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- Convenors:
-
Renato Athias
(NEPE at Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil))
Nuno Porto (University of British Columbia)
- Stream:
- Worlds in motion: Cultural Heritage, Artefacts and Tourism/Mondes en mouvement: Héritage culturel, artefacts et tourisme
- Location:
- SCS C211
- Start time:
- 5 May, 2017 at
Time zone: America/New_York
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel addresses modalities of relations between property rights (artefacts, but also land and resources) and perspectives on objects as mediators of knowledge, including ethical dimensions of policies and histories of recognition, and their potential to transform Amerindian museum practices.
Long Abstract:
Based on recent museum experiences, this panel will discuss issues related to Amerindian collections, ethnographic or otherwise, and analyze patrimonial strategies that have successfully related these objects to issues associated to broader indigenous rights claims. It also seeks to discuss recent experiences on shared curatorial and exhibition practices, fostering a debate on the premises under which current museum developments have been blurring the divide between ethnographic and art museums, or subsuming the ethnographic into the "world culture" tag.
Ambitioning to create a dialogue between museum practitioners from North and South, this panel intends to address modalities of relations between property rights (artefacts, but also land and resources) and perspectives on objects as mediators of knowledge, scrutinizing the ethical dimensions intrinsic to policies and histories of recognition, and their often disregarded pragmatic potential to transform museum's practices and structures, including the quest for new self-definition and experiment with un-orthodox formal organizations. In this processes, we intend to question what are the boundaries between museology, cultural intervention and resistance, and straightforward political struggle.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Renato Athias (NEPE at Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil))
Paper short abstract:
This presentation is related to the documentation of Hupdah objects from the Northwest Amazon that are displayed in the Museu do Indio in Manaus showing the museographic narratives of this Museum.
Paper long abstract:
This presentation is related to the documentation of Hupdah objects from the Northwest Amazon that are displayed in the Museu do Indio in Manaus showing the museographic narratives of this Museum. The Hupdah share with the Tukano Groups the same territory in the Upper Rio Negro region in the Brazilian side of the border with Colombia. These objects were collected by the Salesian Missionaries in the 1930s, from the different places of the Rio Uaupés. Now they are part of a permanent exhibition, however the museographic narrative does not take into account the specificities of Hupdah objects and they are ignored as an important people in the region. The objective of this paper is to discuss and analyse Hupdah and Tukano objects that are in this museum with an aim to understand the universe of Hupdah and their cosmology, mainly when these objects are dealing and related to a shamanic use.
Julie Graff (Université du Québec à Montréal)
Paper short abstract:
the Avataq Cultural Institute, dedicated to the cultural needs of the Inuit of Nunavik, has been experimenting with different museum models. An ongoing project is the rehabilitation of a former Catholic mission, with the ambition to make it a cultural center.
Paper long abstract:
Since the 1970s an aboriginal museology has been emerging and developping in Canada. Indigenous museum-like institutions have been created for the purposes of heritage restitution and reappropriation, and community development. They often play an important role in the preservation of languages and cultural practices.They are used to confront the colonial past and strengthen the cultural resilience of the communities they represent. These museological developments have also been undertaken by Inuit institutions. For example, the Avataq Cultural Institute, established in 1980, is dedicated to the cultural needs of the Inuit of Nunavik (Northern Quebec), and has developed a wide expertise in research and dissemination. The Institute has been experimenting for several years with different museum models. Lately, Avataq's policy has been directed toward the renovation of historic and/or abandoned buildings, while taking into account the need for community consultation, collaboration, and commitment, and the necessity to respond to local needs. An ongoing project is the rehabilitation of the former Catholic mission of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate by the municipality of Kangiqsujuaq, with the ambition to restore this part of the history of the community and make it a cultural center . The building will thus be made suitable for the patrimonial and cultural needs of the inhabitants of the community. This presentation aims at presenting the development of Inuit museology in Nunavik and the stakes of the project of the former Catholic mission of Kangiqsujuaq.
Nuno Porto (University of British Columbia)
Paper short abstract:
Amazonia - the Rights of Nature began as a project to reclassify the Amazonian collections at the UBC Museum of Anthropology and became an exhibition. In this presentation I intend to share the process of this transformation
Paper long abstract:
Amazonia - the Rights of Nature began as a project to reclassify the Amazonian collections at the UBC Museum of Anthropology and became an exhibition. In this presentation I intend to share the process of this transformation.
The choice of relating museum objects to the present living conditions of its producers has implied the reference to ideas of the Buen Vivir, Rights of Nature and, at a political level, of Pluri-national States. These ideas are critically relevant to the present days of no-land-treaties province of BC, as well as they enable a South - North dialogue, focusing on cultural absences and emergences to redesign the notion of global indigenous politics.
Along the presentation I will argue that, in this project, ethnography became a project of civic knowledge.
Andrea Roca (UBC)
Paper short abstract:
In this presentation I explore how notions such as decolonization and indigenization of museums have been practiced in Canada and the United States.
Paper long abstract:
In this presentation, I first address and problematize the notions of decolonization and indigenization of museums. For this purpose, I analyze the traveling exhibition "Inquiry", that has been mounted from 2009 to the present in more than 30 localities in Canada and the United States.
On a second moment, I propose a comparative exercise with other exhibitions and museums in North America, in which curatorial and collecting collaboration, and indigenous self-representation have become central concerns in the past few years. The objective is to identify the relationships between the incorporation of cultural protocols and ethical commitments in the definition and establishment of conditions of production of knowledge, and their promotion by Canadian museological policies.
Stacey Jessiman (Stanford University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will explore the various forces driving the increasingly powerful Indigenous cultural heritage repatriation movement in Canada and then describe the movement’s inevitable outcome.
Paper long abstract:
The paper will first examine key international and domestic legal and ethical frameworks and political forces governing Indigenous cultural heritage repatriation in Canada - from the Task Force Report on Museums and First Peoples, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to provincial repatriation legislation, land claims settlement agreements, museum ethics guidelines and the government-funded Royal BC Museum repatriation project. It will then explore the value and importance to Indigenous peoples, museums and Canadian society of repatriating Indigenous material taken without free, prior and informed consent -- including restoring their position as intergenerational mediators of traditional knowledge and histories within holistic cultures, helping heal the harms of the Indian Residential School system, and transforming museum relationships with Indigenous peoples. Ultimately the paper argues that repatriation of Indigenous cultural heritage is a key part of the reconciliation process in Canada and as such, requires implementation of a legal framework similar to the US Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.