Wikipedia, the next frontier for museums...

How many of us turn to Wikipedia when needing a quick point of reference and have been horrified with being faced with inaccurate information, lack of information or surprised by the quality of an article? Indeed, how many of our potential visitors come across the institutions we work in from having stumbled upon our Wikipedia page?

In this interesting article by Hrag Vartanian, a radical approach taken by Brooklyn Museum is discussed and thought given to how the museum community and scholars can involve themselves through Wikipedia in correcting many of the misrepresentations present in cultural knowledge on the internet.    

The International Contemporary Ethnography Across the Disciplines Hui 2014

The International Contemporary Ethnography Across the Disciplines Hui 2014 'Sensual Landscapes of Ethnography'

26 - 28 November 2014

Special interest day with pre conference workshops 25 November 2014

Call for Abstracts OPEN

Deadline 31 May 2014

Researchers and practitioners from across the disciplines of performance and arts, law, anthropology, education, geography, health, management, business, psychology, sociology, cultural, and ethnic and gender studies - and any other discipline where ethnography advances scholarship and public understanding of the way groups and individuals interact and live their lives into being - are invited to submit papers, posters, creative research sessions, and pre-set thematic sessions. There are three major content strands of themes for the CEAD hui:

Emerging Methods: Traditional, Experimental, Transgressive Forms

Praxis and Advocacy: Doing Ethnography on the Ground

Social Justice and Transformation: Theoretical Ethnographic Vision

For more information visit the website. 

February 15th is the closing date for abstracts for the Gulf Research Meeting 2014 conference at the University of Cambridge, UK, for the three-day workshop "Representing the Nation – the use of heritage and museums to create national narratives and identity in the GCC."

To submit a paper and for more information visit the Gulf Research Centre Cambridge's website

Pacific Presences Conference: Oceanic Art and European Museums

24th-25th March 2014

Booking for our major March conference is now open. For more details email Ali Clark 

Speakers include:

Jonathan Mane-Wheoki
Ralph Regenvanu
Faustina Rehuher-Marugg
Megan Tamati-Quennell
Nicholas Thomas

Details:
March 24th, from 5.30pm, a wine reception and dinner at Corpus Christi College.
March 25th, 9.30am-6pm, one day conference in the McCrum Lecture Theatre, followed at 6.30pm by the opening of an exhibition on Tapa cloth in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. All fees include the wine reception, dinner, conference, conference catering and exhibition reception.

Symposium: Austronesia - A Journey to the Past and Present 24-25 May 2014 Tjibaou Cultural Centre, Noumea, New Caledonia

The Pacific Arts Association (PAA) invites you to attend a 2-day symposium focused on both the ancient and contemporary connections amongst Austronesian peoples/artists. It will be hosted by the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea, New Caledonia, on 24-25 May 2014. 
 The objectives are to explore the ancient connections of our Austronesian ancestors as well as to address the many contemporary connections amongst indigenous art and artists. The increasingly close engagement of Asian and Pacific Island nations creates a need for an understanding of the complex region of Oceania beyond the patterns imposed by Western history and influence. 


Austronesia - ajourney to the past and present is an extension of the collaboration since 2007 between the Tjibaou Cultural Centre of New Caledonia and the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts of Taiwan, whose directors realized the lack of intercultural exchange between the indigenous peoples of Pacific and Southeast Asian countries, whose common ancestry is Austronesian. In its forward-looking ‘Contemporary Austronesian Art Project’ the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts took the initiative to promote Taiwan’s Indigenous artists, establish relationships with contemporary Pacific artists and dialogue with Pacific cultural institutions with a series of major exhibitions and an extensive Pasifika artist-in-residence programme.


This symposium will provide curators, artists, and scholars in the Pacific region (and beyond) the opportunity to view the major exhibition Kanak, L’art est une parole (originated at the Musee Quay Branly, curated by Emmanuel Kasarherou). 

Material Encounters – reassessing military collecting in North America and Tibet Job Vacancy

Material Encounters – reassessing military collecting in North America and Tibet

Research Assistant

£22,465 - £25,161 PRO RATA for 18.5 hours per week

Fixed term contract for six months

British military museums contain significant assemblages of non-European artefacts acquired by soldiers on active service and imperial garrison duties across the globe. These artefacts are often little-known and within their military institutional context have been interpreted with limited reference to their complex cultural biographies.

This pilot project is led by material culture specialists from the fields of anthropology and military history. The intention is to survey and assess the interpretive potential of military collections with reference to two selected British military campaigns: the Seven Years' War in North America (1754-63) and the Younghusband Mission to Tibet (1903-04). The objective is to begin developing a methodology for understanding the value of this ‘hidden’ material: the quantity and quality of the collections, their place in the contexts of military organisational culture, and their meaning as material witnesses of the encounters between non-European peoples and British imperial forces. The project is funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant.

The part-time research assistant (RA) will work under the supervision of the project leaders to survey, photograph and identify relevant material, and research the provenance of objects through related museum documentation and other identified archival holdings, including those in private collections. The RA will engage directly with the curators of the collections concerned, visiting selected museums as appropriate. In building relationships, the theme of knowledge transfer will be highlighted. The work is intended to enable military museums to use and represent their collections better, mapping historical associations between collections and collectors, and representing through them the dynamics of colonial military encounters which embrace diplomacy, alliance and curiosity as well as conflict, appropriation and cultural hegemony.

The research assistant will be part time for six months, based at National Museums Scotland. The timetable will include a formal fortnightly meeting with the project leaders and on-going supervision and advice. Deadline for applications in 20 January 2014.

Further details including job description and application information will soon be available on the NMS website 

International symposium to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the America

Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia 

15 - 17 May 2014

Entitled Exhibitingconcepts, experiencing meanings: current and future curatorial challenges, the symposium will bring together curators and specialists from within and beyond the regions of Africa, Oceania and the Americas to discuss the intellectual and other challenges posed by exhibiting and displaying cultural materials from those regions. Academics/curators with responsibility for, or interest in, anthropological, archaeological and art collections from Africa, Oceania and the Americas are encouraged to attend, as this will be an opportunity to assess current thinking and make international contacts. Students in museum studies and other programmes are especially welcome.

Speakers include Emmanuel Kasarherou (Musée du quai Branly/Centre Tjibaou), Joe Horse Capture (NMAI, Washington DC), Kiprot Lagat (National Museums of Kenya), Gaye Sculthorpe (British Museum), Polly Nooter Roberts (UCLA/LACMA), Noelle Kahanu (Bishop Museum, Honolulu), Colin McEwan (Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC), Boris Wastiau (Musée d' Ethnographie, Geneva), Cristiana Barreto (University of São Paulo).

Details about the symposium fee, accommodation, etc, will be available in early January 2014. To register interest and be placed on the mailing list, please contact Lynne Crossland