Description:
- A comprehensive debate from a historical and contemporary perspective on the practice of collecting difficult objects
- Offers a new perspective on the acquirement of objects related to war and genocide
- Evaluates the limits of new strategies for the practice of collecting
- Details the move towards classifying priorities for collection policies in museums for acquiring difficult objects
Brief description:
Graeme Were is Chair of Anthropology at the University of Bristol. His current research focuses on material culture and ethnographic museums; digital heritage and source community engagement; and, ethnomathematics in the Pacific. His recent publications include Lines that Connect: Rethinking Pattern and Mind in the Pacific (University of Hawai'i Press, 2010), and Pacific Pattern, with S. Küchler (Thames & Hudson, 2005). He is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and an editor of the Journal of Material Culture.
Review Quotes:
"The book takes the study of materials innovation and design outside the prevalent focus on Western technoscience. Its focus on Pacific societies also raises the issue of digital return and, furthermore, digital technologies in the museum and heritage sector more broadly. In this connection, Were pushes beyond debates on authenticity and instead highlights digital technology's productive potentials." - Social Anthropology
"...the chapters are well written and informative...this volume brings us back to the persistent relevance of objects and collecting to museums. Although architecture and community building have taken center stage in museum discourse, this volume reminds us of what museums continue to do: collect. The primacy of objects in making places, museums, memories, and history remains central to their endeavor." - Visual Anthropology Review
"This collection is an interesting concept, composed of telling case studies over a satisfying range of collecting topics... with some consideration of philosophical and theoretical perspectives." - Linda Young, Deakin University