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Accepted Paper:

Developing an inclusive museum praxis: stakeholder communities and the National Museum of Ethnology  
Mariana Françozo (University of Leiden) Fanny Wonu Veys (Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen) Laura Van Broekhoven (University of Oxford)

Paper short abstract:

This presentation focuses on the National Museum of Ethnology's experience with working with indigenous peoples. It will explore recent collaborations with communities from Oceania, Greenland, and South America, and look into how the results of these experiences can be translated in exhibitions.

Paper long abstract:

The National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, The Netherlands, holds an impressive collection of 240.000 objects and a much larger (audiovisual) archive pertaining to cultures from around the world. Founded 175 years ago within the context of Dutch colonialism, recently the museum has been rethinking its practices of collecting and exhibiting objects. Much like anthropology itself, the very ways of doing research inside the NME have been subject to regular critique and adjustment. Recently, since 2007 the museum has started to reflect on how it might shape different tools, revise and renew research practices, categorization processes and as a result become more inclusive as a museum. The key to such reflections and changes has been the practice of working with stakeholder communities (including diaspora, institutional and indigenous peoples). In the paper we reflect on our experiences with indigenous community curators in particular. While in museums cultural heritage becomes 'museo-facted' and objects at times are taken to represent historical truths, indigenous peoples tend to look upon their heritage from different angles. Drawing on NME's recent experiences with indigenous communities from New Zealand (Maori), Greenland (Inuit), Suriname (Lokono, Kali'na, Wayana, Trio), and Brazil (Makurap, Aruá, Tuparí, Jaboti, Kanoé from the Guaporé and Rio Branco Area), this presentation will discuss working with source communities and the results it can deliver in terms of generating new knowledge about existing collections and building new collections. Additionally, it will look into how the results of these cross-cultural experiences can be translated to the public in the form of exhibitions.

Panel P02
Exhibiting anthropology
  Session 1