Middle of nowhere

Contesting rural heritage at the World Famous Gopher Hole Museum

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5700909
AutoresLianne Mctavish (Art and Design, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen24
Número7
Páginas764-780
Fecha de publicación2018-08-09
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal of Heritage Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1352-7258 • E-ISSN: 1470-3610
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13527258.2017.1300930
OpenAlexW2593790610
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas25

The World Famous Gopher Hole Museum in Torrington, Alberta, Canada, is a rural museum located in a relatively isolated hamlet of less than 200 people. Inside the museum, small diorama boxes feature taxidermied gophers dressed in tiny clothing and posed as townspeople dining in restaurants, shooting pool and chatting at a beauty parlour, among other activities. Drawing on methods stemming from critical museum theory, critical rural studies and critical heritage studies, this article analyzes the ways in which both local residents and visitors from outside the region understand the museum, considering why it is indeed world famous, attracting over 5000 international tourists each year. It argues that the Gopher Hole Museum succeeds in part because its organisers are active agents who take pride in the museum without attempting to refute the sometimes negative responses to it, or control the ways in which outsiders interpret it. The museum in Torrington is a complex ‘open text’ that both employs and critiques the conventional methods used in natural history and heritage museums to offer multiple narratives about childhood, heritage and rural life, addressing local people as well as tourists

Archaeology · Art · Geography · Literature · Tourism · World heritage · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Museums and Cultural Heritage