Abstract

Indigenous museums and cultural centres have sprung up across the developing world, and particularly in the Southwest Pacific. They derive from a number of motives, ranging from the commercial to the cultural political (and many combine both). A close study of this phenomenon is not only valuable for museological practice but, as has been argued, it may challenge our current bedrock assumptions about the very nature and purpose of the museum. This book looks to the future of museum practice through examining how museums have evolved particularly in the non-western world to incorporate the present and the future in the display of culture. Of particular concern is the uses to which historic records are put in the service of community development and cultural renaissance.

Nick Stanley is Director of Research and Chair of Postgraduate Studies at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, University of Central England. He has worked on collections and display within museums of Oceanic materials both in Melanesia as well as Europe and North America. His current work is on the artistic production of the Asmat people in West Papua.

“…the most thorough examination to date of museums in the south-west Pacific…The book should serve as a valuable resource for museum studies students, academics, historians, museum professionals and development agencies interested in museums and the cultural heritage of Indigenous people in the south-west Pacific.”  ·  Recollections