Public archaeology and political dynamics in Portugal: A reply to Bednarik

Abstract

This article is concerned with five museums created by indigenous sámi people in northern Fenno- Scandinavia. In comparison to most Western nations' museums, Sámi-created institutions are a relatively recent phenomenon. Against the background of changing ideas about museums in the academic world, this article examines what kind of representation of the Sámi past has been created in their museums and, importantly, the reasons why these representations have been created in the ways that they have. What kind of knowledge does this create? How has the medium been adapted? How do these representations, in turn, change Sámi culture?

It is argued that Sámi museums have been influential in creating a sense of ‘Sámi-ness’ through their particular representations. Certain artefacts are presented as particularly active, and although their actions can cause conflicts, they are now being used to forge a deeper past for the Sámi people.     

Place,space and odyssey: Exploring the future of early medieval sculpture,Rosemarkie, Inverness-shire

Abstract

The world today is often described as ‘postmodern’ - or, recently, post-postmodern. The question is, can postmodern ideas help to explain the many inconsistencies and logical binds in which museums find themselves entangled at the start of the 21st century? The postmodern is set in contrast with the Modern project, with which museums are closely associated. Superstition and disorder were swept aside, in theory at least, by scientific evidence and orderly arrangement, promoting a stable social hierarchy. In the West, the rational, scientific mindset became the dominant way of explaining the world. Museums are deeply implicated in the Modern, as instruments for cataloguing and characterizing first the natural world and, later, the world of invention, design and technology. Can museums, as ‘modern’ institutions, survive in the postmodern age? The museum's salvation could, it is argued, lie in its collections. Museums could shrug off their insistence on exhibitions as their major function: their ‘modern’ face. Instead they could move towards being providers of a service to open up the collections themselves and the knowledge and information about them, rather than guarding them as a private treasure.     

Authentic Kyrgyzstan: top down politics meet bottom up heritage

Abstract

Over the past twelve years I have collaborated with Kyrgyz citizens to promote a national conversation about heritage, based on grass roots interest and sentiment. Countering polarising political rhetoric about Kyrgyz nomadism as the only authentic national heritage identity, many citizens enthusiastically present the artefacts of ancient cities alongside the balbals (stele) of ancient nomads in their community museums, eagerly participate in discussions about a complex Kyrgyz past, and have collaborated with Uzbek speakers to create a national heritage society. In this paper I will describe several community museums and other grass roots education programmes that I have been involved with in Kyrgyzstan and consider their potential for countering ethnic conflict.     

Museums and communities in Africa: facing the new challenges

Abstract

Established during the colonial era, the majority of museums in Africa were modeled on their European counterparts. The period of Africanization that followed the independence of many African nations witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of Africans receiving higher education and specialized training. Institutions such as museums began to come under the leadership of indigenous Africans but, in most cases, the exhibits and their condition(s) remained the same. Today, African museums face new challenges: how can they become more relevant, both to the local communities they serve and to foreign visitors? How can they attract more visitors, especially from local communities? This article discusses the notion of ‘indigenous’ in an African context. It looks at the development of museums in Africa and their current metamorphosis into dynamic cultural centres that address pertinent social, cultural and even economic issues-in the face of dwindling government funding and increased modernization and globalization. It discusses several museums and how they are meeting these challenges, and how organizations such as AFRICOM (International Council of African Museums) and programmes such as SAMP (African–Swedish Museum Network) are contributing to the positive changes currently taking place.     

Social relations on stage: Witnesses in classical Athens

The study of witness testimony raises questions which are fundamental for the student of other cultures, whether past or contemporary. What are the standards expected of a reliable informant and how is reliability to be recognised? How is reliable knowledge about the past established?

The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of witnesses in classical Athenian lawcourts both for its epistemological implications — what does it tell us about Athenian ideas of ‘expert witnesses’, of reliability, of truthfulness and bias — and for the information it gives us about Athenian society and court practice. What kind of men did Athenian litigants select to act as witnesses for them, and what effect did they hope their witnesses’ testimonies would have on the jury?

If we start out from the assumption of modern courts that witnesses are called to ‘establish the facts of the case’ we shall misunderstand the Athenian data. What witnesses actually testified often was not very important: their testimonies might be insignificant, irrelevant or repetitive. To understand their role it is necessary to see them as minor characters in a drama, whose presence provides the backdrop against which the litigant wishes his own actions and character to be seen. Respectable witnesses — officials, members of the ‘professions’, reputable politicians — establish his own respectability. The support of neighbours, associates and kin shows that those who know the milieu in which the dispute arose are on the litigant's side. Denigration Of the opponent's witnesses, kin and associates presents him as a vicious and unreliable character. In the construction of a character‐portrait in court witnesses had an important role to play.     

Colonial intellectuals at the end of Empire: Manning Clark's Australia and Guy Butler's South Africa

Abstract

Colonial masters considered it their right to take human remains collected from colonies or plundered as a result of war. The skulls of Chief Mkwawa and the sub-chief Songea were looted in the same manner from Tanganyika (now Tanzania) to Germany. While Chief Mkwawa’s skull was returned in 1954, the demands for sub-chief Songea’s skull are ongoing, with the Tanzanian community contesting ownership of human remains in European museums. The absence of bones in graves, particularly those of chiefs, have a major impact on the colonised people as graves are associated with communities’ spirituality and wellbeing. This article shows that without a final resting place for the victims of colonialism, mourning is difficult, traumatic and endless. Individuals, communities and nations bestow social, cultural and political significance on human remains, even those curated in museums. The significance of each group is attached to the affective memorialisation of personal bereavement. What happens, then, when the memorialised graves were created at a time when mourning was impossible and the authority to bury or not to bury was in hands of the colonisers? How do the colonial plunder of human body parts and the demands for their return unfold in the contemporary history of Tanzania? These are some of the questions     

‘Raw Individualists’: American Soldiers on the Bataan Death March Reconsidered

Abstract

The Bataan Death March has entered historical consciousness as one of the four great Japanese atrocities during WWII. Along with the Rape of Nanjing, the Burma-Siam Death Railway, and the Rape of Manila, it stands as one of the ultimate measures of twentieth-century wartime barbarity. Both primary and secondary sources share a central preoccupation with Japanese behaviour and therefore assume American prisoners were little more than a passive presence during this episode. In this essay I examine the Bataan Death March from a new vantage point, asking salient questions that lead to modi?ed understanding: who were these Americans, and what kind of soldiers, at war’s dawn for the US, did they make? What features of their cultural make-up help explain their behaviour? What were the fault lines in the allied, Filipino-American force that faced the Japanese Army? This article explores the numerous problems the American forces in the Philippines faced: the hybrid nature of the army, the tension between career soldiers and recent draftees and poor training and leadership. These problems, American soldiers’ cultural predisposition, and military inexperience all combined to render them signi?cantly more vulnerable to Japanese cruelty on the Death March than they otherwise would have been.     

Self and others

ABSTRACT

What is the relation between self-knowledge and knowledge of others? And how do we develop an understanding of others and ourselves? In this paper, I will argue that our sense of self is thoroughly social even though self-knowledge is not based on the same kind of evidence as knowledge of others. Moreover, I will suggest that we need to distinguish between different kinds of self- and other-understanding: some are based on procedural knowledge or knowing-how and involve an implicit representation of self or other, while others involve conceptual abilities. I will conclude with some considerations regarding the role of the second-person perspective in structuring the development of the concept of ourselves and others as persons.     

Engineering professors as entrepreneurs: the case of Franz Reuleaux (1829–1905) and Alois Riedler (1850–1936)

Abstract

Franz Reuleaux and Alois Riedler were probably the best known professors of mechanical engineering in late nineteenth century Germany. The country was becoming one of the world’s leading industrial countries, and Reuleaux and Riedler tried to contribute to this process. They obtained patents, founded their own companies, invested in both already existing and newly erected firms, and worked as consultants. In doing so, Reuleaux lost nearly all his capital while Riedler became a millionaire. In this paper, I use the story of these two academics as cases for examining the following questions on academic entrepreneurship: What kind of commercial activities did these professors perform? What were the conflicts between the professors and the state bureaucracy on the one hand and industry on the other hand? What were the reasons for their success and failure? The case studies on Reuleaux and Riedler are based on printed and archival sources.     

Early Domestic Dogs in North America and Their Origins

Abstract

Archaeologists have contributed much new information relating to types of domestic dogs that were present in pre-Columbian North America. Questions yet to be answered are: Where did the basal stock for these early Western Hemisphere dogs originate? What were they like morphologically? Some reported early canids, particularly those from late Pleistocene deposits, are subject to question as to their domestic role. These and related problems are discussed.     

The Role of Theatre in Society: A Comparative Analysis of the Socio-Cultural Theories of Brecht,Benjamin, and Adorno

Abstract

This article analyzes the socio-cultural theories of Adorno, Benjamin, and Brecht through the lens of the theatre, most especially as it pertains to the work of actors. It explores the forces of capitalism that determine how art is produced, distributed, and consumed. Following Adorno’s reading of Marx, actors are here posited as commodities whose labor is separated from the product they create for public consumption. This commodification raises various questions: How does a market economy shape the production and consumption of art? What is technology’s function in the commodification of art? What is art’s sociopolitical role and how does it apply to theatre? To address these questions I juxtapose the cultural theory of Adorno and Benjamin with Brecht’s epic theatre. This comparison exposes the ritualistic potential of the theatre to bring an audience together as a community through sharing a socially enriching event.     

A Thorn in the Side: Ian Hunter,Cultural Studies,and the Humanities

Summary

What are the connections between Ian Hunter's specific criticisms of cultural studies and his more general criticisms of those strands of the humanities that take issue with instrumental reasoning? How are these connections informed by his assessments of the limitations, and the consequences, of the ‘moment of theory’? What are the implications of his critique of anti-instrumental defences of the humanities for contemporary debates concerning the future trajectories of cultural studies? In exploring these questions I consider the continuities between Hunter's initial criticisms of cultural studies and the broader contours of his subsequent engagements with contemporary diagnoses of the fading critical vocation of the humanities. While endorsing the general tenor of Hunter's remarks on these questions, I conclude by arguing the need for genealogies of cultural studies and of the humanities that cast their nets more widely than Hunter's primary focus on textual disciplines.     

OBJECTS OF HISTORY: THE PAST MATERIALIZED1

What is the role of material culture in understanding the past? This review essay explores two principal approaches—the history of museums and antiquities and environmental history—to reflect on their shared investment in historical materialism. It reviews Timothy LeCain's The Matter of History and Peter Miller's History and Its Objects, discussing their perspectives on objects and the writing of history. One important part of this history concerns the relationship of academic historians to the idea of a history museum, curatorial practices, and public history. What kinds of history can we do in a museum, with things, that might not occur without the presence of objects? Why were nineteenth- and early twentieth-century efforts to encourage a close relationship between historical research and the history museum largely abandoned in favor of a document-driven approach? The second dimension of current interest in historical materialism concerns new approaches to environmental history. It draws inspiration from Deep History as well as recent work in archaeology and STS (Science and Technology Studies) to argue for a more integrated history of humans and nature that demonstrates how things have made us. The history of successive efforts to remake the environment in different parts of the world and their consequences offers crucial object lessons in how humans have responded to nature's own creativity. Both approaches to historical materialism highlight the virtues of a more interdisciplinary approach to historical scholarship, in the museum or in the field, but most important, in our own sensibilities about what it means to think historically with artifacts and to treat them as compelling evidence of a shared history of humanity and nature.     

Experience-sharing as feminist praxis: Imagining a future of collective care

ABSTRACT

What kinds of political possibilities can be created in the face of postsocialist precarity at the intersection of socialist inheritance and violence accelerated under militarist and neoliberal governance in Armenia? This is the question I grapple with in this paper by drawing on in-depth interviews with politically active feminists. Taking a cue from my interlocutors, I question the dominant definition of the terms ‘activism’ and ‘activist’ – labels that in the Armenian context become ascribed to select groups of people as a means of discrediting and dismissing their political efforts. I focus on the slow and creative experience-sharing work that oriented toward collective care cultivates political consciousness to imagine a more livable life.     

The Eighth Argument. Identity,Ethnicity and Political Culture in Sixteenth-Century Scandinavia

What was a Swede in the 16th century? How did people identify themselves and others, and what political role did collective identities play before the coming of modern nationalism? One would perhaps expect that there exist many works proposing answers to such questions. Within the humanities, there has been a steadily increasing interest in culture and identities in the last few decades. Nevertheless, few have asked such questions. When dealing with medieval and early modern Europe, historians have put the questions rather in this way: Was the Swede of the 16th century Swedish in the modern sense? Did nations and/or nationalism exist before the end of the 18th century? The discussion of medieval and early modern identities has been severely limited by "the nationalicistic trap". Identities before the late 18th century have been studied in order to look for the roots of modern national identity, to find out where nations originate, or to argue that nationalism is a purely modern phenomenon. I intend to fall into that trap myself later in this article, discussing why nationalism and national identity are less fitting concepts when dealing with the 16th century. But basically, I seek to uncover and conceptualize the identities of the time in their own right.     

Sustainable cities—who put the civil into civilisation?

Abstract

How do we define civilisation? Who created the conditions for the quality of life we now enjoy? Who have been the greatest civilisers? What are our key life support systems and who provides the skills which create them? What do we want from our urban environment and who can give it to us? Are our cities in the prime of life, or are they geriatric? Are they sustainable? These and other challenges are considered and addressed in this review of the infrastructure of modern society and of the choices we face as we embrace the twenty-first century, with the emphasis on the urban environment.     

The Istanbul Modern Art Museum: An Urban Regeneration Project?

Abstract

In the 2000s, contemporary art institutions have flourished in Istanbul. New museums (mostly private) and art galleries have been created; biennials and fairs of contemporary art have attracted a growing number of visitors. To what extent could this fostering of culture be linked with the “Bilbao effect”? To what extent are the promoters of these cultural investments betting on economic development and urban regeneration through these projects? Focusing on the Istanbul Modern Art Museum (IM), this article analyses the process of its creation and its potential impact on its environment. It argues that the development of culture investments in modern arts in Turkey is mainly due to the private initiatives of large industrial groups and the wealthiest families, most of the time with political support. More than the expected economic impact of cultural investments, the main reason for these public–private collaborations is the symbolic dimension that contemporary art provides to a country which strives to be perceived as modern, developed and European. From the IM to Istanbul European Capital of Culture 2010, cultural investments are a means of strengthening an international image in the context of the “membership” negotiations between “Turkey and the European Union”.     

论康有为对近代博物馆的认知和宣传

康有为是中国近代史上提倡向西方学习的文化先驱,是最早明确提出建立博物馆的有识之士,是积极倡导建立博物馆的领袖人物。康有为对近代博物馆的认知和宣传,以其1898年逃亡海外为界,分为两个时期。第一个时期,他通过大量阅读西书,知道了近代博物馆及其功能;第二个时期,他流亡海外,仍向国人介绍众多亲历的博物馆,并提出建立博物馆的理论和建议。     

Concrete and non-concrete: exploring the contemporary authenticity of historic replicas through an ethnographic study of the St John’s Cross replica,Iona

ABSTRACT

What do we actually know about how replicas of historical objects and monuments ‘work’ in heritage contexts, in particular their authenticity, cultural significance and intangible qualities? In this article we examine this question drawing on ethnographic research surrounding the 1970 concrete replica of the eighth-century St John’s Cross on Iona, Scotland. Challenging traditional precepts that seek authenticity in qualities intrinsic to original historic objects, we show how replicas can acquire authenticity and ‘pastness’, linked to materiality, craft practices, creativity, and place. We argue that their authenticity is founded on the networks of relationships between people, places and things that they come to embody, as well as their dynamic material qualities. The cultural biographies of replicas, and the ‘felt relationships’ associated with them, play a key role in the generation and negotiation of authenticity, while at the same time informing the authenticity and value of their historic counterparts through the ‘composite biographies’ produced. As things in their own right, replicas can ‘work’ for us if we let them, particularly if clues are available about their makers’ passion, creativity and craft.     

Evaluating Community Archaeology in the UK

Abstract

Does community archaeology work? In the UK over the last decade, there has been a boom in projects utilising the popular phrase 'community archaeology'. These projects can take many different forms and have ranged from the public face of research and developer-funded programmes to projects run by museums, archaeological units, universities, and archaeological societies. Community archaeology also encapsulates those projects run by communities themselves or in dialogue between 'professional' and 'amateur' groups and individuals. Many of these projects are driven by a desire for archaeology to meet a range of perceived educational and social values in bringing about knowledge and awareness of the past in the present. These are often claimed as successful outputs of community projects. This paper argues that appropriate criteria and methodologies for evaluating the efficacy of these projects have yet to be designed. What is community archaeology for? Who is it for? And is it effectively meeting its targets? Focusing on the authors' experiences of directing community archaeology projects, together with the ongoing research assessing the efficacy of community archaeology projects in the UK, this paper aims to set out two possible methodologies: one of self-reflexivity, and one of ethnoarchaeological analysis for evaluating what community archaeology actually does for communities themselves.