bororo of Mato Grosso in Brazil, on the mayan site of Copan-Honduras with the

364

Contributors

Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, and among the Hopi of Arizona, thanks to a Getty Curatorial Grant for the inclusion of native voices in European museums. She is member of ICME and founding member of Simbdea (Italian Society for Ethno-Anthropological Museums and Heritage). She publishes in the field of museum anthropology, social inclusion and on the intercultural use of cultural heritage. Anna Maria Pecci

Anna Maria Pecci is an independent researcher in the fields of cultural and museum anthropology. Her interests include a reflexive approach to the enhancement of cultural heritage and collections in telTIlS of accessibility, participation, engagement, intercultural mediation. She works as a project manager, trainer and consultant and is founder member of the Cultural Association Passages. Among her publications: Migranti e patrimoni culturali. Accessibilita, partecipazione, mediazione nei musei (2009), Arte dei margini. Collezioni di Art Brut creativita relazionale, educazione alIa differenza (co-edited with G. Mangiapane and V. Porcellana, 2013), A (quale ?) regola d'arte. Contributi sulla frontiera Ira inside e outside

(2016). Chi Thien Pham

I was born in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. I graduated as a bachelor of Museum Studies, and the first Master of Culture Studies from Hanoi University of Culture. After that, the passion for researching history and museum objects led me to become one of the youngest lecturers in Vietnam. For that reason, I worked in the Faculty of Cultural Heritage (Hanoi University of Culture) for four years. During this period of time, I reached some important acheivements. To begin with, my first international paper with the title "Symbol of linga in VietNam" was presented at the 20th Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Congress in Siem Riep, 12-18 January 2014. What is more, I held a position as a curator of the capacity building program for the community-based exhibitions Unstraight Perspective: Hanoi/Goteborg and The Cabinet, between 2014 and 2015. Then, making a breakthrough, I made an absolutely great choice to study my second Master of Art at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicestser, which is one of the most prestigious courses in the world. Next, I had a golden opportunity to collaborate with fantastic British colleagues in programs such as the exhibition Lady Dorothie 's War, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, fimded by the Heritage Lottery

Museums and Comrlllmities

365

Fund in 2016. Currently, I am working as an Active English Exam Manager of the American English School in Vietnam. Judy Pierzynowski

My name is Biindaabiinkwe; in Anishinaabek it means the first light of day woman. My English name is Judy Pierzynowski. I am Crane Clan, a member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians located in Harbor Springs, Michigan, and have been actively involved in Native communities all of my life. I am currently a research intern for the MSU Native American Institute and a collections assistant at the Michigan State University Museum. In this project I am excited about combining my interests as a maker and a traditional knowledge bearer to make collections more useful for future learners and makers. Mojca Racic

Mojca Racic obtained a BA in ethnology and sociology at University of Ljubljana. She works as librarian at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum and is involved in other museum activities. She was coeditor of museum journal Etnolog and head of the program for refugees. Anette Rein

Dr. Anette Rein's professional career spans universities, museums and journalism. She has taught at national and international universities from 1994 including the Universities in Bayreuth, Frankfiut am Main, G6ttingen, Mainz, Kupang (Timor) and Leipzig. From 2000-2008 she was the executive director in Frankfiut am Main at the Museum of World Cultnres. She publishes articles in MUSEUM AKTUELL and EXPO TIME! on museum theory and practice, scenography and refugees (migration) and delivers workshops on "Creative writing and Scientific thinking". In 2017, as project manager she organized an integration project for female refugees from Afghanistan in Frankfurt am Main. Rein was a member of the Board of ICOM Germany (2004-2010) and of ICME (2007-2016). Since 2012, she has been president of the bfe, Federal Association for freelance Ethnologists. Jeremy Silvester

Dr. Jeremy Silvester is the Director of the Museums Association of Namibia (MAN) and has worked there since 2005. He previously taught for eight years in the History Department at the University of Namibia. MAN represents museum workers in Namibia and supports regional museum development. Current projects include the development of the

366

Contributors

Zambezi Museum and the Museum of Namibian Music. Recent publications include the edited volume Re-viewing Resistance in Namibian History (2015) and co-edited volume Resistance on the Banks of the Kavango (2016). He is the chair of the "Africa Accessioned" network, a project initiated by the International Connnittee of Museums of Ethnography (ICME) to document collections and encourage collaborative project partnerships between European and African museums and communities. He can be contacted [email protected] Laura Smith

Laura Smith is an assistant professor of art history and visual culture at Michigan State University with specializations in North American arts, Indigenous North American arts, and photography. She is the author of Horace Poolaw, Photographer of American Indian Modernity (University of Nebraska Press, 2016). Her research largely focuses on Indigenous artists who have used technical inventions (such as photography, video, and digital media) to control representation, affinn and explore identities, and to challenge their disenfranchisement under American settler colonialism. Winani Thebele

I am a middle aged lady of 49, born on 25/09/68. I am a citizen of Botswana. I have worked for the Botswana National Museum since 1993 and currently hold the position of Chief Curator and Head of the Ethnology Division. Currently on sabbatical leave and affiliated to the University of Botswana under the History Department and am just about to submit my thesis for a PhD with Wits University/South Africa under /Anthropology Department. The title of my thesis is The Migrated Museum: Restitution or Shared Heritage? My job at the National Museum entails extensive research (projects with communities), publications and exhibiting on the different thematic areas surrounding the ethno-historic collections of the museum and the diverse cultures and communities of Botswana. I am a member of several international heritage organisations and a member of reOM since 1998. I did my BA and Ma degrees ni Humanities with the University of Botswana and graduated in 1993 and 2013 respectively. My BA dissertation was "I. G. Haskin, Businessman and Politician" and the MA thesis was "The Evolution and Development of the Museum in Botswana Towards a Heritage Institution"

Museums and Comrlllmities

367

Jen Walklate

Jen Walklate is Teaching Fellow at the School of Museum Studies, Leicester, and a museologist, historian and literary theorist, studying the intersections between museums and other cultural media, including literature, drama and comics. She utilises novelistic and poetic fOlTIlS and concepts to open up new ways of considering visitor experience in museum contexts, and literature as an analytical framework for understanding the construction and performance of museums. Drawing upon this study, she is looking at new ways to create more representative, inclusive, egalitarian, and intellectually open institutions. Jen completed a PhD at the School of Museum Studies, Leicester, in 2013, and an MA in 2009. She has worked as a Collections Assessor, Research Assistant, Editor, and Docent, and has volunteered with the Galleries of Justice Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, and the Royal Shakespeare Company Collections. She is a member of the Museum Ethnographers Group (MEG), the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Ethnography (rCME), and works as editor for Museum & Society, and the Best in Heritage Projects of Influence Award. Christopher Whitehead

Christopher Whitehead is Professor of Museology at the Universities of Newcastle (UK) and Oslo (Norway). His current research activities today circulate around cultural politics of memory, display, knowledge construction and interpretation. He is currently working on political uses of the past, time and place, and contested histories and heritages, especially where these relate to contemporary social tensions, division and conflict. He has conducted extensive EU-funded research into museums and migration and European heritage and identity. Alongside these activities he maintains research interests in the general areas covered in his monographs on the 19th Century Art Museum (Ashgate 2005), Museums and the Construction of Disciplines (Bloomsbury 2009) and Interpreting Art in Museums and Galleries (Routledge 2012). His most recent book is the edited volume Museums, Migration and Identity in Europe (Ashgate 2015). He is currently writing two new monographs on Analysing Museum Display and Dimensions of European Heritage and Memory, both with Routledge. Heng Wu

Heng Wu is the Deputy Director of the Cultural Exchange Center of Nanjing Museum, China, in charge of the museum's international programs and communications. Heng received her doctoral degree from

368

Contributors

the University of Bergen, Norway ni 201 1 before she joined Nanjing Museum. Her dissertation explores the changes of regional museums in China durnig 1949-2009 with a special focus on their correlations with the country's social political changes. After joniing Nanjnig Museum, Heng has initiated and managed a broad range of international projects including exhibitions and academic programs. Heng's research interests include museum and society, museums as media, ethnic museums, and cultural representation. She is also interested in exploring the best practices of museum operation and new approaches to international museum collaborations. Pauline van der Zee

Dr. van der Zee is an art historian. She has studied and taught courses on Ethnic Art at Ghent University, where she is a Curator of the Ethnographic Collections. Dr. van der Zee speaks on her research themes internationally, notably at ICME conferences (2012-2016). Her publications include "Art as contact with the ancestors: Visual Arts of the Kamoro and Asmat of West Papua" (Bulletins of the Royal Tropical Institute Amsterdam 2009), a comparative research focusing on the related, yet different, artistic expressions of Asmat and neighboring Kamoro. As well as "Bisj-poles sculptures from the raniforest" (2007, Amsterdam KIT publishers). These poles serve as a memorial for the deceased and have been named for the ritual of which they form the centre, the bisj .

INDEX

99 x Neukdlln (exhibition, Berlin), 34, 36 Aarhus (Denmark), 64, 69 Aboriginal Cmatorial Collective/Collectif des comrnissaires autochtones (ACCICCA), 249 Abu Dhabi, 1 Academy of Fine Arts and Design, 222 Achebe, Chinua, 1 80 activism, 2 7, 18, 43 4, 52 see also Neo-Bourbon movement and II fronte del Sud (The Southern Front) and No Lombroso movement Adamopoulou, Areti, 247 Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), 220 Afghanistan, 122, 1 24, 127, 220, 224 Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul (exhibition), 159 Africa, 236, 238 African Council ofMuseums (AFRICOM), 309 Ajtenposten, see newspapers and magazines Age ofEmpires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B. C-A.D. 220) (exhibition), 160, 163 Ages ofEmpires: Russia and the Qing (exhibition), 167 Aguonie, M., 305

A History of the World in 100 Objects (exhibition), 159 Ahmad, Ta1ha, 223 Aker river (Akerselva), 274 Albania, 238 Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (exhibition), 169 American West in Bronze: 18501925 (exhibition), 164 Ames, Michael, 244 5 Amin, Ash, 25 Amsterdam, 24, 25, 64, 69, 165 Anatomical Institutes of the University of Tmin, 205 ancient Egypt, 166 Anim-Addo, Joan, 10 Anishinaabe, 290 307 anthropomorphism, 93, 96 anti-Semitism, 6, 43 Antwerp, 75 anxiety, age o£luncertainty, 1, 12, 175 Apartheid, 6 Apollinaire, Guillaume, 174 Appadurai, Arjun, 77 Appalachia, 6 Appiah, Kwarne Anthony, 1 82 appropriation, 2 1 1 , 2 1 2 Aprile, Pino, 44, 5 1 , 55 Terroni, 56 Apulia, 52 Archibald, Joarrne, 244 Arendt, Hannah, 2 1 9 Art Deco design, 29 Arteco, 208n. Art Exhibitions China, 162 3 Asia, 61, 64, 66, 109, 235 Asian and European Musemn Association (AS EMUS), 194

370 Asia Society (New York), 156 Association of Kwong Tong Cemetery Management, Kuala Lumpur, 141 asylum seekers, 1 2 1 , 130, 135, 224, 226, 227, 228, 229, 253 A Tale a/Two Cities (exhibition), 166 Australia, 220, 233, 295, 3 1 4 Austria, 162, 220 Austro-HlUlgarian monarchy, 227 Back, Les, 276, 277 Bailey, Peter, 284 Balkans, the, 121 Ban Nguy?t Lake, 1 1 3 Banyoles (Spain), 3 1 7 Barthes, Roland, 281 Basic Act on Education (Japan), 260 Bassolino, Antonio, 47 Bear Lodge, 93, 94 Belgium, 29, 162, 1 7 1 89 Bell, Catherine, 95 Belmore, Rebecca, 249 Bennett, Tony, 65, 153 Berkaak, 285 Berlin, 24, 64, 128 Between Nature and Culture (exhibition), 2 1 6 17, 2 1 9 bigotry, 24 Bijsterveld, Karin, 285 6 Bisic, Faila Pasic, 226 Blackburn, Kevin, 146 7 Black Hills, 93 B1ack, VVendy, 17, 308 21 Blitz Londoners, 28 "blockbuster" exhibitions, 160 Boast, Robin, 10, 1 1 Bobbitt, Philip, 66 Bohaker, Heidi, 292 borders, 1, 9, 12, 15, 20,22, 183, 238, 247 Bosnia, 276 Bossi, Urnberto, 52 Botswana, 309, 3 1 4, 3 1 6 17, 3 1 8, 3 1 9, 320, 321

Index Bourdieu, Pierre, 74, 158 Bozzelli, Gianluca, 43 Brahman (divine principle of), 93 Brazil, 246, 253, 363 Berryman, Jim, 160 Brexit, 1 , 22, 157 "Bridges Musik verbindet", 122 3 Brigands. Heroes or criminals? (exhibition),49 British Cohunbia, 239 British Library (London), 248 British Malaya, 144 Bro\Vll, Alison, 10, 1 17 Brussels, 64 Bukit Kepong police station, 147 Bukovec, Vesna, 228 Bull, Michael, 276, 277 Bunch, Lonnie G., III, 2, 6 Bmma, 145

Cabinet, The (exhibition in Vietnam), 14, 1 06, 1 10 1 7 "cabinets ofcmiosities", 74 5, 235, 248 Cafre Borbone, 48 Calabria, 44n., 48, 5 1 , 52 Calabria on Web, see newspapers and magazines Caligiuri, Mario, 44n. Cambodia, 3 1 4 Canada, 29, 164, 240, 3 1 8, 3 1 9 Cantho, 1 1 4 Cape Town, 321 Cardinal-Schubert, Joanne, 249 Carnefici, 5 1 "cartoon crisis", 74 Casalduni, 50 Catalonia, 29 Catanzaro, 46, 58 Catherine the Great of Russia, 167 Centre for African Studies ofTmin, 205n. Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies, 141 Chad, 205 Chang, Pi-Chun, 14, 1 3 8 54

Museums and Comrlllmities Cheab, Boon Kheng, 151 China, 15, 141, 142, 144, 145, 146, 150, 152, 156 70 China: Dawn ofa GoldenAge, 200750AD (exhibition), 163 China Relief Committee, 145n. Chirac, Jacques (president), 63, 68 Chmch of Anmmziata (pontelando1fo), 51n. Civic Hospital San Matteo (pavia), 60 Civitella del Tronto, 50 C1andon Park (Surrey), 232 Classen, Constance, 288 Clifford, James, 61, 72, 76, 77, 133 4, 207, 239, 306 climate change, 133, 220 CoHERE (EU-H2020 research project), 23n. Colacino, Amedeo, 45, 51 2, 54, 60 Cole, Catherine C, 17, 308 21 collaboration, 9, 10, 12, 107 19, 2 1 0 14, 242, 245, 249, 267 Collegno (near Turin), 209 Collins English Dictionary and Thesaurus, 106 colonialism, 25, 27, 39, 43, 44, 47, 66, 7 1 , 72, 73, 89, 9 1 , 92, 107, 134, 139, 139n., 142, 143, 144, 145, 1 5 1 , 152, 153, 173, 1 80, 1 80n., 1 8 1 , 183, 1 84, 185n., 187, 236 7, 252, 308, 309 Colombo, Cristoforo, 44n. Cohunbus, 238 Commonwealth Association of Museums, 17, 309, 3 1 9 commlUlism, 139n., 142, 146 Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), 146 commlUlities, 2, 6 7, 12, 14, 3 1 , 57, 106 19, 153, 159, 167 8, 169 70, 185, 285, 289, 306 and individuals, 2, 7, 8, 153, 183, 229, 242 "conflict zone", the, 1 1, 13, 42 60 Congo, 1 8 1n., 185, 205

371

"comparative curation", 166 Constitutional Proposal for the Federation of Malaya, 152 "contact zone", the, 9, 10 13, 76, 77, 207 Copenhagen, 64, 76 Corbiere, Alan, 292 Court of Appeal of Catanzaro, 54 Creed, Chris, 248 Cresswell, Tim, 24 Criminal Anthropology, 44, 53, 58, 59 60 Croatia, 220, 224 Crooke, E. M., 1 1 7 Cultural Revolution, China, 162 Dabre, U1fJohansson, 13, 61 85 D'Albertis, Captain Enrico Alberto, 234 8 Danang, 1 14 Danise, Gustavo, 53, 53n. Danish Musemn Act, 82 Darbel, Alain, 158 Davis, Peter, 109, 1 1 7 "Death Railway", the, 145 Decollatura, 46 decolonisation, 14, 9 1 , 92, 138, 150, 185n., 320 De Crescenzo, Gennaro, 46, 5 1 Deland, Rosie, 297, 300 Delclaux, Ana Luisa, 83 DeMallie, Raymond 1, 93 Demokracija, see newspapers and magazines De Neef, Roger, 178n. Denmark, 65, 73 4, 75, 88, 95 Denver, 1 10 De Palma, Maria Camilla, 16, 230 57 Department of Canadian Heritage, 308, 3 1 8 Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana, 2 1 7 Depetris, Michela, 209 Derain, 175

372 Demovsek-VinCi, Tornaz, 222n. Deutsche Kulturrat (DKR, German Culture COlll1ci1), 124 5, 133 Deutscher MusemnsblUld (DMB, German Museum Association), 124 5, 133 Dewhurst, Kurt, 293 dia1ogue, 9 10, 12, 13, 73, 135 6, 153, 157, 168, 169 70, 182, 1 88, 205 7, 2 1 1 , 213, 220, 23 1, 242, 245, 246 disabilities, 1 06, 1 19, 208, 2 1 8, 255 6 discrimination, 6, 1 1 , 25, 1 1 1, 1 1 3 14, 1 1 5, 1 1 6 Dissanayake, Ellen, 177, 177n. diversity, 2, 7 9, 12, 16, 17, 1 8, 23, 26, 74, 77, 106 19, 1 24, 1 53, 1 7 1 89, 207, 209, 212, 220, 273, 275, 283, 284 Dobova, 224n. Douglas, Mary, 97 8, 104, 284 drug abuse, 1 5 Dnrry, James, 3 1 3 Dudley, Sandra, 99 103, 1 04, 233 Dutch East Indies, 144 economic crisis, 22, 65, 80, 123, 145, 247 Edinburgh, 166, 168 Edinburgh Castle, 167 "edutainment", 69, 70, 73, 79, 85 egalitarianism, 1 1 , 57 Egypt, 220, 220n., 238 Einarsen, Hans Philip, 17, 274 89 Ekdahl, Bonne, 252 elitism, 67, 68, 70, 75, 144, 1 60, 286 Ellis Island, 37 HI Sevillano (train), 29 emigration, 28 9, 30, 2 1 9n. Emperor Kangxi, 167 Emperor Qianlong, 167 English Heritage, 285 Enlai, Zhou, 162 Enlightenment, 70, 75, 236

Index Eritrea, 124, 220 Esterhuizen, Jurika, 3 1 8 ethnic cleansing, SOn. ethnic minorities, 106, 1 1 9, 2 1 9 ethnographic museums, 6 1 85, 120 37 "Euro-centrisrn", 1 7 1 , 173, 173n., 177, 183, 1 8 8 Europalia Indonesia Festival, 1 8 8n. Europe, 2 1 , 22, 23, 25, 28 9, 35, 61, 64, 74, 9 1 , 120, 1 24, 133, 1 6 1 , 165, 1 8 1n., 2 1 8, 220, 236, 238, 240, 285, 292, 3 1 2, 3 1 7 European Single Market, 40 Europe Meets the World (exhibition at the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen), 35, 36 European Union, 2 1 , 22, 22n., 62, 205n., 2 1 8n., 223 EuroVision Museums Exhibiting Europe Project (EMEE), 136 evolutionism, 65, 66, 177, 236, 237 exclusivism, 7, 12, 20, 24, 37,40 41, 77, 149, 1 5 1 , 153, 1 58, 208, 212, 214, 222, 252 Exhibition ofArchaeological Finds ofthe People 's Republic of Chino, 1 6 1 , 163 "Exit Congo Musemn: A Century of Art with or without Paper" (exhibition), 1 80n. exoticism, 72, 186, 229 Facebook, 43, 46, 52, 54, 57, 60, 224, 242, 245, 263 Fair Spectrmn, 200 Fasan, M., 1 16 Feld, Steven, 277, 282, 289 feminism, 10, 190 201 Fenestrelle Castle (piedmont), 50 Ferracuti, Sandra, 53n. Fessl, Karlheinz, 224 Fin1and, 201 First World War, 123 Fish, Stanley, 168 F1arnand, Julia, 300 301

Museums and Comrlllmities

373

flaneries, 209 Fondazione De Agostini, 255 Fontanelle cemetery (Naples), 44, 45, 56 Foster, R J., 140 Foucault, 70 France, 1 , 63, 109, 164 Frankfurt am Main, 1 2 1 , 128 Fraser, 8 Friedman, Jonathan, 66 Friends of the Museum of World Cultures, 128 "frontier" zones, 1 , 12, 15 Fukushima, 268

Great Lakes Folk Festival, 298 Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC), 17, 291, 292, 293, 295, 296, 302 6 Greece, 225 Greece (ancient), 35 Greenhill, Eilean Hooper, 23 1 Greenland, 89 Gron1and, 17, 274 5, 276 7, 280 9 group identity, 40 see also communities Grutters, Monika, 124 Gurney, Sir Henry, 147

Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 10 Gade, Rune, 1 0 1 , 1 04 Gadoua, Marie-Pierre, 1 0 Gaeta, 50, 55 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 44, 46 Gauguin, 175 gender equality, 15, 190 201 Genoa, 230, 23 1, 234 5, 237, 238, 240, 250, 253, 254 Genoa Municipality, 238 genocide, 13, 43, 46, 50, 51, 57, 3 14 Germany, 14, 35, 54, 82, 120 37, 162, 220, 309, 3 1 4 Ghent, 33, 1 7 1 89 Ghent University, 1 7 1 89 Gi1berd School (Essex), 167, 168 Gioia del Colle, 49 global financial crisis (2007), 247 globalisation, 22, 24, 61, 65, 66, 69, 7 1 , 77, 80, 92, 157, 163, 1 88, 2 1 8, 283, 284 Godelier, Mamice, 67 8 Golding, Viv, 1 1 8, 7, 10, 107, 236, 250 Gothenburg, 64, 69 Great East Japan Earthquake, 261, 271 Great Empires: Chinese Art ofthe Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B. C-A.D. 220) (exhibition), 168

Hack, Karl, 146 7 Haida commlUlity, 239, 249 Hainard, Jacques, 207 Hamburg, 64, 69, 76 HAPAG (Hamburg-America Line), 30 Han dynasty, 166, 169 Hanoi, 14, 64, 7 1 , 75n., 1 1 1 12, 1 13, 1 14, 1 1 8, 180, 194, 195, 196, 198 9, 200 Hanoi Open University, 195 Hanoi Experimental Secondary School, 197 Hanoi International Women's Club, 201 Harada, Motoko, 260 73 Harris, Clare, 71 2 Harvey, David, 66 Haviland, Adam, 290 Hayez, Fernando, 230 Helsinki, 64 Henderson, Loren, 8, 1 1 Hennepin, Louis, 92 Heritage Day, 185, 186 7 Herring, Cedric, 8, 1 1 Hill, Torn, 241 Hinduism, 93 Hinemihi, 232 Hinz, Hans-Martin, 83 Hirschauer, Stefan, 136 7

374 historical \VTongs, acknowledgement of, 2, 1 8 HIV/AIDS, 15, 1 13, 1 1 9, 1 9 1 , 198 Hoan, L e Thj Thul', 15, 190 201 Hobbesian dystopia, 25 Ho Chi Minh City, 1 1 1 12, 1 13, 114 Holden Art, 205n. Holocaust, the, 58 hornelessness, 2 1 3 Honneth, 8 Honolulu, 64 Hood, Christopher, 80 Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean, 70, 159 horror vacui, 237 House of Bombon Two Sicilies, 13, 42 4, 46 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 Hoving, Thomas, 160 Howard, Heather, 17, 290 307, 297 Howes, D., 288 hlUllan remains management, 17 1 8, 44, 51, 53, 53n., 56, 90, 92, 308 21 human rights, 2, 15, 78, 1 10, 190 201 , 2 1 8, 223 , 3 1 2 Human Rights Day, 223 Hungary, 220 Hung, Le Tuan, 288 Hung Yen, 201 Hunt, Richard, 249 Hunt, Tony, 249 Huyssen, Andreas, 24 Iannantuoni, Domenico, 52 [COM Botswana, 17, 309, 3 1 9 [COM Ethics Code, 53, 91 2, 3 1 0 11 [COM !ta1ia, 53, 54 [COM Narnibia, 309, 3 1 9 [COM South Africa, 309, 3 1 9 "identity places", 27 8 identity politics, 60 Idorneni refugee centre, 224, 225, 226

Index !las, Gregor, 221, 224, 224n., 226, 228 II fronte del Sud (The Southern Front), 47 8 II Mattina, see newspapers and magazines I meridionali contra il museD lombrosiano di Torino (Facebook group), 43 immigration, 29 imperialism, 25, 68, 107, 142, 146, 152, 162 Incluseurn (b1og), 8 inclusion, 2, 7 8, 9, 12, 16, 62, 64, 67, 73, 74, 77, 78, 1 07, 143, 153, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 212, 214, 2 1 8, 222, 268, 273 individualism, 74, 75 Indonesia, 144, 1 8 8n. Indonesian Embassy, 1 8 8n. Industrial Revolution, 123 Insorgenza Civile (Neapolitan political movement), 43 Instagrarn, 230, 23 1, 242, 245 Integrated Territorial Project, 54 Inter-City Intangible Cultural Cooperation Network (ICCN), 194 International Association of Women's Musemns (IAWM), 194 International Conference of Cultural Policy Research (Jyvaskyla, Finland), 64 International Council of Museums ([COM), 1 , 9 1 , 194, 197, 309, 3 1 9, 321 International Council of Museums and Collections of Ethnography ([CME), 1, 2, 10, 12, 17, 64, 70, 7 1 , 7� 30� 3 1 � 3 2 1 International Organisation for Migration, 22n. International Migrant Day, 223 International Museum Day (IMD), 197

Museums and Comrlllmities International Women's Day, 1 2 1 2 Internet and Women - Opportunity and Change (exhibition), 200 201 Inuits, 1 0 Iran, 122, 128, 220, 276, 288 Iraq, 1 24, 128, 220 Islam, 34, 150 Islamic art, 74 Islamic Law, 144 Islamophobia, 223 Italian Unification, 230 Italy, 13, 164, 205, 238 Jamin, Jean, 61 Japan, 139, 145, 146, 147 8, 152, 260 73 Japanese art, 108 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), 261 Jervilouma, Helmi, 289 Jewish refugees, 2 1 9 Jiangsu Province, China, 159, 166 Jian, Zhang, 157 Jordanova, 233 Jutland, 89, 94 Juvan, Manca, 222 Kabotie, Michael, 249 Kalahari, 3 17, 320 Kapferer, Bruce, 66, 81 Kaplan, Flora, 140 Karitas, 220 Karp, Ivan, 140, 214 Kerkhoff-Hader, Barbel, 1 83 Keshick, Jacob, 299 Keshick, Yvonne Walker, 299, 300, 305 Khatibi, Sajd, 223 Khoekhoe comrlllmity, 308, 309 Khoesan comrlllmity, 308, 309, 3 1 2, 313 Kilburn High Road, London, 39 Kimewon, Elizabeth, 300 301 Kimewon, Leonard, 300 King Francis II, 48, 50

375

King Tut: Treasures of Tutankhamun (exhibition), 160 King Umberto, 53n. Kingston (Jamaica), 25 Kinsley, Rose, 8, 9, 1 1 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, 129, 233 Klein, Naomi, 220 Kocevje, 227 Koprivec, Dasa, 220 Korea Times, see newspapers and magazines Kos, Anica Mikus, 226 Kratz, 214 Krrnpotich, Cara, 239 Kuala Lumpur, 142, 144, 149 Kwang-shik, Choe, 82 Kyoto, Japan, 321 La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, see newspapers and magazines La Gazzetta del Sud, see newspapers and magazines Lakota, 14, 88, 92 8, 97n., 101 Lame Deer, 88 9, 91n., 92, 94 8, 95n., 97n. Lamezia Tenne, 46 Lamezia Tenne Court, 53 Lansing, 294, 297, 299, 300, 303, 306 Lansing East Folklife Festival, 294 Lansing North American Indian Center, 300 Lanz, Francesca, 13, 20 41 Lattanzi, Vito, 53n. Lavine, Steven D., 140 Lennox, George, 3 1 8 Leonardi, Daniela, 209 L 'eredita della priora, 49 Le Sueur, Pierre-Charles, 92 Leuzinger-Bohleber, Marianne, 132, 134 Leveque, Emesto, 2 1 0 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 254 Levitt, Ruth, 78 Lew, Bon Hoi, 13 8n.

376

Index

LGBTQIA+ community, 14, 106-

Malay Peninsula, 144

Libya, 238

Li chiamarono briganfi (film),

Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), 146, 147, 148

19 49,

58

L 'I/lustrazione Italiana, see newspapers and magazines

Malaysia, 14, 138-54 Malay States, the, 143 Mallamaci, Duccio, 43 Manna, Angelo, 46-7

LiIlller, Paige, 319

Maori, 232

"Little Ambassador" progranune,

Maribor, 228

197 Little Traverse Bay Bands ofOdawa, 296, 297, 298, 299

Marine, Janko, 227 marriage traditions, 35 Marro, Giovanni, 205

Liverpool, 25

Martin, Mungo, 249

Ljubljana, 226, 227

Mason, Jim, 11

Lock, Tan Cheng, 149

Massey, Doreen, 13, 20-21, 24, 25,

Logatec Library, 226

26, 39, 40

Lombardy, 52

Matsuo, Mika, 17, 260-73

Lornbroso, Cesare, 42n., 43, 49, 53,

McCavitt, Keely, 318

53n., 56, 57, 58-9

McClellan, 176n.

Lombroso and Fenestrelle

McCrone, D., 140

(Facebook group), 43 Lornbroso, Gina, 58

McMaster, Gerald, 239, 240, 249 MDPP's Standing Conunittee, 1

London, 25, 168, 169

Meiji era, 108

London Before London gallery

MeLa Critical Archive (web

(Museum of London), 33 London Cultural Olympic programme, 167 Long Bien, 198 Lorde, Audre, 10 Loredan, Federica, 250 Los Angeles, 110 Low, Setha, 23

p1atform), 22-3n. MeL a project:

European Museums in an age o/migrations, 21n., 22n.

Mellander, Camilla (Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam), 111

Mencin, Ralf Cep1ak, 16, 2 16-29, 221, 224, 224n., 226

Loy, Yap Ah, 149, 151

Menohimi, 256

Luna, James, 249

Menorah Journal, see newspapers

Luturnbue, Tome Muteba, 181n.

and magazines Merkel, Angela, 121

Macdonald, Sharon, 63, 80, 84

Meyer, Frank, 286

MacDowell, Marsha, 17, 2 90-307

Meyer, Lisa, 248

Macedonia, 225

Michigan, 293, 294, 296, 300, 306

MacGregor, Neil, 109

Michigan COlllCil l for Arts and

Macron, President E. (France), 312

Cultural Affairs (MCACA), 294

Malacca Sultanate, 143

Michigan History Center, 303

Malayan Chinese Association

Michigan Traditional Arts Program

(MCA), 150 Malayan Indian Congress (MIC), 150

(MTAP), 294 Middle East, 22, 74

Museums and Comrlllmities migrants and refugees, 14, 16, 2 1 , 22, 29, 40, 120 37, 145, 1 87n., 198, 2 1 6 29, 243, 250, 253, 274 5, 282, 284 migration, 1 3 , 21 2, 26, 28, 29 3 1 , 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 120 37, 206, 2 1 6 29, 274 89 Milan, 52 Milan 2016: "Museums and Cultural Landscapes: Curating Peoples, Places and Entanglements in an age of Migrations" (conference), 12, 64 Milicia, Maria Teresa, 13, 42 60 Ming dynasty, 165, 1 66, 168 Ming: The Golden Empire (exhibition), 165, 168 Mio, c., 1 16 Modamani, Anas, 1 2 1 Modest, Wayne, 107, 247 Mol, Anne Marie, 99 1 00, 101, 104 Mona Lisa, 108 Mondrian and Colour (exhibition), 169 Mondrian and His Studio (exhibition), 169 Montaldo, Silvano, 59 mOlllunentalism, 68 Moore, Porchia, 8 Morrison, Toni, 10 Morocco, 205 Morphy, Howard, 234 Mosothwane, Morongwa N., 17, 308 21 Moss, Stephen, 160 Motta Santa Lucia (Calabria), 44, 45, 46, 51 2, 54 5, 60 Motta Santa Lucia council, 53 Mount Terawera, 256 Movimento Sociale Italiano-Destra Nazionale, 46 MovingMountains, 14, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143 4, 145, 146, 147 8, 149, 1 50, 1 5 1 , 152 Mukurtu, 295

377

Multicultural Germany, a Country ofImmigration (exhibition, Bonn), 124 multiculturalism, 2 1 , 22, 25, 3 1 , 61, 65, 66, 67, 69, 7 1 , 72, 73, 74, 76 7, 8 1 , 135, 138, 143, 152, 157, 207, 229, 275, 282, 283, 289 Munich, 228 museums

Albany Musemn (Grahamstown), 3 12 Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), 160, 168 9 Bai-mi Clog Musemn (Taiwan), 109 Ballinstadt Emigration Museum (Hamburg), 30 Beamish Museum (England), 30, 31 Birmingham Musemn and Art Gallery, 1 1 3 Bode-Museum (Berlin), 128 Botswana National Musemn, 3 1 6, 3 1 7 British Musemn (London), 109, 163, 176n., 23 1, 239 Castello D'Albertis Musemn of World Cultures (Genoa), 230, 234 57 Chamberlain Musemn of Three Oaks (Michigan), 304 Colchester Castle Museum (Essex), 167, 168 Criminology Museum (Rome), 53n. Denver Community Musemn, 110 Duisburg City Musemn, 33 Ellis Island Musemn, 29 Ethnographic Collections ofthe University of Ghent (Belgium), 15, 1 7 1 89 Field Museum (Chicago), 297

378

Index Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum (Berlin), 33, 34, 36, 38 German History Museum (Berlin), 128 Ghent City Museum, 33 Glasgow Riverside Museum, 3 1 Guggenheim museum, 81 Homirnan Museum (London), 10, 247 House of History (Bonn, Germany), 124 Immigration Musemn (Melbourne), 29 Iziko Museums (South Africa), 17, 309, 3 1 2 14, 3 16, 3 1 8, 319 Kwa-Zulu Natal MuselUll, 3 1 2 Lornbroso Museum, see Musemn of Criminal Anthropology Los Angeles Children's MuselUll, 1 10 Louisiana Museum of Modem Art, 162 Louvre (paris), 1, 108, 109, 1 76n. Ludwig Musemn Koblenz, 128 Malaysian National MuselUll, 14 McCord Museum (Montreal), 10 McGregor Musemn (Kimberley), 312 Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), 160, 162, 163, 164, 168, 1 76n. Michigan State University Museum, 290 307 Milan Triennale, 245 Mole Antonelliana (Turin), 59 Musee des Arts Premiers (Paris), 68, 81 Musee d'Ethnographie de NeucMtel, 207, 244 Musee Quai Branly (paris), 63, 67, 7 1 , 79

Museo del Risorgimento (Genoa), 230 Museo Salesiano di Colle Don Bosco, Alessandria, 253 Museum of Ancient Near East (Berlin), 128 Museum ofAnthropology and Ethnography (University of Turin), 9, 16, 204 15 Museum of Criminal Anthropology/Lombroso 11useurn, 13, 42 60, 205 Museum ofthe History of Immigration in Catalonia (Barcelona), 29 Museum for Islamic Art (Berlin), 127, 128 9 Museum of Five Continents (Musemn FfulfKontinente), 128, 228 Musemn of London, 3 1 , 33, 36, 1 1 3, 2 1 9 Museum Luigi Rolando, 205 Museu da Pessoa (Museum of the Person) (Sao Paulo), 246 Musemn of Too Modern Art, 222 Museum fill Volkerklmde (Hamburg), 76, 79 Museum of World Culture (Gothenburg), 64, 7 1 , 77, 79 Nanjing Museum, 159, 164, 165, 166, 1 67, 168, 170 National Folk Museum of Korea, 81 National History Musemn (Malaysia), 141 National Maritime Musemn (Amsterdam), 38, 39 National Musemn of African American History and Culture (Washington DC), 2 7 National Musemn of the American Indian (New York), 240

Museums and Comrlllmities National Musemn of the American Indian (Washington), 239 National Musemn of Australia, 233 National Musemn, Bloemfontein, 3 1 2 National Musemn o f China, 159 National Musemn ofDenmark (Copenhagen), 14,35, 36, 64, 76, 78, 88, 9 1n., 92,94 7 National Musemn of Fine Art (Stockholm), 162 National Musemn of Korea, 8 1 National Musemn of Malaysia, 138, 140 41, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 1 5 1 , 152, 153 National Musemn ofNamibia, 309 National Musemn of Nature and Science (Tokyo), 17, 261 2 National Museum of Scotland, 168 Palace Museum (Beijing), 159 Petit Palais (Paris), 161 Pier 21 Museum (Halifax, Canada), 29 Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford), 10, 7 1 , 239, 249 Rautenstrauch-Ioest Museum (Cologne, Germany), 73n., 79, 80n. Red Star Line Musemn (Antwerp), 29 Royal Musemn for Central Africa (Tervuren), 1 80n. Royal Ontario Musemn (Ontario, Canada), 70, 166 Shanghai Musemn, 159 Slovene Ethnographic Museum, 16, 2 1 6 29 Smithsonian (Washington, D.C), 75 Swakopmund Museum, 3 1 5

379

Tenement Museum (New York), 29 Trzic Museum, 226 Victoria and Albert Musemn (V&A, London), 169, 230, 23 1, 233 Vietnamese Women's Museum, 15, 190 201 Yamate Museum of Art (Japan), 108 York Castle Musemn, 3 1 , 32 Museums Association, UK (MA), 7 Musemns Association of Namibia, 17, 309, 3 1 9 Namaqua1and, 314, 320 Namibia, 17, 309, 3 14 15, 3 1 8, 320 Nanjing, 166 Naples, 42, 46, 48 1992 election, 47 National Musemn and Monmnents of Botswana, 17, 309 National Park Service Museum Handbook, 108 National Trust (UK), 232, 285 Native Americans, 90 9 1 , 164, 185n., 241, 294, 304 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), 90, 9 1 , 91n. Nazis, 49, 51, 57 "Neapolitan Renaissance", 47 Neo-Bourbon Cultural Association (Naples), 46 Neo-Bourbon movement, 42 4,46 52, 55, 59 neoliberalism, 65, 66, 80,220 Neo-Southern (Neo-meridionalista) activism, 43 Netherlands, the, 75 Neukolln neighbomhood (Berlin), 34, 35 "new museology", 63, 67, 107, 158, 245

380 New Public Management (NPM), 80, 81 newspapers and magazines Ajtenposten, 287 Calabria on Web, 44n. Demokracija, 220 II Mattina, 46 Korea Times, 8 1 La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, 42 La Gazzetta del Sud, 52 L 'Illustrazione Italiana, 58 Menorah Journal, 2 1 9 New York Times, 81 New York, 169 New York Times, see newspapers and magazines Nguyen Du Secondary School, 196 Nick Waplington /Alexander McQueen: Work in Process (exhibition), 169 Nielsen, Carsten Viggo, 13 14, 88 Nieuwe Kerk (Amsterdam), 165 Nihonga, see Japanese art No Lornbroso movement, 44, 44n., 46, 52, 55, 60 Committee, 52 3, 60 Facebook groups, 43, 46, 57, 60 Technical-Scientific Committee website, 55 7 "non-Western" ethnic art, 15 North America, 29, 61, 64, 74, 88, 1 6 1 , 241, 275, 292, 296, 299 Northem League party (originally the Lombard League), 47n., 52 Norton, Eleanor Holmes, 6 Norway, 162, 220, 274 89 nostalgia, 37, 46 Nouruz (festival), 1 2 1 Novo Mesto, 224 Nowotni, Stefan, 180, 1 80n. Nussbaurn, 1Jartha, 182 Obama, Barack, 121 objects, 6, 9, 1 3 14, 34 5, 71, 88 105, 1 7 1 89, 207, 232, 233, 239

Index

objets de memo ire, 1 83 Oceania, 161, 236 Ogawa, Yohikazu, 17, 260 73, 262 O'Hanlon, 1Jichael, 7 1 2 Okuyama, Hideto, 269 01brechts, Frans, 174 5, 183 Omar, Rooksana, 17, 308 21 Onciul, Bryony, 247 Ontario (Canada), 306 Ontario College of Art and Design, 239 oral histories, 200 Oslo, Norway, 17, 64, 274 89 "Other", the!"otherness", 1 , 7, 8, 1 1, 2 1 , 67, 7 1 , 75, 76, 90, 120 37, 214, 219, 229, 236, 237, 284, 286, 3 1 2 Owada, Tsutomu, 267 Oxford, 64 Oxford English Dictionary, 106, 108, 109 OZbolt, Alen, 222 Paine, Crispin, 90 Pakistan, 220, 276, 282 Pangkor Treaty, 143 Paris, 64, 109 Party for the South (Per i1 Sud), 52 Passannante, Giovanni, 53n. Passport of Communication and Action for Literacy (PCALi), 1 7 Paul, Tim, 249 Pavia, 59 Pavia prison, 58 Pazzaglia, Riccardo, 46 Pearce, Susan, 233 Pecci, Anna 1Jaria, 9, 16, 204 1 5 Peers, Laura, 10, 1 17, 239 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 277, 278, 279, 281, 287 Peressut, Basso, 2 1 Peringuey, Louis, 3 13, 3 1 8 Pesce, Ulderico, 53n. Peter the Great of Russia, 167 Pham, Chi Thien, 14, 106 1 9

Museums and Comrlllmities

Pharaohs and Kings: Treasures of Ancient Egypt and China's Han Dynasty (exhibition), 166 Phillips, Ruth B., 256, 292 Picasso, 175 Piedmont, 50, 51 Piedmontese invasion, 44, 49, 5 1 , 54, 56 Pierzynowski, Judy, 17, 290 307, 297, 298, 303 4, 305 Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan), 230 Ping-pong Diplomacy, 162 Pitaro, Romano, 44n. place, sense of, 20 41 belonging, 2, 7, 12, 13, 16, 20 2 1 , 24, 27, 28, 28, 35, 37, 38, 40, 47, 50, 57, 139, 158, 281, 283, 290 1, 306 fixity of place, 40 Plostajnar, Klemen, 226 Poitras, Edward, 249 Poitras, Jane Ash, 249 Pomian, Krystof, 66 7 Pontelandolfo, 50 Popp, Susanne, 136 Portugal, 143 post-colonialism, 1 0, 61, 65, 68, 7 1 , 90, 143, 152, 153, 252, 308 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 132 Pozzi, Clelia, 21 Pratt, Mary Louise, 10 Price, Sally, 63, 7 1 , 176 Pricina, Marius, 209 Pride andPrejudice-Lesbian and Gay London (exhibition, Museum of London), 1 1 3 Prieska, 3 1 3 Prince Charles, 48 Princess Urraca, 49 privilege, 8, 1 1, 38, 141, 1 5 1 , 153, 244 Qani, Nadia, 1 2 1 Qing dynasty, 167 Quattropani, Maya, 2 1 0

381

Queering the Museum (exhibition, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery), 1 1 3 Ratio, Mojca, 16, 2 1 6 29, 221, 224n., 228 racism, 2, 3 6, 1 1 , 24, 25, 42, 43, 46, 47, 53, 57, 65, 67, 68, 7 1 , 72, 75, 1 1 0, 223 Rahman, Tunku Abdul, 141, 149 Rainbow City (exhibition, UK), 1 13 reburial, 1 8 Red Cross, the, 220 "refugee crisis", 16, 22, 40, 120, 2 1 8, 220, 222 refugees, see migrants and refugees Reid, Bill, 249 Rein, Anette, 14, 77, 120 37 Rekda1, Per B., 90, 1 25n. relativism, 65 religious rituals, 88 105 repatriation, 13, 17, 1 8, 44,45, 46, 53n., 54, 56, 89 90, 91 2, 308 21 Repatriation Act, 89 Republic of Yugoslavia, 227 Rete d'informazione del Regno delle Due Sicilie, 49 Rettenbach, Regina, 132 Ribnica Artisan Centre, 228 RIME (EU-funded project), 62, 64, 71 Risorgimento, 42, 44, 49 Riverfront Park, Denver, 1 10 River Thames, 33 Rodman, Margaret c., 28, 38, 40 Roma communities, 2 1 8, 222 Roman Empire, 1 80n. Romania, 205, 276 Romano, Captain Alessandro, 49 Romano Chon festival, 2 1 8 Romano, Pasquale, 49 Romanticism, 230 Rosencrans, Michael, 297 Rosetta Stone, 23 1 Rozenbergar, Tanja, 221, 224n.

382 Rus, Jure, 224, 226 Rwanda, 3 14 Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, 48 Saint-Martory Castle (France), 253 Sakai, Tornoji, 271 Sandell, Richard, 11 0, 2 1 8 San Francisco, 169 Sardinia, 238, 250 Sassen, Saskia, 133 Savoia di Lucania, 53n. Schiele, Egon, 169 Schneider, Arnd, 2 1 1 Schurnann, Jutta, 136 Scilipoti, Onorevole, 52 Scotland, 140, 162 Second World War, 9 1 , 123, 128, 145, 149 Selangof, 142 self-harm, 1 1 5 selfies (with artworks), 16, 224, 230 3 1 , 238, 241, 242, 256 Seligson, Joelle, 76, 82 Selvaggi, Baron Roberto Maria, 48, 49 semiotics, 277, 278 8 1 , 284, 287 Senegal, 205 Sentilj refugee centre, 221, 223 Seoul, 64, 70, 75 Service Group of Nanyang Overseas Chinese Volunteer Drivers and Mechanics (NanqiaoJigong), 145n. sexism, 2 Scharfstein, Ben-Ami, 1 75n., 1 81, 183, 183n. Seychelles, 3 1 8 Shagonaby, Susan, 300 Shonaka-Harada, Motoko, 17, 267, 271 Silvester, Jeremy, 17, 308 21 Singapore, 64, 145, 146 Single Mother's Voices (exhibition), 200

Index Sioux, the, 92 see also Lakota slavery, 2, 38 Slatensek, Bostjan, 226 Slovene Society for Information about Islam, 223 Slovenia, 16, 216 29 Slovenska filantropija, 220, 221, 228 Solomon, Esther, 247 sook ching, 146 Smith, Laura, 17, 290 307, 297 Smith, Saumarez, 233 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, 294 social justice, 2, 8 social media, 241, 242, 246 see also Facebook and Instagram and Twitter Socrates, 1 82 Soc Son district, 200 Somalia, 220 Smensen, Jmgen Podemann, 95, 104 South Dakota, 92, 93 Southern Africa, 1 7 18, 308 2 1 Spain, 29, 3 1 7 "species-centrism", 177 Spicek, Miha, 224n. Spodnji Hotic (near Litija), 222n. Squitieri, Pasquale, 49 Sri Lanka, 276 STAM (Ghent City Museum), 33 Standing Bear, 93, 96 Stapp, Carol, 268 State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China (SACH), 160, 161, 162, 163 stereotypes, 2, 16, 35, 1 1 2, 1 13, 134, 200, 209, 2 1 6, 2 1 8, 220, 229, 249, 250, 253 Stockholm, 80 Stonehenge, 285 Strandgaard, Ole, 8 1 Street Vendors (exhibition), 196, 198 9, 200 Suez Canal, 238

Museums and Comrlllmities Sugimoto, Kanako, 267 Supreme Comt of Cassation (Italy), 45n. Suriname, 25 Svensson, Thommy, 77 8, 80 Sweden, 1 1 1 , 220 Swedish Institute, 1 1 1 Switzerland, 162 Syria, 121, 124, 127, 128, 220, 226 Tabor Cultural Quarter, 227 Tamirni, Widad, 228 Tampin Train ambush, 1 7 Tan Minh commlUle, 200 Tate Britain, 169 Tate Liverpool, 169 teclmo1ogy, 12, 17, 49, 58, 63, 78, 1 1 5, 158, 200 201, 230, 234, 237,238, 242, 246, 248, 254, 256, 260 73, 286, 290 307 Tereshkova, Valentina, 276 Terracotta Warriors and Horses of China's Qin Dynasty (exhibition), 162 Terroni: Tutto quello che e stato fatto perche gli Italiani del Sud diventassero Meridionali (pino Aprile), 44, 5 1 , 58 terrorism, 1 2 1 , 147 Thailand, 145 Thebele, Winani, 17, 308 2 1 The Stories ofGetting Old (exhibition), 199 Thinking through Migration (online too1kit), 23n. Thomas, Nicholas, 62, 85, 175, 177, 180, 1 80n., 254 Tlingit, 239 Todd, Zoe, 291 Tolles, Thayer, 165 Tomb Treasures: New Discoveries from China 's Han Dynasty (exhibition), 159, 169 "Tongue to Tongue" (exhibition), 205 7, 2 1 3 Tonkiss, Fran, 274

383

Toronto, 75 Traditional and modernjewelry of women from ethnic groups in Vietnam (exhibition), 195 trafficking of women, 15, 195, 198 trauma, 1 1, 12, 13, 14, 57 8, 1 1 5, 120, 130 32, 133, 134, 135, 136, 252 see also post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) travelling exhibitions, 156 70, 195, 309, 3 1 9 Treasures ofAncient Chinese Art (exhibition), 162 Treasuresfrom the Bronze Age of China: An Exhib ition from the People 's Republic of China, 162, 163 Treasures ofChina (exhibition), 167, 168 Trieste, 220n. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, 66 Trump (President), 1, 157 Tshitenge, Griot, 185 6 Tsholofelo Park (Gaborone, Botswana), 3 1 7 Tulln, 169 Turin, 43, 44, 46 Turin City Council, 205n. Turino, Thomas, 279, 280 Turkey, 35, 276, 280 Turner Contemporary, 169 Tutu, Desmond, 6 Twitter, 224, 2 3 1 , 242 Two Sicilies Cultural Association (AD SIC), 52 Two Sicilies Memorial Day, 55 UN Declaration on Human Rights, 111 UNESCO, 1 1 1, 197, 3 1 7 UNESCO Vietnam, 197 "(Un) Important things" (exhibition), 177

384 United Chinese School Teachers' Association of Malaya (Jiao Zong), 150 United Kingdom, 1 1 3, 1 1 8, 139, 144, 164, 167 United Malays National Organization (UMNO), 149, 151 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 310 United States of America, 29, 76, 8 1 , 89, 90, 95, 160, 164, 169, 236, 317 University of Botswana, 1 8, 309, 316 University of Cape To"Wll, 3 1 2 University of Hanoi, 195, 196 University of Leicester's School of Musemn Studies, 10, 226 University ofNarnibia, 3 1 9 University of Pretoria, 3 1 2 University of Tmin, 54, 208n. University ofthe Witwatersrand, 312 "Up" (humanitarian charity), 228 Utimut, 89 Vagantes (music group), 223 Vail, Katherine C., 306 Val d'Aosta, 235 van Beek, Gosewijn, 7 1 , 72 Van Breedam, Camiel, 177, 178n. van der Zee, Pauline, 15, 1 7 1 89 van Gennep, Arnold, 95, 1 00, 129 Van Oost, Olga, 1 84n. Venus de MilIo, 108 Vermillion Accord on HlUllan Remains, 3 10, 3 1 7 Veselinovic, Jasa, 226 Victorian musemns, 3 1 Victorian Walk, Museum of London, 31 Vietnarn, 14, 106, 1 1 0 1 1 , 1 13 1 8, 190 201 "Vietnamese Women Award", 1 9 1

Index Vietnam Institute of Educational Science, 197 Vietnam 2015: "Museums and Communities: Diversity, Dialogue, Collaboration" (conference), 12 Vietnam University ofFine Arts, 111 Vietnam Women's Union (VWU), 190, 195 Viet Pride (in Hanoi), 1 1 3 Viking hordes, 34 Villella, Giuseppe, 13, 44, 44n., 46, 5 1 , 52, 54, 58 9, 60 his skull, 13, 44 5, 51 2, 53, 53n., 54, 56, 58 9, 60 Vincent, 1, 1 12 virtual museums, 158, 242, 248, 291 Vladivostok, 238 Voice ofVietnam, 197 Vo1tri, 238 Wakan Tanka, 88 9, 92 4, 96, 98 Walklate, Jen, 1 1 8 "Wall of Memory" (Two Sicilies Memorial Day), 55 Washington DC, 2, 64 Wasson, Renee Dillard, 298, 300 Wastiau, Boris, 1 81n. Watowe-the Sacred Bundle (documentary), 94 7 Watson, Sheila, 2, 107 Watts, Vanessa, 290, 290n. Wei1, Stephen, 156 West, Cornel, 6 White Buffalo Woman, 92 6 Whitehead, Christopher, 13, 20 41 White, Rosey, 167 white supremacy, 308 Wikwemekong Unceded Territory, 300 Willkommenskultur ("welcome culture"), 14, 1 2 1 , 1 24, 125, 1 3 3 Willocq, Patrick, 253 Windhoek, 3 1 9 Winged Victory ofSamothrace, 108

Museums and Comrlllmities

Women-Changing Destiny (exhibition), 195 Women in Family (exhibition), 196 VVong, Pearl ]{ee, 303 VVoolworth LlUlch COlUlter, Greensboro, North Carolina, 3 6 VVorcman, Karen, 246 "World Art", 15, 1 7 1 , 173, 176 Worshipping Mother Goddesses: Heart, Beauty, Joy (exhibition), 1 9 1 , 193 VVorthington, Kimberly, 299 WOlll1ded Knee, 178, 178n. Wright, Susan, 66 Wu, Heng, 15, 156 70 "VVunderkammer style", 15, 172, 248

385

VVyoming, 93 xenophobia, 13, 16, 24, 220, 226, 228 ]{aacob, Ibrahim, 149 ]{ew, Loke, 1 5 1 ]{ilan County, Taiwan, 109 ]{ouTube, 57 ]{uzhu, Liu, 160 Zavod Apis, 222, 223, 224 Zavod 01oop, 2 1 7 "zest for living (Ikiru-chikara)", 260 Ziibiwing Center for Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways, 252 Zitara, Nicola, 50 Zurich, 169