Description
Book Synopsis Indigenous museums and cultural centres have sprung up across the developing world, and particularly in the Southwest Pacific. They derive from a number of motives, ranging from the commercial to the cultural political (and many combine both). A close study of this phenomenon is not only valuable for museological practice but, as has been argued, it may challenge our current bedrock assumptions about the very nature and purpose of the museum. This book looks to the future of museum practice through examining how museums have evolved particularly in the non-western world to incorporate the present and the future in the display of culture. Of particular concern is the uses to which historic records are put in the service of community development and cultural renaissance.
Trade Review “…the most thorough examination to date of museums in the south-west Pacific…The book should serve as a valuable resource for museum studies students, academics, historians, museum professionals and development agencies interested in museums and the cultural heritage of Indigenous people in the south-west Pacific.” · Recollections
Table of Contents List of Figures
Editorial Preface
by Hirini Mead
Introduction: Indigeneity and Museum Practice in the Southwest Pacific
Nick Stanley
PART I: ISLAND MELANESIA
Chapter 1. Resourcing Change: Fieldworkers, the Women’s Culture Project and the Vanuatu Cultural Centre
Lissant Bolton
Chapter 2. The Future of Indigenous Museums: The Solomon Islands Case
Lawrence Foana‘ota
Chapter 3. Dangerous Heritage: Southern New Ireland, the Museum and the Display of the Past
Sean Kingston
Chapter 4. Memory, Violence and Representation in the Tjibaou Cultural Centre, New Caledonia
Diane Losche
Chapter 5. Tourism and Indigenous Curation of Culture in Lifou, New Caledonia
Tate LeFevre
PART II: NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
Chapter 6. The Journey of the Stars: Gab Titui, a Cultural Centre for the Torres Strait
Anita Herle, Jude Philp and Leilani Bin Juda
Chapter 7. ‘Quite Another World of Aboriginal Life’: Indigenous People in an Evolving Museumscape
Eric Venbrux
PART III: NEW GUINEA
Chapter 8. The Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery as a Modern Haus Tumbuna
Sebastian Haraha
Chapter 9. Moving the Centre: Christianity, the Longhouse and the Gogodala Cultural Centre
Alison Dundon
Chapter 10. Indigenous Responses to Political and Economic Challenges: the Babek Bema Yoma at Teptep, Papua New Guinea
Christin Kocher Schmid
Chapter 11. Can Museums become Indigenous? The Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress and Contemporary Papua Nick Stanley
PART IV: REFLECTIONS ON THE FUTURE OF INDIGENOUS MUSEUMS
Chapter 12. The Transformation of Cultural Centres in Papua New Guinea
Robert L. Welsch
Chapter 13. The Theoretical Future of Indigenous Museums: Concept and Practice
Christina Kreps
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index
