Complexity, Transdisciplinarity and Museum Collections Documentation

Emergent Metaphors for a Complex World

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2390926
AutoresFiona Cameron (Western Sydney University, autor correspondente), Sarah Mengler (0000-0001-8781-3028, University College London, UK)
Ano2009
Volume14
Fascículo2
Páginas189-218
Data de publicação2009-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1359183509103061
OpenAlexW2140062563
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas14
Referências citadas34

Our world is becoming increasingly complex, characterized by mobile, global networks, flows and fluids of culture producing new levels of inter-connectivity and interaction. Museum collections are inducted into this hyper-complex world and wider debates in public culture through Googleenabled initiatives and links to YouTube, Flickr and MySpace. As museum culture and public culture reconnect through these various modalities, this poses new sets of challenges for museums, demonstrated by the different and increasingly complex exchanges and interactions observed around objects. Collection documentation systems, however, still tend to produce a certain and stable material world with clearly defined cultural categorizations. This article explores theories of hyper-complexity and transdisciplinarity developed as part of the Australian Research Council Project's Reconceptualising Heritage Collections. It reframes ways of understanding the relations and organization surrounding museum objects in today's hyper-complex, nonlinear world. Moreover, it offers a conceptual framework for re-imagining collections' interpretative and management practices as they might operate as complex systems in these new political spaces

Archaeology · Assemblage (archaeology · Cultural heritage · Documentation · Modalities · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Transdisciplinarity · Anthropology · Computer Science · Conservation Techniques and Studies · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Museums and Cultural Heritage