Following conflicting desires for an Aztec crown, this book explores the possibilities of repatriation. In The Contested Crown, Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll meditates on the case of a spectacular ...feather headdress believed to have belonged to Montezuma, the last emperor of the Aztecs. This crown has long been the center of political and cultural power struggles, and it is one of the most contested museum claims between Europe and the Americas. Taken to Europe during the conquest of Mexico, it was placed at Ambras Castle, the Habsburg residence of the author’s ancestors, and is now in Vienna’s Welt Museum. Mexico has long requested to have it back, but the Welt Museum uses science to insist it is too fragile to travel. Both the biography of a cultural object and a history of collecting and colonizing, this book offers an artist’s perspective on the creative potentials of repatriation. Carroll compares Holocaust and colonial ethical claims, and she considers relationships between indigenous people, international law and the museums that amass global treasures, the significance of copies, and how conservation science shapes collections. Illustrated with diagrams and rare archival material, this book brings together global history, European history, and material culture around this fascinating object and the debates about repatriation.
In recent decades we have seen the field of museum studies expand. This development has been supported by the contribution of several actors, in various ways. Publications are essential in this ...process, since they ensure visibility and access to the field of study, while helping to articulate different understandings, proposals and perspectives – both in theory and in practice – thus strengthening its development. This article considers the role of publications in building museology as a field of study in Portugal, especially from the 1990’s onwards. This empirical and exploratory study aims to analyse the evolution of publications in terms of contexts, initiatives and actors. While not intending to be exhaustive, we signal some dynamics, relations and trends from recent decades. The methodology adopted includes literature review and is based also on my empirical knowledge on the subject matter. The analysis presented can be significant in contemplating some of the key issues related to the trajectory of museum studies as a field of study over the last three decades.
Das Thema der gesellschaftlichen Einbindung, der gesellschaftlichen Rolle und Relevanz von Museen ist von hoher Aktualität für die museumstheoretische und -praktische Diskussion. Julia Büchel ...diskutiert die Entstehung, Begründung und Prinzipien der Forderungen nach gesellschaftlicher Einbindung und nimmt eine systematische Analyse an drei Fallstudien vor, womit ihr ein Beitrag zur Annäherung von Theorie und Praxis im Ausstellungswesen gelingt. Die Untersuchung ermöglicht eine Systematisierung von Ausstellungsanalysen und -betrachtungen und besitzt darüber hinaus das Potenzial, die Forderung nach der gesellschaftlichen Öffnung und Relevanz der Institutionen zu unterstützen. Sie diskutiert Vorschläge für mögliche neue Formate und skizziert das Potenzial der Digitalisierung.
The Chinese state uses cultural heritage as a source of power by linking it to political and economic goals, but heritage discourse has at the same time encouraged new actors to appropriate the ...discourse to protect their own traditions. This book focuses on that contested nature of heritage, especially through the lens of individuals, local communities, religious groups, and heritage experts. It examines the effect of the internet on heritage-isation, as well as how that process affects different groups of people.
This open access book explores the deep connections between environment, language, and cultural integrity, with a focus on Indigenous peoples from early modern times to the present. It illustrates ...the close integration of nature and culture through historical processes of environmental change in North, Central, and South America and the nurturing of local knowledge through ancestral languages and oral traditions. This volume fills a unique space by bringing together the issues of environment, language and cultural integrity in Latin American historical and cultural spheres. It explores the reciprocal and necessary relations between language/culture and environment; how they can lead to sustainable practices; how environmental knowledge and sustainable practices toward the environment are reflected in local languages, local sources and local socio-cultural practices. The book combines interdisciplinary methods and initiates a dialogue among scientifically trained scholars and local communities to compare their perspectives on well-being in remote and recent historical periods and it will be of interest to students and scholars in fields including sociolinguistics, (ethno)history, linguistic anthropology, cultural studies and cultural anthropology, environmental studies and Indigenous/minority studies.
Famines and the Making of Heritage is the first book to bring together groundbreaking research on the role of European famines in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in relation to heritage ...making, museology, commemoration, education, and monument creation. Featuring contributions from famine experts across Europe and North America, the volume adopts a pioneering transnational perspective, and discusses issues such as contestable and repressed heritage, materiality, dark tourism, education on famines, oral history, multidirectional memory, and visceral empathy. Questioning why educational curricula and practices in schools and on heritage sites are region- or nation-oriented or transnational, chapters also consider whether they emphasise conflict or mutual understanding. Contributions also consider how present issues of European concern – such as globalisation, commodification, human rights, poverty, and migration – intersect with the heritage and memory of modern European famines. Lastly, the book considers what role emigrant and diasporic communities within and outside Europe play in the development of famine heritage and educational practices – and whether famine heritage is accessible to them. Famines and the Making of Heritage provides a crucial resource for museum and heritage scholars, students and professionals working on or with difficult or dark heritages, as well as those interested in the study of famines and legacies of troubled pasts.
The museum of the East India Company formed, for a large part of the nineteenth century, one of the sights of London. In recent years, little has been remembered of it beyond its mere existence, ...while an assumed negative role has been widely attributed to it on the basis of its position at the heart of one of Britain’s arch-colonialist enterprises. Extensively illustrated, The India Museum Revisited provides a full examination of the museum’s founding manifesto and evolving ambitions. It surveys the contents of its multi-faceted collections – with respect to materials, their manufacture and original functions on the Indian sub-continent – as well as the collectors who gathered them and the manner in which they were mobilized to various ends within the museum. From this integrated treatment of documentary and material sources, a more accurate, rounded and nuanced picture emerges of an institution that contributed in major ways, over a period of 80 years, to the representation of India for a European audience, not only in Britain but through the museum’s involvement in the international exposition movement to audiences on the continent and beyond.
Die Analyse und Vermittlung von literarischen Texten des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts birgt Potenziale im Hinblick auf den Umgang mit Diversität, Zugehörigkeit und Ausgrenzung. Die Beiträger*innen fragen ...danach, wie kulturelle Vielfalt in der musealen sowie der literaturwissenschaftlichen Praxis zu kritischen Reflexionen und zu neuen Perspektiven auf kanonisierte Gegenstände führt. Im Zentrum steht dabei das Interesse an den Optionen der Darstellung von Diversität im Literaturmuseum und in der Literaturwissenschaft. Der Band führt theoretische und praktische Zugriffe zusammen und arbeitet somit auch an einer methodisch-theoretischen Vielfalt.
This book provides a broad overview of the key concepts in public archaeology, a research field that examines the relationship between archaeology and the public, in both theoretical and practical ...terms. While based on the long-standing programme of undergraduate and graduate teaching in public archaeology at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology, the book also takes into account the growth of scholarship from around the world and seeks to clarify what exactly ‘public archaeology’ is by promoting an inclusive, socially and politically engaged vision of the discipline. Written for students and practitioners, the individual chapters provide textbook-level introductions to the themes, theories and controversies that connect archaeology to wider society, from the trade in illicit antiquities to the use of digital media in public engagement, and point readers to the most relevant case studies and learning resources to aid their further study.
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