CONFERENCE OUTLINE
CONFERENCE OUTLINE
Ethnographic museums have a long and distinguished history but they have also been the subject of criticism and complaint. During the second half of the twentieth century they therefore underwent something of an identity crisis. More recently however, many of these institutions have been remodeled or rethought and visitor numbers have only increased. The conference seeks to analyse these shifts and to ask what the remit of an ethnographic museum should be in the twenty first century. The conference marks the culmination of a five-year research project funded by the European Commission and involving ten major European ethnographic museum.
In 2008 the initial aim of the ‘Ethnography Museums and World Cultures’ (EMWC) project was to encourage ethnographic museums to “redefine their priorities” in response to “an ever more globalizing and multicultural world” but an even more fundamental question has arisen in the course of the project: what is the future of ethnographic museums? In order to address this question fully, a distinguished group of scholars from around the world will speak at the Oxford 2013 conference and contributions will be made by representatives of the museums involved with the EMWC project. This conference aims to stimulate debate about ethnographic museums in the post-colonial period and to envision new ways of thinking and working in those museums in the future. It will be of interest to academics, curators, policy makers and anyone who has ever been stimulated by a visit to an ethnographic museum.
The Future of The Ethnographic Museum - essay authored by the conference convenors | Anthropology Today | February 2013
Speakers will include:
James Clifford (University of California at Santa Cruz) | Ruth Phillips (Carleton University) | Wayne Modest (Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam) | Corinne Kratz (Emory University) | Sharon Macdonald (University of Manchester) | Annie Coombes (Birkbeck College, University of London) | Kavita Singh (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) | Nick Thomas (Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge)
Conference Convenors
Michael O’Hanlon, Director, Pitt Rivers Museum
Clare Harris, Curator for Asian Collections, Pitt Rivers Museum
Conference Activities
In addition to two days of lectures and discussion the conference will include:
- A drinks reception in the galleries of the Pitt Rivers Museum
- A conference dinner in Keble College
- A performance by the acclaimed Aboriginal Australian artist Christian Thompson
- A late night, torch-lit event in the Pitt Rivers Museum with music from around the world
- Poster presentations
- Publishers stalls
- Networking opportunities
Outline Programme
Friday 19 July
14:00 - Registration opens at Keble College
17:00 - Reception at the Pitt Rivers Museum
18:45 - Keynote address by Prof James Clifford
20:00 - Dinner at Keble College
Saturday 20 July
09:30 - 12.30 Lectures and discussion at Keble College
12:30 - 13.30 Buffet lunch with poster presentations
13:30 - 17:00 Lectures and discussion at Keble College
18.30 - Performance by Christian Thompson
19:30 - Conference dinner at Keble College
21:30 - Torch lit music event at the Pitt Rivers Museum
Sunday 21 July
09:30 – 13:30 Lectures and discussion at Keble College
13:30 - 15.00 Buffet lunch with poster presentations
15.00 - Close
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Ethnography Museums and World Cultures Project Museums – representatives from these museums will be participating in the conference:
- Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium
- Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France
- Museum für Völkerkunde, Vienna, Austria
- National Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg, Sweden
- Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, Netherlands
- Museo de América, Madrid, Spain
- Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures, Prague, Czech Republic
- Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico ‘Luigi Pigorini’, Rome, Italy
- Linden-Museum, Stuttgart, Germany
- Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, United Kingdom
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