Building an Indigenous Museum in the Vatican

Some Papuan Directions for Indigenising Museums

Bibliographic Data

ID21263992
AuthorsRoberto Costa (0000-0002-0745-6516, Macquarie University, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume25
Pages141-152
Publication date2020-09-21
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSwiss Journal of Sociocultural Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2813-5229 • E-ISSN: 2813-5237
PublisherUniversity of Bern (PUBLISHER • CH)
DOI10.36950/tsantsa.2020.025.14
OpenAlexW3018341231
LanguageEN
References cited10

Debates around the significance, function and social value of museums are still challenging museum practices and models. In particular, the demands of “source communities” for self-representation and self-emancipation in the global community continue to call into question the role of the museum as a catalyst for promoting social change across cultures. In this paper, I push this question further by discussing the desires of a group of Roman Catholic woodcarvers in central Asmat (Indonesian Papua) to build a museum for exhibiting their carvings in the Vatican. To them, the Vatican is not only the sacred centre of Catholicism but also an integral part of their mythical world of ancestors. After a brief examination of their considerations, I attempt to put their ambitious museum idea into dialogue with current debates on “the postcolonial museum” to highlight how it can dictate new directions for indigenising museums

Emancipation · Holy See · Indigenous · Indonesian · Linguistics · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropology · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Law · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Philosophy · Religious Tourism and Spaces

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