The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics

The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics
Author: Janet Marstine
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2012-05-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1136715266

Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics is a theoretically informed reconceptualization of museum ethics discourse as a dynamic social practice central to the project of creating change in the museum. Through twenty-seven chapters by an international and interdisciplinary group of academics and practitioners it explores contemporary museum ethics as an opportunity for growth, rather than a burden of compliance. The volume represents diverse strands in museum activity from exhibitions to marketing, as ethics is embedded in all areas of the museum sector. What the contributions share is an understanding of the contingent nature of museum ethics in the twenty-first century—its relations with complex economic, social, political and technological forces and its fluid ever-shifting sensibility. The volume examines contemporary museum ethics through the prism of those disciplines and methods that have shaped it most. It argues for a museum ethics discourse defined by social responsibility, radical transparency and shared guardianship of heritage. And it demonstrates the moral agency of museums: the concept that museum ethics is more than the personal and professional ethics of individuals and concerns the capacity of institutions to generate self-reflective and activist practice.

New Directions in Museum Ethics

New Directions in Museum Ethics
Author: Janet Marstine
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2013-10-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317967127

This book considers key ethical questions in museum policy and practice, particularly those related to issues of collection and display. What does a collection signify in the twenty-first century museum? How does an engagement with immateriality challenge museums’ concept of ownership, and how does that immateriality translate into the design of exhibitions and museum space? Are museums still about safeguarding objects, and what does safeguarding mean for diverse individuals and communities today? How does the notion of the museum as a performative space challenge our perceptions of the object? The scholarship represented in this volume is a testament to the range and significance of critical inquiry in museum ethics. Together, the chapters resist a legalistic interpretation, bound by codes and common practice, to advance an ethics discourse that is richly theorized, constantly changing and contingent on diverse external factors. Contributors take stock of innovative research to articulate a new museum ethics founded on the moral agency of museums, the concept that museums have both the capacity and the responsibility to create social change. This book is based on a special issue of Museum Management and Curatorship.

Critical Practice

Critical Practice
Author: Janet Marstine
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2017-02-10
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1351986805

Critical Practice is an ambitious work that blurs the boundaries between art history, museum studies, political science and applied ethics. Marstine demonstrates how convergences between institutional critique and socially engaged practice, as represented by the term ‘critical practice’, can create conditions for organisational change, particularly facilitating increased public agency and shared authority. The book analyses a range of museum interventions exploring such subjects as the ethical stewardship of collections, hybridity as a methodological approach to social justice and alternative forms of democracy. Discussing critical practice within the framework of peace and reconciliation studies, Marstine shows how artists’ interventions can redress exclusions, inequalities and relational frictions between museums and their publics. Elucidating the museological and ethical implications of institutional critique and socially engaged practice, Marstine has provided a timely and thoughtful resource for museum studies scholars, artists, museum professionals, art historians and graduate students worldwide who are interested in mapping and unpacking the intricate relationships among artists, museums and communities.

The Routledge Companion to Cultural Property

The Routledge Companion to Cultural Property
Author: Jane Anderson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 702
Release: 2017-07-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317278798

The Routledge Companion to Cultural Property contains new contributions from scholars working at the cutting edge of cultural property studies, bringing together diverse academic and professional perspectives to develop a coherent overview of this field of enquiry. The global range of authors use international case studies to encourage a comparative understanding of how cultural property has emerged in different parts of the world and continues to frame vital issues of national sovereignty, the free market, international law, and cultural heritage. Sections explore how cultural property is scaled to the state and the market; cultural property as law; cultural property and cultural rights; and emerging forms of cultural property, from yoga to the national archive. By bringing together disciplinary perspectives from anthropology, archaeology, law, Indigenous studies, history, folklore studies, and policy, this volume facilitates fresh debate and broadens our understanding of this issue of growing importance. This comprehensive and coherent statement of cultural property issues will be of great interest to cultural sector professionals and policy makers, as well as students and academic researchers engaged with cultural property in a variety of disciplines.

The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change

The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change
Author: T. J. Demos
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 493
Release: 2021-02-25
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000342247

International in scope, this volume brings together leading and emerging voices working at the intersection of contemporary art, visual culture, activism, and climate change, and addresses key questions, such as: why and how do art and visual culture, and their ethics and values, matter with regard to a world increasingly shaped by climate breakdown? Foregrounding a decolonial and climate-justice-based approach, this book joins efforts within the environmental humanities in seeking to widen considerations of climate change as it intersects with social, political, and cultural realms. It simultaneously expands the nascent branches of ecocritical art history and visual culture, and builds toward the advancement of a robust and critical interdisciplinarity appropriate to the complex entanglements of climate change. This book will be of special interest to scholars and practitioners of contemporary art and visual culture, environmental studies, cultural geography, and political ecology.

The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Repatriation

The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Repatriation
Author: Cressida Fforde
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1252
Release: 2020-03-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351398873

This volume brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous repatriation practitioners and researchers to provide the reader with an international overview of the removal and return of Ancestral Remains. The Ancestral Remains of Indigenous peoples are today housed in museums and other collecting institutions globally. They were taken from anywhere the deceased can be found, and their removal occurred within a context of deep power imbalance within a colonial project that had a lasting effect on Indigenous peoples worldwide. Through the efforts of First Nations campaigners, many have returned home. However, a large number are still retained. In many countries, the repatriation issue has driven a profound change in the relationship between Indigenous peoples and collecting institutions. It has enabled significant steps towards resetting this relationship from one constrained by colonisation to one that seeks a more just, dignified and truthful basis for interaction. The history of repatriation is one of Indigenous perseverance and success. The authors of this book contribute major new work and explore new facets of this global movement. They reflect on nearly 40 years of repatriation, its meaning and value, impact and effect. This book is an invaluable contribution to repatriation practice and research, providing a wealth of new knowledge to readers with interests in Indigenous histories, self-determination and the relationship between collecting institutions and Indigenous peoples.

New Directions in Museum Ethics

New Directions in Museum Ethics
Author: Janet Marstine
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2013-10-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317967135

This book considers key ethical questions in museum policy and practice, particularly those related to issues of collection and display. What does a collection signify in the twenty-first century museum? How does an engagement with immateriality challenge museums’ concept of ownership, and how does that immateriality translate into the design of exhibitions and museum space? Are museums still about safeguarding objects, and what does safeguarding mean for diverse individuals and communities today? How does the notion of the museum as a performative space challenge our perceptions of the object? The scholarship represented in this volume is a testament to the range and significance of critical inquiry in museum ethics. Together, the chapters resist a legalistic interpretation, bound by codes and common practice, to advance an ethics discourse that is richly theorized, constantly changing and contingent on diverse external factors. Contributors take stock of innovative research to articulate a new museum ethics founded on the moral agency of museums, the concept that museums have both the capacity and the responsibility to create social change. This book is based on a special issue of Museum Management and Curatorship.

The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Repatriation

The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Repatriation
Author: Cressida Fforde
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1018
Release: 2022-06-13
Genre:
ISBN: 9781032336787

This volume brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous repatriation practitioners and researchers to provide the reader with an international overview of the removal and return of Ancestral Remains. The Ancestral Remains of Indigenous peoples are today housed in museums and other collecting institutions globally. They were taken from anywhere the deceased can be found, and their removal occurred within a context of deep power imbalance within a colonial project that had a lasting effect on Indigenous peoples worldwide. Through the efforts of First Nations campaigners, many have returned home. However, a large number are still retained. In many countries, the repatriation issue has driven a profound change in the relationship between Indigenous peoples and collecting institutions. It has enabled significant steps towards resetting this relationship from one constrained by colonisation to one that seeks a more just, dignified and truthful basis for interaction. The history of repatriation is one of Indigenous perseverance and success. The authors of this book contribute major new work and explore new facets of this global movement. They reflect on nearly 40 years of repatriation, its meaning and value, impact and effect. This book is an invaluable contribution to repatriation practice and research, providing a wealth of new knowledge to readers with interests in Indigenous histories, self-determination and the relationship between collecting institutions and Indigenous peoples.

The Ethics of Collecting Trauma

The Ethics of Collecting Trauma
Author: Alexandra Bounia
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2024-10-31
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1040149588

The Ethics of Collecting Trauma offers an interdisciplinary dialogue on the ethics of contemporary museums that are involved in collecting moments of collective trauma. Including a range of international contributions, the volume explores the ethics of collecting material that documents contemporary traumatic events. The case studies focus on four categories of such events: forced migration; terrorism attacks; major natural disasters; and cultural traumas, such as the ongoing legacy of colonization. Contributors consider whether cultural institutions have a right to collect materials about these events and what kind of materials they should focus on, if so; who is being memorialized, who should hold the power to decide what is collected, and what the critical timeline for such initiatives is. The volume also considers what the larger purpose of such collecting is and how to deal with past collecting practices, arguing that museums need to consider, in a careful and deliberate way, their ethical responsibilities as cultural institutions. The Ethics of Collecting Trauma will be of interest to academics and students working in the areas of museum and heritage studies, cultural studies, trauma studies, memory studies, and migration studies. The book will also appeal to museum professionals working around the globe.

Museum Practice

Museum Practice
Author: Conal McCarthy
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 620
Release: 2020-11-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1119796628

MUSEUM PR ACTICE Edited by CONAL MCCARTHY Museum Practice covers the professional work carried out in museums and art galleries of all types, including the core functions of management, collections, exhibitions, and programs. Some forms of museum practice are familiar to visitors, yet within these diverse and complex institutions many practices are hidden from view, such as creating marketing campaigns, curating and designing exhibitions, developing fundraising and sponsorship plans, crafting mission statements, handling repatriation claims, dealing with digital media, and more. Focused on what actually occurs in everyday museum work, this volume offers contributions from experienced professionals and academics that cover a wide range of subjects including policy frameworks, ethical guidelines, approaches to conservation, collection care and management, exhibition development and public programs. From internal processes such as leadership, governance and strategic planning, to public facing roles in interpretation, visitor research and community engagement and learning, each essential component of contemporary museum practice is thoroughly discussed.