Is cultural democracy possible in a museum? Critical reflections on Indigenous engagement in the development of the exhibitionEncounters
Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5701293 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Helena Robinson (0000-0003-0717-4639, The University of Sydney, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 9 |
| Pages | 860-874 |
| Publication date | 2017-10-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Heritage Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1352-7258 • E-ISSN: 1470-3610 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13527258.2017.1300931 |
| OpenAlex | W2612923719 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
| References cited | 25 |
Recent museological scholarship emphasises visitor participation and democratic access to cultural heritage as key to securing the ongoing relevance and future sustainability of museums. But do legacies of colonialist collecting practices and hierarchical conventions of representation in museums afford the possibility of genuine cultural democracy? This paper explores this question via detailed analysis of the Encounters exhibition, developed by the National Museum of Australia in partnership with the British Museum and promoted as an unprecedented partnership between the institutions and Indigenous Australian communities. Drawing on an extensive and emerging literature on museums, community engagement, participation and democracy, in tandem with analysis of public critiques and Indigenous responses to the exhibition, the paper suggests that the extent of Indigenous agency within the collaboration fell short of the articulated goals of the project. It concludes that the concept of maximal participation and release of agency to communities of interest may be difficult to achieve within existing museum frameworks
Archaeology · Art · Democracy · Exhibition · Indigenous · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropology · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Museology · Museums and Cultural Heritage
Religion of the past or living heritage
Perspective. Museums beyond neutrality
Collective Mobilization as a Mechanism for Cultural Democracy
Exhibiting slavery in Australia
Visitor participation
Feeling implicated in unfinished business
Museums as living history
Co-creating sustainable food futures with botanical gardens and communities
Beyond bridge and barrier
Curating good participants? Audiences, democracy and authority in the contemporary museum
The implied visitor in a planetarium exhibition
Adapting past identity
Encounters' and the axes of collaboration
Beyond Bricks and Mortar
Decolonisation
Encountering complexity
Theorizing participatory intensities
An Identity‐Centered Approach to Understanding Museum Learning
Cultural Policy
Culture, citizenship and Australian multiculturalism
One strange colonial thing
Engage the World’
The Participatory Condition in the Digital Age
Local Government and the Arts
Cultural inclusion, exclusion and the formative roles of museums
Appropriate museology in theory and practice
Changing Values in the Art Museum
Legacies of prejudice
Inclusion in museums
Embedding civil engagement in museums
Custom-made reflective practice
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,78 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2025 (9) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 14 |