Best Cultural Heritage Stewardship Practices by and for the White Mountain Apache Tribe

Abstract

As is true for most indigenous programmes concerned with cultural heritage management, the White Mountain Apache Tribe Historic Preservation Office (THPO) operates at dynamic and contested intersections of expanding populations and economies, shrinking budgets, diversifying international interests in heritage issues, and increasing indigenous demands for self-governance, self-reliance, self-determination, and self-representation. Faced with limited funds, large mandates, and land users having variable support for cultural heritage protection, the White Mountain Apache THPO has harnessed long-standing and emergent community heritage values as authentic foundations for 'actionable' rules promoting consultation, identification, documentation, and protection for tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Developed on the basis of a decade of interactions with elders and other cultural experts, foresters, hydrologists, engineers, and planners, the Tribe's Best Cultural Heritage Stewardship Practices illuminate challenges and opportunities faced by many THPOs and illustrate the crafting of appropriate institutional frameworks for community-based historic preservation initiatives.     

'[...] But it's Not Like I Know Anything About Them!': Immigrants in the Museum in Finland

Abstract

Museum education has undergone a profound transformation from the ideals of the Enlightenment through modernism to those of postmodernism. Museum visitors are no longer perceived as passive receivers of information provided by experts but as active learners who freely construct their own meanings, driven by their personal motivation. Museum education is no longer about educating the masses but facilitating learners in their individual learning processes. Learning outcomes are no longer to be measured by the amount of new information absorbed in an exhibition but by more abstract things: improved quality of life, increased awareness of one's own identity, and better self-esteem or increased ability to cope in society. The question is: how can museums provide their visitors with such learning possibilities? This article presents three projects that have been carried out at the Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova Museum in Turku, Finland, to test methods and models for increased personal experience and involvement, especially in facilitating interaction and understanding between cultures. As a result of this it is proposed that exhibitions and their related activities should be planned in such a way that they facilitate the self-on — the individual's projection and associations through involvement of emotions — thus facilitating connections between the exhibition and contemporary life.