MEG 2017 Conference Review: Cloth and Costume in Ethnographic Museums

We were unusually warmly welcomed (in that the sun was shining) to Glasgow last week for the 41^st annual MEG conference. Hosted by Glasgow University and organised by Andy Mills. Glasgow is currently leading a collaborative three-year research project with Kew and the Smithsonian entitled ‘Situating Pacific Barkcloth Production in Time and Place’, not surprisingly conference delegates were treated to a plethora of papers about barckcloth, not only from the Pacific but also from South East Asia and Africa. This year’s theme focused on textiles, attracting a high attendance to the conference of MEG members old and new and colleagues from New Zealand, America and Europe. The conference took place in the very modern Kelvin Hall opposite the imposing Baroque architecture of the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. Having been working on the textile collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM) I was excited to hear from colleagues of research across cloth and costume, having had a glimpse at some of this research earlier in the week when I was invited to the Museum ofArchaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, to attend a workshop on Kiribati armour.

The programme was packed and so started promptly with the first session concentrating on costume in the Americas. Tony Eccles, Royal Albert Memorial Museum Exeter kick started things with a paper on the tensions of repatriating Crowfoot’s regalia in the collections at Exeter back to the Blackfoot community in Canada, an unresolved issue. Steeve Buckridge, Grand Valley State University, Michigan, gave the first of our many barkcloth focused papers. He had specifically studied lace bark in Jamaica. Lace bark played an important role in the fashions and the role of reclaiming and asserting femininity of enslaved African women who nurtured and retained the skill in lace bark production. Buckridge brought to the fore issues of sustainability, the native lace bark tree is now facing extinction, what is the future for the tree and how can lace bark production be renewed and utilised by local people in the Caribbean? Callie Vandewiele, University of Cambridge, then took us to Guatemala where textiles hold special value. Callie digitally repatriated textiles in Museum collections from Europe back to Mayan Guatemalan weavers who through this process are able to regain textile knowledge, patterns and designs. Pat Allan, Glasgow Museum, spoke of her fieldwork carried out in the Tigua region of Ecuador from 2011-2015. Glasgow Museum acquired a collection of wooden masks from this region, a brief departure from the conference theme of cloth and costume but relevant given the use of these masks in dance and performance. Given the pace of the conference time for questions was limited so we took a welcomed coffee break to ponder the morning session before returning to the second session of the day looking at the work being done by the Pacific Presences team at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) Cambridge.

The Pacific Presences Projects lead by Cambridge examines Oceanic art in the context of European collections. The project is a five-year project funded by the European Research Council. The first paper presented objects and photographs amassed by the Charles Templeton Crocker expedition to the Solomon Islands, in particular the little researched material culture of the Islands of Rennel and Bellona. More specifically Lucie Carreau spoke about Kongoa, a type of bark cloth garment worn by men, women and children. Lucie reminded us that when such objects enter Museum collections they are changed, they become flat pieces of cloth, they are no longer kongoa, as this status for the object can only be achieved through the wearer of it and how it is worn depicting the social status and circumstance of the wearer themselves. Alison Clark along with New Zealand/Kiribati artists Chris Charteris, Lizzy Leckie and Kaetaeta Watson introduced ‘The Island Warrior’ and their rethinking and reinterpretation of Kiribati armour. Both a historical costume from Cambridge and the new reworked costume made by Chris, Lizzie and Kaetaeta are currently on display at MAA. To achieve this, it was necessary to research and evaluate historical armour in collections across the UK and Europe and to apply a multi-disciplinary approach involving research, conservation and artistic interpretation. Erna Lilje’s paper focused on fibre skirts from central province, Papua New Guinea and the dimensions of interconnection in the process of manufacture and production of these grass skirts. The session was concluded with Nick Thomas’s paper ‘The Travels of Textiles from Cook’s First Voyage’ and the remarkable discovery of a barkcloth sample book pre-dating the Shaw sample books of 1787 (such as the one in the PRM"S collections) and how such sample books exemplify bigger histories and paradoxes surrounding barkcloth.

Over lunch delegates were invited to visit the Hunterian costume lab, take a tour of the Centre for Textile Conservation and Technical Art History or watch RAI film footage. Given that over lunch we also had to find time to eat I did not manage to fit in any of these activities though I would have liked to have visited the costume lab or conservation centre I also needed to allow my brain some space before the afternoon sessions commenced.

In the penultimate session of the day we heard from colleagues working in textile conservation. Dinah Eastop, University of Southampton addressed the role and part conservation plays in the process of representation and re-representation using case studies from her recent publication ‘Refashioning and Redress: Conserving and DisplayingDress’ Getty 2016. For us non-conservators the scientific data presented by RangiTe Kanawa, Aotearoa New Zealand, was mind boggling. She explained how an innovative scientific method analysing the black dye comprising of tannin and mud is being used to reconnect a number of unprovenanced Maori textiles to their place of origin. Jeremy Uden, Pitt Rivers Museum University of Oxford and Rachael Lee,Victoria and Albert Museum discussed the redisplay of one of the PRM’s most significant costumes, a Tahitian Mourners costume acquired by the naturalists on Captain Cooks second voyage. In 2011 Jeremy was awarded a grant from the Clothworkers Foundation to investigate and conserve the Cook voyage collection at the PRM. This led to the redisplay of the collection whereby Rachael Lee as a textile mount maker was recruited to remount the costume as it had never previously been done so before. The session was concluded with a paper from Luba D. Nurse, textile conservator and Patricia Te Arapo Wallace, University of Canterbury, Aotearoa, New Zealand on how improved technology and resources has led to the reinvestigation and challenged previous understanding of Maori dogskin cloaks.

The day finished with a series of work in progress papers, nine in total that covered all areas of Museum practice, costume as learning and engagement resources, a donor’s view of donating collections to a Museum from Jenny Balfour-Paul who has lived an extraordinary life travelling the world in particular making numerous fieldtrips to the Middle East during her PhD on indigo in the Arab Word. Jenny’s collection of textiles from the Arab World has since been donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum. We heard about a number of new acquisitions of textiles at the PRM in Oxford and plans on reinterpreting the textile displays there in the future. Harriet Hughes treated us to a taste of contemporary African fashion using traditional fabrics, techniques and methods in innovative cutting edge ways. Krystyna Deuss discussed the importance of dating Cofradia textiles for dating Guatemalan weavings in general. Antonia Lovelace and Rosanna Nicholson took us to Asia with presentations on plans for an exhibition of Himalayan fashion in Leeds in 2018 whilst Rosanna has been researching Indonesian barkcloth collected by missionaries Leonard and Margaret Woodward in the collections of National Museums Scotland (NMS). Sue Giles and Lisa Graves gave us a glimpse of the idiosyncratic British Empire and Commonwealth Museum collection deposited at Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives. The film and photographic archive material is rich in its painting of ex patriate life in the colonies, important political and historic events and day-to-day activities including transport, law enforcement, trade etc. in the British Empire and Commonwealth. I am sure it made many of us look forward to the potential of this collection for research and interpretation in the future. Racheal Hand finished the session with a look at kappa mu’umu’us from Hawaii in Museum collections and their meaning and use in Hawaiian dress and identity today.

Having had our intellectual appetites well and truly fed by the end of the first day it was time to turn attention to feeding our stomachs! We were treated to a conference reception at the impressive Huntarian Museum a short walk up the hill through the historic University of Glasgow campus to the commanding building in which the Museum is housed. The exhibition gallery where we had drinks displayed some of the ethnographic collections including in a showcase which ran down the centre of the room displaying the Huntarian’s coconut armour from Kiribati which we had heard about earlier in the day from the Pacific Presences team. It was good after having had a day of lectures to reconnect and contextualise the material we all regularly theorise about and analyse with the materiality of the artefacts, a reminder of our privileged role as Museum professionals. The conference dinner was at one of Glasgow’s finest curry houses Mother India where we indulged in voluminous Indian dishes, many of us going home with doggy bags at the end of the night!

Weary eyed I arrived for the second day of the conference which promised to be as stimulating as the first. The first session was focused on exhibiting and speaking through costume with the first paper of the day presented by Mark Elliot, MAA. Mark has recently curated the exhibition ‘Another India: Explorations and Expressions of Indigenous South Asia’ which is currently showing at MAA. Having a large collection of material in the PRM collections from the Naga Hills I was particularly interested in hearing from Mark of the challenges in displaying indigenous Indian communities. Mark suggested that as curators in putting together exhibitions we are the authors of curatorial fiction reappropriating material culture to make new cultural images. For the exhibition, Mark made the curatorial decision to reconstruct a Naga headdress from individual parts, not all of which belonged together but in doing so he was able to construct the most accurate representation of the headdress, another layer of human agency. This act has now become part of the object’s individual history and biography and those component parts that constitute the whole. Mark’s paper gave much food for thought with regards to curatorial practice. Our next speaker, Vanessavon Gliszcynski got the audience very excited with the talk of multi-disciplinary techniques bringing an exhibition about textile and cloth alive. Her exhibition ‘The Common Thread’ currently running in Frankfurt looked at textile technique as a means of interpreting textile collections. Working with contemporary artists and composers the exhibition incorporated art and music inviting visitors to experience fabric in a new and direct way. The exhibition created a new textile vocabulary, ‘the warp and weft of thinking’ and engaged with the cognitive challenges textile production presents making analogies for weaving with geometry, abstraction and musical thinking. A dynamic and innovate approach to displaying and interpreting textiles. I was very intrigued by Vanessa’s approach and made a note to purchase the exhibition book ‘The Common Thread,the Warp and Weft of Thinking’ for the Museum library. We then heard of the struggles of a local authority Museum trying to apply diverse and contemporary narratives to permanent displays. Rebecca Arnott introduced us Julius Brenchly, donor of the ethnography collections of Maidstone Museum. His position as a local Maidstone gentleman explorer privileges his role in the interpretation of world culture in the permanent galleries at Maidstone Museum. Through the use of talks and tours for public engagement it is possible to present other narratives and contemporary issues in the interpretation of the displays. Lindy Richardson, Edinburgh College of Art and Sarah Worden, National Museum Scotland provided us with a very animated presentation on a recent project using African commemorative cloth as a teaching aid for textile students in Scotland. In Africa, the cloths are used as political promotional tools particularly during local elections. The students created their own versions bringing attention to contemporary issues that concerned them today including the rise of celebrity culture, the threat to Scottish wildlife and the plight of Syrian refugees. Sarah hopes to acquire an example of the student’s cloth for the collections at NMH complementing the historical collections of African commemorative cloth and enhancing understanding of the role these cloths play in African cultural traditions.

After coffee, we held the MEG AGM for which some members stayed. The AGM saw Antonia Lovelace hand over the reins as chair to long standing MEG member Sue Giles. The current committee thanked Antonia for her hard work and contribution to MEG over the past three years as chair. Antonia ceremoniously presented Sue with the MEG Chain of Office, a beaded necklace which all MEG chairs add a sort of talisman to at the end of their service. I did not see what it was that Antonia had added but will be sure to make a note to ask her. There was hint that the venue for next year’s conference could be the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter. The Museum has recently installed new Pacific displays and is currently working on redisplaying collections from Africa. The AGM finished early allowing for a slightly longer lunch and some time to reflect on the morning session and look forward to the afternoon.

Session 6 was entitled ‘Reassessing and Revitalising Collections’, Sarah Worden continued on the theme of African cloth having recently been in Uganda where the traditional medium of barkcloth is being revitalised by fashion designers. Having been proclaimed in 2005 by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage of humanity there are opportunities for apprentices in Uganda to train in barkcloth production. Sarah asked how do we go about collecting and documenting this changing role of barkcloth in Ugandan cultural identity, perhaps a question we should be asking more of all of our textiles collections which are being reinvigorated and repurposed at their place of origin. Contemporary collecting plays an important role in diversifying and updating our historical collections, Rachel Heminway Hurst, Royal Pavilion andMuseum Brighton explored the challenges in assembling contemporary collections in her paper ‘Fashioning Africa’. With a HLF collecting cultures grant Brighton Museum aims to make a collection of African fashion and textiles from 1960-2005. They have employed a methodology using a collecting panel consisting of African diaspora and academic specialists to advise and solicit acquisition. This methodology has proven successful in informing a collection which enhances the existing African costume textiles. If anything, we heard that the failings are with the collecting cultures grant which does not enable travel abroad.  Mark Nesbitt, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and Brittany Curtis talked of the collections from the voyage of the HMS Galatea. Of the 82 objects brought back from this voyage only 30 have been located within Museum collections to date. Interestingly we often concentrate on the acquisition of material and get fixated with what enters Museum collections and its history prior to acquisition. The objects history once it enters the Museum does get researched but Museum practice was once more fluid with a common network of exchange and transfer among curators and collections. In MEG style, the paper perpetuated the ‘Lost and Found’ nature of ethnographic collections. Louise Wilkie rounded up the session with news of a continuation of project funding to work on collections at Aberdeen making the collection there very much ‘open for research’.

It was only apt that the last session of the 2017 conference should be focused on barkcloth and introduced with a paper by anthropologist Adrienne Keapler, curator of Oceanic Ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institute and Co-investigator on the barkcloth project based in Glasgow. Adrienne reminded us that the strengths of our collections relies on good documentation. However, in the absence of documentation methodologies can be applied in the identification of barkcloth if components and combinations of cultural signatures can be found. As a non barkcloth expert I was interested to learn any tricks of the trade and found Adrienne’s lecture useful but also couldn’t help to think that the ability to identify barkcloth as described must also rely on an expertise gained from years of study, research and knowledge accumulation. Andy Mills provided us with one of the most imaginative analogies of the day in his discussion of the fractal and partible nature of barkcloth comparing its division and distribution to having an apple, slices of apple, a fruit salad or apple juice. Tensions exist among the Polynesian diaspora over the subdivision and distribution of barkcloth, however the very nature of the cloth undermines such tensions. Patricia Te Arapo Wallace examined two unusual 18^th century Maori cloaks and the engagement of contemporary weavers to better understand their construction and gain new knowledge and understanding acknowledging that historic collections provide evidence of techniques no longer practiced. The closing paper of the conference came from Antje Denner, NMS and Racheal Hand, MAA and their endeavour to shed light on the Polynesian barkcloth in the holdings of the NMS. By matching pieces with sample books and pieces of cloth in the collections of the National Museum of Ireland it is hoped that the histories of these cloth and individual Museum histories of collecting, distributing and assemblage can be answered.

This drew to a close the 2017 conference, I had a plane to catch and so had to leave whilst questions and discussions for the afternoon session panel continued. As always, I left the annual MEG conference feeling content that as those who work with ethnographic collections we continue to be innovative, critical and questioning of our actions as curators, researchers, conservators. I knew that the conference focus around costume and cloth would arouse interesting discourse and I certainly wasn’t left disappointed.

Faye Belsey

Assistant Curator, Pitt Rivers Museum.

Call for Papers ‘The evolution of the museum’

Science Museum, London, 13-14th July 2017

Museums are emergent entities – and the evolution of a museum is dependent on a number of factors, including: changes in collecting and disposal practices, redisplays and the legacy of temporary exhibitions. New pedagogical perspectives relating to new questions or ideological trends, either in museology or in the disciplines represented in the collections, are also influential.

This workshop will focus on selected case studies to analyse the impact of these changes on methodological issues relating to universal histories and universal museums. In particular, the evolution of the museum will be discussed in relation to the impact of temporary exhibitions and the circulation of knowledge in the public sphere. The workshop will explore how social knowledge practices influence the structuring of institutional knowledge, and the emergence of new disciplines.

The case studies that we will use to trace this evolution over time are the 1876  Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus at the South Kensington Museum and the creation of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro.

The 1876 Loan Exhibition is a temporary exhibition which took place in 1876 at the South Kensington Museum and was one of the founding displays which led to the creation of the Science Museum. This exhibition offers an ideal case study for the ways in which temporary displays have a permanent legacy in national and international museum collections, and how far the interpretation and presentation of materials was transformed in this process.

The Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro opened in 1882 following the 1878 International Exhibition, for which the Trocadéro palace had been built. Though many studies have focused on the successive transformations of this museum in the Musée de l’Homme and, successively, the Musée du Quai Branly and the MUCEM, the first assemblage and display of these ethnographic collections is less well known. Drawing on the place given to the arts, the regions, and different themes in universal exhibitions in Paris, and particularly in the 1878 exhibition, the discussion of the Musée d'Ethnographie will cast new light on the motivations and relationships of collectors, learned societies, politicians, and publics in informing the creation of this museum.

The workshop will bring together researchers from ethnography, history of science, and museum history, to explore the evolution of museums, mainly – but not only – in France and the UK. The workshop will also contain a session with the objects studied in the Universal Histories and Universal Museums project. We invite papers and posters exploring the agencies and reception of these two institutions and their collections. Contributions might consider, but need not be confined to, the following themes:

-          History and/or  comparison of the science and art collections in the South Kensington Museum, and the foundation of the Science Museum

-          History of ethnographic collections in Paris (and direct comparisons with other cities and particularly with London) and of the first Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro

-          The impact of temporary exhibitions and universal exhibitions on the creation and development of museum collections.

Important information:

• Papers - abstract: 300 words (30 minutes papers)
• Poster presentations – abstract: 300 words

                                          

Deadline for both abstracts: 21^st April 2017. 

Send abstracts to: universalhistoriesmuseums@gmail.com. 

Authors will be notified by the 30^th April.

Note that we will aim to publish the workshops of the ‘Universal Histories, Universal Museums’ research project as a journal special issue.

On behalf of the Universal Histories and Universal Museums team: André Delpuech, Hervé Inglebert, Sandra Kemp, Chiara Zuanni.

Discover more about the project: https://universalhistories.org - Get in touch via Facebook (page ‘Universal Histories and Universal Museums’), Twitter (@UniversalMuseum), and Instagram (@universal_histories).

Call for Papers: Museological Review, Issue 21: Museums and Partnership

Submission Deadline: 1700 GMT, Monday 5 December 2016

Museological Review (MR) is a peer-reviewed journal, published annually, by the community of PhD students of the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, UK. It is aimed at graduated Masters students, PhD students and early career researchers from around the world and from any museum-related discipline. It is a forum for the exchange of museological ideas and for the development of academic skills.
Museological Review Issue 21 takes as its theme the concept of Partnership. Today organisations across the cultural and heritage sectors are actively encouraged to work more creatively, especially in partnership with other institutions, organisations and businesses. How can such work shape, enhance, develop or alter the nature of the museum in the 21st century? How do partnerships realign or repurpose the boundaries of what a museum is? And how do they implicate the museum in cultural, political and ethical debates?
This call for papers welcomes submissions on the theme of partnership, addressing, but not limited to, the following questions:

How can museums work creatively with other organisations in order to amplify and strengthen their work?
How can allied sectoral professions such as libraries and archives help shape the role of museums in today’s society?
How do museums demonstrate their relevance to society through both typical and atypical partnerships?
How can museums respond to issues of social diversity and social justice through partnership working?
How can museums balance issues of risk and reward in the development of their partnerships?
How can museums address the ethical implications of working with new and diverse partners?
How can partnerships contribute to establishing legacy in museums?
How might partnerships shape the very nature of what a museum is, and how might this contribute to what the future museum looks like?

There are a number of ways to engage with Museological Review this year.

Written Submissions
The editors welcome submissions of academic articles (maximum 5,000 words). We also encourage creative and alternative formats including exhibition or book reviews (maximum 1,000 words).

Visual Submissions
The editors welcome visual submissions comprising a single image which depicts the theme of partnership with museums. The image can be manipulated and edited. A title and a short caption of 150 words or less should enhance the message but the image must be able to communicate on its own merit. Visual submissions must be original work. Any identifiable persons depicted must agree to allow their image to be published. Please submit your image as a .jpeg or .tif file to a resolution of 600 dpi. Please submit your caption in a Microsoft Word document.

Question & Answer
This year there is a single Question to which Answers are encouraged. In up to 250 words, please provide a critical opinion to the question:
What kinds of partnerships are appropriate or not appropriate for museums to engage with?
Please include your current professional and/or academic status (for example, curator, freelance, researcher) and the country in which you work. If you prefer your contribution to remain anonymous, please clearly state this in your submission.

Results
The editorial team will contact authors in January 2017. The editorial process (peer review and editing) of those accepted submissions will take place from January to April 2017. Final publication decisions will be made after the peer review and editing process. The issue is due to be available from the Museological Review web page by June 2017. 

Colour in Cloth: Call for Papers

Passed Research Fund Conference, 10 -11th April 2017

From initial design to production and dissemination, colour is central to the manufacture and use of cloth and clothing. This unique international conference will explore the various and multifarious relationships between colour and textiles, from dyeing and distribution, to chromatics and conservation. Through a combination of papers and workshops, it will demonstrate new and continuing research through historical, theoretical and practical investigation, drawing on interdisciplinary expertise that includes history, archaeology, conservation, sustainable futures, design and material culture.

The conference will be held over two days and in two locations: the University of Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art. These two cities represent the diverse heritage of textile manufacture and design in Scotland, from the industrial scale Turkey red dyed and printed cottons, to the artisanal tapestry workshop of the Dovecot and design education. The conference will celebrate the differences of these two cities, as well as drawing on what unites them and the wider world through the history and current practice in colour and textiles. Day One will be held in Glasgow and will consist of papers that deal with the history and theory of colour and textile design, production and use, in addition to contemporary practice within the field. On Day Two we will hold complementary and exploratory hands-on workshops and site visits in Edinburgh, exploring the history, theory and study of textiles through practical and innovative means.

The organisers particularly welcome proposals that combine a paper and complementary workshop idea, but also encourage individual papers (20 mins) or workshop proposals (expected to last 1-1.5 hours) that examine textiles and colour in theory and practice. Working under the wider umbrella themes of the production, consumption and conservation of colour in cloth, suggested themes for paper and workshop proposals include, but are not limited to:

  Scotland and the World
  Science and Technology
  Colour and Perception
  Colour, Fashion, Trend
  Colourless or the Absence of Colour  Learning with Colour and Textiles

Limited student bursaries will be available, more details to follow.
Titles and abstracts (200 words) for papers and/or workshops, should be sent to Sally Tuckett and Lindy Richardson by Monday 15th January 2017. Full registration details and bursary information will be available in January 2017. 

MEG Occasional paper on Cook Voyage Collections now available

Mock up of new Cook Voyage display at the Pitt Rivers Museum

MEG’s latest Occasional Paper (number 5) has just been published. Cook-Voyage Collections of ‘Artificial Curiosities’ in Britain and Ireland, 1771–2015 comprises detailed accounts of some of the most important ethnographic collections from Cook voyages, including those of the British Museum, the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthrpology, the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, the National Museum of Ireland (ex Trinity College Dublin), and National Museums Scotland. As well as providing a wealth of new information about what was collected on the voyages and how it was distributed - including illustrated accounts of recently identified objects at the British Museum, the Bowes Museum, and elsewhere - the volume also contains detailed accounts of what has been done with the collections from the time of their arrival in Britain and Ireland in the 1770s through to today. 

Contents: 300 pp., 106 black-and-white figures; Jeremy Coote, ‘Introduction’; Jennifer Newell, ‘Revisiting Cook at the British Museum’; Amiria Salmond, ‘Artefacts of Encounter: The Cook-Voyage Collections in Cambridge’; Jeremy Coote, ‘The Cook-Voyage Collections at Oxford, 1772-2015’; Rachel Hand, ‘“A Number of Highly Interesting Objects”: The Cook-Voyage Collections of Trinity College Dublin’; Dale Idiens and Chantal Knowles, ‘Cook-Voyage Collections in Edinburgh, 1775–2011’; Leslie Jessop, ‘Cook-Voyage Collections in North-East England, with a Preliminary Report on a Group of Māori Pendants Apparently Traceable to the First Voyage’; Adrienne L. Kaeppler, ‘From the South Seas to the World (via London)’.

The volume is available from: Sue Giles (MEG Publications), Senior World Cultures Curator, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Queen’s Road, Bristol BS8 1RL; sue.giles@bristol.gov.uk; UK, £17.50; Europe, £22.00; World, £26.00 (including postage and packing).

‘These essays contain a wealth of new information about enormously significant early-voyage collections in the UK and Ireland. This book will be a vital resource for all curators and researchers interested in the Pacific, in Cook's voyages, and the issues the voyages raise.’ (Professor Nicholas Thomas, Director, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.)

‘These excellent papers are essential reading for everyone interested in forensic ethnography, cultural relations, and the rude good health of museum anthropology in the UK. Cook-voyage studies, which only began in the 1970s, are in all their permutations, at the foundation of best curatorial practice.’ (Jonathan King, Former Keeper of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum.)

 

Debate on Amending Editorial Practice of The Journal of Museum Ethnography to Incorporate Partial Peer-Reviewing of Contributions

Overview

In the summer of 2015, a small number of MEG members independently approached the Committee to enquire why the Journal of Museum Ethnography is not peer-reviewed like many academic journals. This is not the first time that the matter has arisen, and the Committee are keen to establish a policy on this which will resolve the issue for some years.

The Committee discussed the possibility of the Journal becoming partly or wholly peer-reviewed, and – realising that the issue strongly divided opinion among themselves - resolved to organise a debate on the issue at our most recent Annual General Meeting on Tuesday 19^th April 2016. Conference delegates participated energetically in the debate and the position statements for and against are reproduced here for all MEG members to read.

We are now asking all members of MEG to vote on this issue, by emailing secretary@museumethnographersgroup.org with the subject line ‘Peer Review’ and either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in the body text. In this case, a ‘No’ vote will indicate your wish for JME to continue as it is without the peer-reviewing of any contributions. A ‘Yes’ vote will indicate your wish for JME’s editors to initiate a practice of peer-review for some journal content, likely to commence with JME 31. Members should feel free to express any further opinions on the matter alongside placing their vote. The results of the vote will be publicised after voting closes on 30^th June 2016.      

Position Statements in support of a ‘No’ Vote

1. Sarah Byrne, Current Editor of JME, Horniman Museum.

When I took over the editorship from Jeremy Coote, one of my first questions as someone who had recently been a funded researcher in the university sector was to eagerly ask ‘Why is JME not peer reviewed?’ At the time I understood in theory Jeremy’s position about fostering a more open forum for ideas and debates and research within the museum sector. And the important role JME had to play in allowing people to publish good papers in a journal with a solid reputation who might traditionally shy away from the peer-reviewed world. Not that I think JME has suffered over the years from a lack of papers from academics and people who also publish in higher ranking journals. The key thing about JME though is that our contributors are a varied bunch. I think that is one of its strengths.

Whilst I am totally sympathetic to the Research Excellence Framework issues faced by colleagues in the third level sector and constant pressure to publish in high-ranking journals, I have to say that over the last two years of editing JME I have, through experience, come to agree with Jeremy that JME becoming peer-reviewed is not the best thing for its future.

What Is JME?

JME effectively is a conference proceedings journal with added extras (Research Articles/Reports and Reviews). Not to state the obvious but we are totally dependent on what comes out of the conference each year. Some years might produce enough papers that would be good enough to get through peer review- other years it may not. Take the scenario that only 3 of 5 written papers submitted pass peer review. Or the corrections are too big for an author to manage in the time-frame. As the conferences are thematic we cannot necessarily include a late reworked paper in a later issue. How do we then proceed in order to get an issue of JME ready in time for following year’s conference?

In addition, as we don’t have a policy of open submission, we do not have an active pool of papers to draw from if a paper is unsuccessful. An argument could be put forward that the Research Articles section could be peer reviewed- here we do have an open submission policy. On paper this could work (although I cannot say I know of another journal that is part peer reviewed). I feel this would put people whose conference paper is of a good enough quality to pass peer review at a disadvantage. Why publish in JME in a non-peer reviewed section when a peer-reviewed section exists? I believe this could create animosity and discontent amongst our colleagues who submit to JME and need REF points. It might also mean people put less effort into turning their conference paper into well written papers.

If JME papers are to become peer reviewed the whole structure of how we operate and what we produce would need to change. Our current encouraging stance regarding young researchers and those of a less academic background in the sector would inevitably have to change. This could put people at a disadvantage for being selected to speak at the conference, let alone publish in the journal. This is not I believe in the spirit of MEG.

How Would Peer Review Work?

Getting articles peer-reviewed is far from a straight forward business. There is substantial effort in getting and indeed keeping appropriate reviewers. It is very time-consuming and it would slow down the publication process greatly.

Most peer reviewed journals have a team of paid staff that make the system work. Indeed peer review is the reason why you see so many journals being taken over by central publishers- they have a quick and more central system of managing the peer review process.

If It’s not broke, don’t fix It!

Jeremy did so much work getting JME to the professional state it is in. It has a very strong house style and in my opinion is produced to a really high standard.

People understand that JME isn’t peer reviewed but I get the impression that many people choose to publish in JME for reasons other than REF points- especially because they know the journal is circulated amongst a large group of their peers. There is so much competition between high-ranking journals, something I am not sure we want to be part of. JME currently has a solid niche. It works well for the sector, it’s a space for colleagues and MEG members to publish quite easily on a wide range of projects and research UK museum ethnography.

More established researchers may well save their best ideas- most creative use of theory and method for the peer review journals but that’s fine by me! JME does not need to be ground-breaking- it needs to be informative and interesting. Once we continue to have well written papers that give new insights into the history meaning, use and significance of ethnographic collections in the UK (and sometimes abroad) then I believe we are succeeding.

My initial intention was to present a more balanced opinion – weighing up the positives and negatives but in thinking through this- I position myself as opposed to the change. That said, I am open to all ideas people may have and understand it is up to MEG members to decide. I am not resistant to change and indeed one change I could see for JME is that it becomes even more democratic- following Open Source models etc. (not now but maybe in a few years).

The key things we need to ask ourselves on this issue are: Why do we want JME to change? And who is the change for?

2. Jeremy Coote, Former Editor of JME, Pitt Rivers Museum.

In the ten years (11 issues) that I was Editor, it was always my aim to try to make JME as accommodating as possible to the widest range of contributors, while ensuring academic and scholarly standards. I have never seen JME as an academic journal, serving the academic community. In my view it is and should be a professional journal, serving the needs and interests of the membership. It is, however, always in danger of becoming too academic. If anything, in my view, MEG needs to think less about making JME appeal more to academics through becoming a refereed journal and to think more about appealing to the wider membership (and non-members working in museums whom we would like to join us) through publishing less academic (though always respectable) contributions. It should also not be forgotten that the refereeing process can be very time-consuming for the editorial team, who already do a fantastic job for little recompense. As I remember it, Anita Herle adopted the referred approach for JME17 and found it so time-consuming that the committee agreed not to repeat the experiment.

3. Alison Petch, Former Chair of MEG, Pitt Rivers Museum.

One of the reasons that have always been persuasive in deterring refereeing for all articles, in my opinion, is that refereeing may well be off-putting for members (who have written interesting articles) who wish to submit. The journal in the end is a service to MEG members, not to the wider academic community. It should have the highest standards of editing and writing but it should also reflect its many members and their interests. This includes people working in academia but it also includes volunteers and staff working at local authority, private, university and national museums. Not all of these people are forced to jump through academic hoops but all of them probably have an interesting article or two they could write which would inform MEG members.

If we start refereeing I would argue that we are likely to receive many more submissions from non-members who require brownie points for their academic work. I have no objection to non-members publishing in the journal though I think they should be encouraged to join. But I believe non-members contributions should be outweighed by MEG members who have lots of things to say and share (some of whom will also be academics). If refereeing puts the non-academically minded members off submitting then I think that is a very sad thing and it diminishes JME. I have never heard anyone suggest that JME throughout its history has not been of the highest possible standards both in editing and in writing. Why bother to change a working formula for the benefit of only a few members?

4. Inbal Livne, Current Assistant Editor of JME, Powell-Cotton Museum

Whilst most members associated with MEG may be highly qualified and capable of producing papers suitable for peer review, for many of the members, the particulars of their situation make it impractical. Few of us are any longer in the privileged position to be specialists in our fields. As generalists, we require more time, energy and access to suitable materials in order to collate well referenced papers that could be put forward for peer review. The nearest places to me with good quality libraries, with sufficient material on ethnography are in London - it just isn't practical to access them as part of my working week. Nor is my museum in the financial position to subscribe to web based services such as JSTOR, which would at least lessen the need to travel. It seems to me that unless you work for a national museum, or one connected with a university, you will suffer this problem to some extent.

In addition, I agree with the points laid out by other MEG members, particularly those concerning the ROLE of MEG and therefore of the Journal. I do not see why a body designed to promote good professional practice and one that promotes rigorous academic work need to be mutually exclusive, but I do not feel the latter should outweigh the former.

Position Statements in support of a ‘Yes’ Vote

1. Claire Wintle, Former Secretary of MEG, University of Brighton.

I argue the case here for creating a section of JME that is peer reviewed (i.e. conference papers and/or research articles, but not reports and reviews). Since I have known it, JME has always been a highly engaging publication designed to record the professional activities, ideas and perspectives of those working with world cultures collections. It publishes important research to the highest editorial standards. Allocating a proportion of JME to research that has been peer-reviewed would do a number of things: first, and most simply, the status of a ‘peer-reviewed’ publication would help a wider research community to recognise the quality of JME – and the research of its contributors – as it currently stands. Peer review would also create a series of further benefits for MEG members:

Peer review does not necessarily mean changing the style or purpose of articles submitted to JME. Peer review can function differently for different journals and if some JME articles were to be reviewed this would not necessarily mean that JME would become an exclusionary, more ‘academic’ journal. Properly briefed referees would – as befitting the journal of MEG as a Subject Specialist Network – act as supportive commentators or ‘critical friends’ that could add useful perspectives and advice to their colleagues’ work and ideas on particular issues and themes. One suggestion is that all full papers be refereed, but a non-peer-reviewed short report section would continue to allow those who do not want to engage with this process in any form to contribute. But to reiterate, peer review should be seen as a supportive process.  Indeed, I would suggest that referees be drawn from the membership itself: the MEG committee have had a number of discussions in the past about how to further engage the membership in the work of MEG; drawing upon MEG members in this way seems a great opportunity to do just this. This manner of peer review would also reflect the democratic ethos of MEG, allowing a range of professionals to support the work of the editorial team.

The MEG membership includes many academics, PhD students and museum professionals working at institutions that are subject to the Research Excellence Framework (e.g. Cambridge MAA) or other research strategies which require publication in peer-reviewed journals (such as the BM). Indeed, the categories of ‘academic’ and ‘professional’ are not exclusive and individuals that work in both HE and museums throughout their careers (and even at the same time) are not unusual. A peer-reviewed section of JME would solicit more contributions since it would allow all members – including these individuals and groups – to meet their professional obligations while still publishing in the journal that helps them to connect with their colleagues and that represents their sector.

2. Andy Mills, Current Secretary of MEG, University of Glasgow.

My personal concerns about the issue of JME becoming partly peer-reviewed don’t focus on why we might choose to change its current editorial practice. Rather, I am concerned that our Journal isn’t peer-reviewed; I was genuinely surprised back in 2007 to learn that it isn’t, and I am concerned about the message that sends to the world about the Journal, the Museum Ethnographers Group for which it serves as the primary durable record, and museum ethnography as a sub-discipline.

In previous years, when this issue arose, it was argued by some that the Museum Ethnographers Group is not an ‘academic’ group and therefore the Journal of Museum Ethnography should not adhere to ‘academic’ criteria of quality control. I take another view, that MEG is a ‘broad church’ including both academic and non-academic membership. Our ‘new blood’ membership is almost universally qualified to postgraduate level in Museum Studies, Museum Anthropology or World Art Studies. Staff-members of the university museums have played a formative and often dominant role in the life and direction of MEG. Moreover, much ‘academic’ research into Ethnography / World Cultures collections is produced by the curatorial and collections management staff of national and local authority museums – for whom there is no lesser expectation and responsibility to publish at international standards of quality. Peer review is the only widely-recognised method of pursuing those standards.

When any of us needs to conduct background research into the collections we care for, we are consuming peer-reviewed publications as standard practice. Few of us with the inclination to present our research at the MEG conference (or any other) and have it published in JME are unfamiliar with the forms and quality standards of peer-reviewed articles. However, my personal view is that – to all intents and purposes, and from the reader’s viewpoint – JME actually is an ‘academic’ journal, whatever some might argue. Take down and look over any issue published in the last ten years: The majority of papers address highly specialist topics in museology, world art history, material culture studies, or the history of collections; they employ the ‘academic’ system of referencing to a broader body of literature; they systematically offer a central argument by marshalling evidence in a coherent way towards a set of summary conclusions; they emerge from a themed annual conference. These are the basic features of academic journal publishing, and so MEG is actually publishing an academic journal without adhering to the internationally-accepted standards of quality control for academic journals. If we want JME to take an explicitly non-academic format, we shouldn’t be publishing it in an academic format, but rather something more journalistic of wider public relevance. None of our members can believe that museum ethnography is somehow less rigorous or substantial than museology, anthropology or archaeology themselves? Why, then, are we allowing ourselves to shy away from the same quality assurance methods employed in their publications?

It is undeniable that introducing peer review into the editorial process would generate more organisational work for the editorial team and require tighter submission deadlines for contributors. Previous editors and committee members have formerly argued that the process of peer review might intimidate junior members and discourage them from submitting papers to conference through fear of having their submissions rejected. It is the membership of MEG itself, however – our peers - who would provide the core population of reviewers. As a result, it is hardly as if peer review would force an alien system of values onto the contents of JME. More importantly, a reviewer recommending outright rejection is either a mark of a seriously flawed piece, or the reviewer’s unresolvable bias – which the good editors we have at JME would easily differentiate.

Some people have argued that JME doesn’t need to be peer reviewed because it is primarily intended for its membership. It’s very doubtful that the membership of MEG is greater than the total readership of the JME. I also don’t believe that our members expect a lower level of quality control from the publication that their membership subscriptions support than the other journal articles they download from the internet or find in their local library. Furthermore, in recent years, a major achievement of the Committee was to arrange for the back catalogue of JME to become globally available through JSTOR. We are now writing to the world. Given the global coverage of MEG’s interests, the idea that people from the source communities all over the world who created the artefacts we write about, are for some reason not very carefully and critically reading what we write about them is unsupportable. For this reason more than any other, we owe it to our cultural stakeholders and ourselves to pursue the highest standards of quality control over what we publish.