As ethnographic museums seek to reposition their roles and mission in the twenty-first century, their work is informed by the emergence of new museological practices that advocate wider and increased forms of engagement with the communities they serve.34 The
museum agenda and its ethical positions are increasingly oriented towards what Janet Marstine describes as social inclusion, radical transparency and shared guardianship of heritage.35 The contemporary museum is increasingly faced with the challenge of engaging
with its own local geographic community or communities (as the case may be), such as its audiences and constituents, their issues, concerns and diversity, and this in turn shapes and affects its public programming and delivery.
To be of value, museums need to find significance within these communities – without those connections the museum and its collections will be of little importance. It is people who bring the value and consequence to objects and collections; as a result, if a museum cannot forge associations with people it will have no meaning.36
At times it is unclear whether these engagements are most concerned with the revival of community or with the survival of the museums. ‘The two agendas are subtly interwoven – with museums presented as a means to forge community and the involvement of community as an opportunity to improve the relevance and sustainability of museums.’37 The museum
sector does not always engage with communities due to altruistic agendas. Museums
34 Gail Anderson (ed.), Reinventing the Museum (Lanham: Altamira Press, 2004); Stephen E Weil, Making Museums Matter (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 2002); Kylie Message, New Museums and the Making of Culture (Oxford: Berg, 2006); Heidi S Hein, The Museum in Transition: A Philosophical Perspective
(Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute, 2014); Viv Golding and Wayne Modest (eds), Museums and
Communities: Curators, Collectors and Collaboration (London: Bloomsbury Press, 2013); Ruth B Phillips,
“Introduction: Community Collaboration in Exhibitions – Toward a Dialogic Paradigm,” in Museums and
Source Communities: A Routledge Reader, edited by Laura Peers and Alison K Brown (London: Routledge, 2003),
155–170.
35 Janet Marstine, “The Contingent Nature of New Museum Ethics,” in A Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics: Redefining Ethics for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Janet Marstine (London and New York: Routledge,
2011), 24.
36 Elizabeth Crooke, Museums and Communities: Ideas, Issues and Challenges (London: Routledge, 2007), 131. 37 Crooke, Museums and Communities, 79.
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increasingly need community involvement to justify their existence to funding bodies, to make sense of their collections and to assist in the process of reassessing their future roles.38
Ethnographic museums have also responded to their changing mission by increased community engagement and collaboration with source communities. What constitutes community is an elusive and vague concept. For the purpose of this thesis I borrow Watson’s definition:
[T]he essential defining factor of a community is the sense of belonging that comes to those who are part of it … through association with communities, individuals conceptualise identity. Such identities are relational and depend on a sense not only of self but also of others … Some communities are by our choice, some are ours because of the way others see us.39
Source communities, which are the communities from which the artefacts originated, are becoming key stakeholders within contemporary museological practice. The term ‘source community’, also referred to as ‘community of origin’ or ‘originating community’, is widely accepted as encompassing the community from which the artefacts were acquired, and the descendants of that community.40 The emergence of community-oriented new museological
practices, such as appropriate and indigenous museological practices that give prominence to source communities, informs this research and case study.
The nature of engagement with the original source community members differs from the nature of engagement with their descendants, due to the passage of time and attendant change experienced by the community. Yet ‘the importance of memory in relation to images and objects is now widely recognized in the museum’.41 Who is doing the ‘memory work’
and what is being remembered are issues central to this thesis, as is the question: What are the implications for source communities when they engage with digital images of an
38 Bernadette T Lynch, “Custom-made Reflective Practice: Can Museums Realise Their Capabilities in
Helping Others Realise Theirs?” Museum Management and Curatorship, vol. 26, no. 5 (2011): 449, 454, 456.
39 Sheila Watson, Museums and their Communities (London: Taylor and Francis, 2007), 3–4 40 Peers and Brown, Museums and Source Communities, 2.
41 Diane Hafner, Bruce Rigsby and Lindy Allen, “Museums and Memory as Agents of Social Change,” The International Journal of the Humanities, vol. 5, no. 6 (2007): 91.
13 ethnographic museum collection comprised of three-dimensional artefacts and historical photographs that are situated on the edge of living memory? The issues of how and for whom memory is activated in cases where the cultural material pre-dates lived experience or is located on the edge of living memory are discussed throughout this case study. Similarly, the notion of the Baguia Sub-district is in part a ‘community’ constructed by me as an outsider; yet within this geographic area a number of types of communities co-exist and overlap. Cultural and linguistic affiliation is one dominant provider of local identity, as well as one’s region, such as Baguia Sub-district.
Engagement between museums and source communities has resulted in ‘partnership’ and ‘collaboration’ being terms often used in museums ‘to describe many different arrangements and usually from the perspective of the museum itself’.42 Through such relationships the
opportunity for increased collaboration and improved access to collections can exist between museums and source communities. Access may enable input from source communities regarding culturally appropriate storage and display options, such as the periodic making of offerings to the objects, or the use of objects in keeping with customary practices.43
Alternatively, access by community members to objects may be used to derive inspiration for continued cultural production. In some instances, restrictions on access have been instituted, in order to uphold customary practices that restrict the circulation of knowledge and objects based on gender, clan affiliation, level of initiation and/or age. Such practices are designed to ensure the wellbeing of people and the maintenance of cultural cohesion. In the museum context such access protocols, developed through a process of negotiation, exemplify how engagement between stakeholders and museums can lead to shared custodial responsibilities that ensure the best care of the objects for all concerned.44
42 Michael M Ames, “How to Decorate a House,” in Museums and Source Communities: A Routledge Reader,
edited by Laura Peers and Alison K Brown (London: Routledge, 2003), 171–172.
43 Moira G Simpson, Making Representations: Museums in the Post-Colonial Era (London and New York:
Routledge Press, 2001), 197, 200.
44 Lindy Allen and Louise Hamby, “Pathways to Knowledge: Research, Agency and Power Relations in the
Context of Collaborations between Museums and Source Communities,” in Unpacking the Collection: Networks of
Material and Social Agency in the Museum, edited by Sarah Byrne, Anne Clarke, Rodney Harrison and Robin
Torrence (New York: Springer Science+Business Media, 2011), 214–217; Elaine Heumann Gurian, “What is the Object of this Exercise? A Meandering Exploration of the Many Meanings of Objects in Museums,” in Re-
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Another access model is the ‘temporary release’ of objects from museum collections to source communities for use in cultural events and ceremonies. 45 Rather than an official
outward loan, whereby the stringent museum conditions of handling, storage and care are upheld, the emphasis is on the temporary suspension of these care requirements so that the community can access and engage with the object on their own terms. Such ‘temporary release loans’, by necessity, are negotiated on a case-by-case basis. The temporary release and re-entry of objects back into the source communities can have various benefits: it can replenish the ‘ceremonial power’ attributed to the object, strengthen cultural maintenance within the community and enhance the provenance and social life of the object, thus extending its significance within and beyond the museum.46 This is one of several models of
access to collections that fosters collaboration between museums and source communities and mutually enhances relationships, suggestive of emergent processes, which can also be termed ‘appropriate museology’.47
Appropriate museology values and acknowledges the diverse ways people perceive, value, experience and make sense of their cultural heritage and recognises diverse epistemologies. It is
an approach to museum development and training that adapts museum practices and strategies for cultural heritage preservation to local cultural contexts and socioeconomic conditions. It is a bottom-up, community based approach that combines local knowledge and resources with those of professional museum work to better meet the needs and interests of a particular museum and its community.48
Increasingly the significance of ethnographic and heritage collections to source communities is being interrogated. How and to what purpose can existing ethnographic collections be activated by source communities? Such questions underpin the increased emphasis and
45 Margo Neale, “If It's Mine Can I Take It Back Please?” A presentation at the AIATSIS Seminar
Series 2, 2013, Mabo Room, AIATSIS, Canberra, 2 September 2013.
46 Simpson, Making Representations, 213.
47 Christina F Kreps, “Appropriate Museology in Theory and Practice,” Museum Management and Curatorship,
vol. 23, no. 1 (2008): 23–41.
15 recognition of indigenous curation practices and appropriate museology and have implications for indigenous and source communities, as well as for how museums operate.49
Kreps argues for the need to be aware of and respect differences as a matter of practice.50
By comparison with the object-based, visually oriented presentation of objects in Western contexts, indigenous curation argues for a bottom-up, people-oriented approach. ‘At issue are questions of power and authority concerning who has the right to speak for and represent whom.’51
By de-centralising the object-centred epistemology of museums and engaging with source communities as they remember and reconstitute intangible heritage, which is intimately connected to ethnographic objects and artefacts, multiple forms of knowledge can emerge, with further implications for how such knowledge is understood, transmitted and interpreted. Such models of appropriate museology and indigenous curation
contribute to the overturning of political injustices and improprieties and bring new meanings to the objects in museum collections. The fundamental change that these models bring, however, is a shift in focus away from objects themselves … This is a very important change, and it needs to be recognized and
acknowledged [italics added]. The discipline of looking, which involves wonder
at the object itself, is becoming in this context a thing of the past.52
Multiple perspectives prevail rather than any single authoritative account. As the value attributed to intangible knowledge increases in the museum sector, this challenges the encasement of the object within a fixed state; a status that effectively traps the object in a stasis detrimental to ongoing expressions and transmission of attendant intangible
49 Christina F Kreps, Liberating Culture: Cross-cultural Perspectives on Museums, Curation and Heritage Preservation
(London: Routledge, 2003); Christina F Kreps, ‘From Colonial to Appropriate Museology.’ A presentation at ‘Museum of Our Own’ conference, Gadjah Mada University, 18–20 November 2014.
50 Christina F Kreps, “Appropriate museology and the ‘new museum ethics’; honouring diversity,” Nordisk Museologi, vol. 2 (2015): 5.
51 Kreps, Liberating Culture, 2.
52 Lissant Bolton, “The Object in View,” in Museums and Source Communities: A Routledge Reader, edited by Laura
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elements.53Rather, more fluid and flexible interpretations are acknowledged as the object
mediates relationships and knowledge through what are, more often than not, cross-cultural engagements. Ultimately, objects become enlivened through source community engagement, thus the benefits of such engagements flow between all stakeholders and to the collections themselves.
The interactions between source communities and museums are mutually important in continuing relationships around the storage, curation and management of collections of cultural materials.54
As museums reinvent their relationships with communities and move beyond their traditional roles of acquisition, preservation and display of collections, ‘intangible heritage is gradually adopted as a new field of action’.55 The emphasis on intangible heritage56 and
people-oriented engagements has lasting implications for how the museum perceives its preservation role in regards to living culture as well as material culture.57 A focus on the
process of transmission of culture inter-generationally will potentially lead to changes in cultural expression.58 Recognition that objects are largely inert without being accompanied
by forms of intangible heritage supports calls for museums to participate with people-based, bottom-up engagements that interpret and recognise the value of the collections they hold. This is not intended to denigrate the significance of objects and their care, but rather to loosen their ‘encasement’ and place them into more culturally appropriate and fluid contexts.
53 Elizabeth Burns Coleman, “Repatriation and the Concept of Inalienable Possession”, in The Long Way Home: The Meanings and Values of Repatriation, edited by Paul Turnbull and Michael Pickering (New York and
Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010), 83–85.
54 Hafner et al., “Museums and Memory as Agents of Social Change,” 87.
55 Marilena Alivizatou, Intangible Heritage and the Museum: New Perspectives on Cultural Preservation (London: Left
Coast Press Inc., 2012), 18.
56 UNESCO cited in Alivizatou, Intangible Heritage and the Museum, 33. The UNESCO Convention for the
Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2003, Article 2.1 states that: Intangible heritage is the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and in cases individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. UNESCO, “UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2003,” Article 2.1, Definitions. <http://UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2003, Article 2.1, Definitions>. Accessed 26 June 2017.
57 Alivizatou, Intangible Heritage and the Museum, 18, 35–36. 58 Alivizatou, Intangible Heritage and the Museum, 35.
17 Whilst it is recognised that in some cultures objects themselves are thought to contain their own inherent powers and agency, it is now widely suggested that objects become
like props in a brilliant play, [they] are necessary but alone are not sufficient … When parsed carefully, the objects, in their tangibility, provide a variety of stakeholders with an opportunity to debate the meaning and control of their memories. It is the ownership of the story, rather than the object itself, that the dispute has been all about.59
Such people-oriented engagements have implications that extend to the role of the curator, which increasingly is shifting away from being an arbiter of taste and a singular authoritative voice of knowledge towards becoming a facilitator, mediator and co-producer of knowledge.60 The curator’s contemporary role is as a conduit for community engagement
between the source community and museum collection, facilitating access and collaboration and knowledge production or transmission. Often such work occurs as cross-cultural enterprises and requires well-considered methodological approaches. Thus, the curator increasingly plays a pivotal role that influences and shapes how source communities engage with museum collections. As Bouquet notes,
Museum people can be vitriolic about recent academic interest in museums, and about what seems to them the naivety bordering on ignorance with which the theoreticians pronounce on their new-found territory. Some academics still appear to regard museums with a disdain comparable to philosophers of science and historians of ideas, who avoid the messiness of the laboratory.61
59 Heumann Gurian, “What is the Object of this Exercise?” 271.
60 Declan McGonagle, “The Museum Reconsidered as ‘Common Land’,” Future of Museums: New Thinking about Museums of the Future, 2 May 2008. <https://futuremuseums.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/the-museum-
reconsidered-as-common-land-paper-by-declan-mcgonagle/>. Accessed 9 May 2014; Edmundson, Anna. “Curating in the Postdigital Age.” MediaCulture Journal, vol. 18, no. 4 (2015). <http://journal.media-
culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1016>. Accessed 5 July 2017. The term ‘content-producer’ is also used in museums to denote curatorial work, but I reject this term as it is museum-centred, relating only to the development of exhibitions, displays, public-programs, publications and websites in a museum context.
61 Mary Bouquet, “Thinking and Doing Otherwise: Anthropological Theory,” in Exhibition Practice in Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts, edited by Bettina Messias Carbonell (Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2004),
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Implicit in this case study is an exploration of the intersection between museological practice and academic theory. For professional curators such as myself, the challenge of working in museums is how to apply improved and ethically informed approaches to our work, particularly in relation to collaboration with source communities. Such approaches also need to be sustainable within the institutions within which we work. Thus, my thesiscontributes to the development of museological theory and practice, particularly comparative museology as ‘the systematic study and comparison of museological forms and behaviour in diverse cultural settings’.62
These shifting aspects of ethnographic museums and engagement with source communities occur at a time when a confluence of other forces is shaping the museum sector, including the use of digital technologies. Twenty-first century museum environments are increasingly being shaped by the digital age, and the provision of access to collections via digital platforms has implications as a method for the reciprocation, return, restitution and repatriation of collections. 63 Technologies are a game-changer for museums in the future as
[v]irtuality, both in its narrower technological and its broader cultural meaning, will prove itself as a fundamental category of museum practice … their physical structure is a shell that museums partially need to leave behind. Their relevance will be defined through a much broader local/global network and their success in claiming venues outside their onsite structure.64
While digitisation of collections can provide advantages and opportunities for increased participation in cultural production and creative engagement via new media, the digitisation and circulation of museum collection images in the ‘global museumscape’ and via Web 2.0
62 Kreps, Liberating Culture, 4.
63 Robin Boast and Jim Enote, “Virtual Repatriation: It’s Neither Virtual nor Repatriation,” in Heritage in the Context of Globalization: Europe and the Americas, edited by Peter F Biehl and Christopher Prescott (New York:
Springer, 2013), 103–113; Kimberley Christen, “Opening Archives: Respectful Repatriation,” The American
Archivist, vol. 74, (2011): 185–210; Ruth B Phillips, “Re-placing Objects: Historical Practices for the Second
Museum Age,” The Canadian Historical Review, vol. 86, no. 1 (March 2005): 83–110; Ramesh Srinivasan, Jim Enote, Katherine M Becvar and Robin Boast, “Critical and Reflective Uses of New Media Technologies in Tribal Museums,” Museum Management and Curatorship, vol. 24, no. 2 (2009): 161–181; Graeme Were, “Digital Heritage, Knowledge Networks, and Source Communities: Understanding Digital Objects in a Melanesian Society,” Museum Anthropology, vol. 37, no. 2 (2014): 133–143.
64 Klaus Müller, “Museums and the challenges of the 21st century,” Future of Museums: New Thinking about Museums of the Future, 25 September 2008. <http://futuremuseums.wordpress.com>. Accessed 16 July 2017.