Museolo~vand Globalisation

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ICOFOM

TNTERNATIONAL COMMTTTEE FOR MUSEOLOGY:

ICOFOM Study Series: ISS 30
 COUNCIL
ICOM: INTERNATIONAL OF MUSEUMS

ICOFOM
INTERNATIONALCOMMITTEE FOR MUSEOLOGY
COMITINTERNAITONAL POUR LA MUSOLOGIE

Museology and Globalisation

Musologie et mondialisation

PROCEEDINGS
OF THE SYMPOSILTM
Edited by Linda Young

ICOFOM Study Series

ISS30

ICOM 19th General Assembly

Melbourne, Australia
1998

Universiq of Canberra
O The individual authors.
Cover: Unknown Artist
George William Evans (cl 830)
Oil on canvas, 92.0 x 71.2
The University of Melbourne Art Collection, purchased with fnds donated by
Colonel Aubrey Gibson 1972

George William Evans was a cartographer, explorer and artist who m i v d

in New South WaIes in 1802. In 1803 he was appointed Acting Surveyor General
and was sent to find a passage into the interior of New South Wales, becoming the
frrst European to successfully cross the Great Dividing Range in 1813. He settled
in Van Diemen's Land in 1818, where he compIeted further land surveys. He
rehirned to England in 1826, returning to Sydney in 1832 as Drawing Master at
The King's School. He made various drawings and watercolours of Sydney and
Hobart and a nurnber of his works are held in the Dixson Library, Sydney.
This painting is possibly a self-portrait. Shown with his hand on a globe,
perliaps pointing to the areas he surveyed, he is depicted as a gentleman. The rich,
dark colours in the work, its highly finished surface and the detailed rendering of
the subject locate it in the techniques and styles of traditional portraiture.
Coinbining these artistic traditions to create a reaIist portrait, the work suggests a
narrative of exploration and travel, and the larger history of the European
coIonisation of Australia.

Publislied ori behalf of ICOFOM (ICOM International Cornmittee for

Museology) by the University of Canbena, ACT 2601, Australia, 1999
ISBN: 0858897490
Contents

Program, ICOFOM in Melbourne

Summary of discussions

Museums, museology and heritage in Australia and the Pacific

Mali Voi: "Living Cultures ' and jnuseums in the Pacifie

Cressida Bishop: Kei muri a niua-The past detemiines thefuture:

The relationship between Inuseurirs and Maori people in Aofearoa
New Zealand

David Dolan: Museiri~isiri A zrsfi-dia.1998

ICOFOM Symposium: RluseoIogy and GIobalisation

Bernice Murphy: Museunzs, Globalisation and Cztltural Divers@

Caroline Turner: GZobulisedMuseum Practice: Exhibitions

Margaret Coaldrake: Globalised Comrirunicatiuns in and antong

Museuiiis

Contributions by participants

Vanda Vitali :A pos f scr@tuiit:Museology and Globalization

Whar is if?Peut-on coitclure?

Miche1 Menu: Mondialisaiioiz et ntusologie

Ti, Roberts: Militarisation and Museology: Examples of Globalisaiion

al tli e A ralralian War Meiliorial

Furtlier paper contributed by membcrs

Moliica Risnicoff de Gorgas: Muse~i~~rs

and the Crisis of Peoples '
Idei t rity

Felizardo Gourgel: Musologie et niondialisation

Annette Fromm: Think Globally, Act Locally

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE
ICOFOM
Melbourne, 1998

Monday 12 October
WeIcome to ICOFOM in AustraIia: Museums, museology and heritage i n
AustraIia and the Pacific - an overview

Chair: Dr Linda Young, organiser of symposium

Ms Kate Vusoniwailala, Director, Fiji Museum:'The museum scene in the Pacific'

Mr Mali Voi, Cultural Adviser, UNESCO Office for the Pacific, Apia, Samoa:
'The role of rnuseums in the maintenance of traditional cultures in the Pacific'

Ms Cressida Bisbop, Assistant Curator, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New

Zealand: 'Biculhiral issues in New Zealand museums'

Prof. David Dolan, Research Institute for Cultural Heritage, Curtin University,
Perth, Western Austraiia: 'The inuseum scene in Australia'

Mr Trevor Pearce, Heritage Consultant, MeIbourne: 'Indigenous issues in

Australian museums'

Dr Bill Jonas, Director, National Museuni of Australia, Canberra: 'The new

National Museuin of Australia'

Preprints of papers offered by members of ICOFOM are available. An invited

speaker will introduce the big issues in each segment of the symposium, and open
discussion will be invited. Authors of papers are urged to extend their written
arguments in tlie context of discussion.
Session 1
Globalisation, Culture and Museology: Identifying ideas and theories
Chair: Ms Outi Peisa, Head of Exhibitions, Helsinki City Museum, Finland
Speaker: Dr Linda Young, Senior Lecturer, Cuhral Heritage Management,
University of Canberxa, Australia
What is globalisation?
a How does gIobalisation impact on culture?
Museums as culhua1 agents in the era of gIoba1isation

Session 2
Globalisation and Localisation: The role of museums
Chair: Mr John Aage Gjestnrm, Museum Consultant, B~verbni,Norway
Speaker: Ms Bernice Murphy, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney,
Australia
LocaIisation as the other face of globalisation
Whatlwhere are nationaVloca1 identites in the era of globalisation?
What is authentickybrid cuIture in the era of globalisation?
Absorbinglrnodi@in~ybridishg!indigenisgglobaI and local cultures

Tztesday 13 Qctober
Session 3
GIobalised Museum Practice: Exhibitions
Chair: Prof. Tereza Scheiner, rnember of ICOFOM Executive
Speaker: Ms Caroline Turner, Assistant Director, Queensland Art GaIlery,
Brisbane
Transnational lending, borrowing and exhibithg
Transnational fonns: the blockbuster, the biennial, the national museurn
What are the global topics for exhibitions?
Are transnational exhibitions sheer cultural imperialism?

Session 4
GIobalised Communications in and among Museums
Clraii*:Prof. Tereza Scheiner, member of ICOFOM Executive
Speaker: Ms Margaret CoaIdrake, Museum consultant and former Director,
National Museum of Australia
r New technologies for global contact: intemet, email, collection management
Tlie global, virtual museum
Global expectations: International travel by inuseum visitors
Global contacts: International trrivel by museurn workers
ICOM as a globai force
Joint session with ICTOP
Terms and Concepts for Museum Training
Chair: Dr Dan McMichael, member of ICOFOM Executive
Speakers: Prof. Martin Seggar (ICTOP), Ms Nelly Decarolis (ICFOM)

Drinks at the Chinese Museum, 20 Cohen PIace (off Little Bourke St)

ICOFOM dinner: Jan Bo Chinese Restaurent, 40 Little Bourke St

Wednesday 14 Ocfober
Joint Session: ICMAWICMEiMINOMIICOFOM
Museology and Diversi9

Session I
Chair: Ms Maryanne McCubbin, Museum Victoria
Dr Annette B. Fromm (USA) - Exhibition planning - selected realities of
working with culturally diverse groups.
Ms Margo Neale (Australia) - Sites of negotiation in exhibiting culture.
Ms Joyce Herold (USA) - Male presence in Hmong American museum
programs.

Session 2
Chair: Ms Moya McFadzean, Museum Victoria
Dr Susan Isaacs (USA) - Deconstnicting the Museum:Decoding Meaning in a
Community-Based Museum.
Ms Barbara Moke and Ms Bella Graham (AotearodNew Zealand) -
StakehoIders and Meaning Makers: Te Ara O Tainui (Tainui the Joumey).
Ms Judith WasselI (Australia) - Taking the time: consulting with diverse
communities.

ICOFOM Annual Meeting and election of Executive Board for 1998-200 1

Cltair: Dr Martin Scharer
Summary of Discussions

Suinmary of Discussions

Session 1: Globaiisation, curture and museoIogy: Identifying ideas and

theories

The kick-off was given by Linda Young, who presented an analysis of the
literature on globalisation and cuiture, mainly taken from sociology. This
overview touched on the myriad of theoretical approaches to globalisation, starting
with historical explanations, including the economic drivers, leading to issues about
the place of culture within globalisation, and fmally to immediate questions about
museology and globalisation. It provided a matrix to k m e the discussions.
Young proposed a concept of globalisation as a dynamic of contradictory
processes involving not only the hornogenisation (or universaiisation) of
economics, technology, communications and culture, but simultaneousIy abo the
heterogenisation (or particularisation) of al1 these eIements within particular zones
of place, time and society. She suggested that museums are likely to play a special
role in the latter aspect of globalisation, as caretakers of the expressions of original
andlor hybrid cultures.
Participants in the symposium added many further ideas and perspectives.
It was not easy to draw museology into the presentation. For adherents of the
ICOFOM definition of museology as 'the specific relation of man to reality',
the effects of globalisation on human institutions are evidently powerful. A
nurnber of members contributed papers identiQing rnuseum expressions of the
his toricaI circumstances of European coIonialisrn, in which indigenous cultures
were reconstmcted to suit imperial politics. Other members' papers suggested
the ways in which globalised technologies assisted the operations of museurns.
The large processes and products of globalisation, on the other hand, were
rnuch easier to discuss, though popular thought tends to describe it more in
tenns of economics than of culture. GIobalisation can be seen as an ancient
liistorical process of bade and cultural diffusion; as a European-sourced
phenoinenon of various dates between the 16-19th centuries; or as a specific
outcoine of the 20th century and its international wars. For the purposes of
this ICOM General Assembly and for the study of museology, it was
important to extend consideration of globalisation into the sphere of culture
rather than permitting our often primitive understanding of economics to
detennine how we understand gIobalisation.
The irnpacts of globalisation already affect the daily life of many of us, via Our
use of intemationa1communication technologies, our homes filled with imports
from al1 over the world, our world travel as visitors or migrants, our familiarity
with international ideas and culture. Some participants concluded that
globalisation is neither moral nor immoral, but an inescapable fact of modern
life. More construed globalisation as an extended form of imperialism, whether
geiieric '~vestern'or specifically 'European' or 'American'.
 Many saw globalisation as a threat to locaI culture, leading to both rnaterial
and cultural impoverishment. At the same time, it was suggested that the
massive and extended cultural nows of a globalised world is generating new
cultural foms within old and new cultural groups. The question for museology
is: what is the responsibility of museums with regard to both old and new
cultural forms? Tt is evident that museums should document and interpret
both, but must museums defend one at the expense of the other? Do museums
have a duty to value the old, original or indigenous more than the hybrid
contemporary?
Identity was also linked to the idea of the nation state, and to the excesses
leading to the terrible ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and other
countries. In Iess violent forms, these 'identity poIiticsYcan mean typecasting
the individual, even within the same cultural group. 1s this global world a
Tower of Babel where nobody listens to each other?
A more positive definition of cultural identity was that a culture is a duration
of ideals and ideas, which has its own ways of adapting to change. Heritage
also implies open spaces of multiple meanings, where f o m can change but the
culture remains open to rich and diverse expressions.

Session 2: Globalisation and Localisation: the roIe of museums

The second session was introduced by Bernice Murphy, who spoke of the
essential dichotomy of museums in a gIobaIised world where previous concepts
have become poIarised. She noted that concepts such as time and community have
becoine uncertain and transitional. Time can no Ionger to understood as simply
linear, seen only in its physical reality of minute by minute, often making
~nistakenimpressions of cause and effect. Our perception of time is an inner one, a
past time can still be real and affect Our everyday worId, as does the Australian
Aboriginal Dreamtime.
Museums must deal with the opposite poles of the global and the local,
and with the materia1 reality of the object and the immaterial ideas within it. We
live in an intercultural world, neither pluri- nor multi-cultural: a world of distant
contacts and local reality, not the world-wide intimacy that the 'gIobal village'
concept of thirty years ago led us to expect. Murphy urged that museums need to
keep open spaces for the presentation of multiple meanings in order to nurture
cultural diversity.
Mrith regard to the role of museums as localised as well as gIobalised
organisations, interventions addresssd:
+ The present tendency of museums is to anchor theinseIves in the locality
where they are situated. Museurns' emphasis has changed: being locally
anchored and having a specific message in this gIobalised world, they address
tlie local scene. But many participants stresed that rnuseums can and should
address botJi the particuiar and the universal.
Museuiiis are cross-cultural meeting places of greater and greater importance,
coritributing to the resolution of a range of environmental and social issues. It
was argued that the essentially-European form of the museum cm address or
Summary of Discussions

facilitate such cross-culturaI topics in a wide variety of pIaces where it is not

necessarily a native.
Curators are curators of ideas more than collections. Objects as carriers of
information are viewed today fiom the approach of the processes that formed
hem, which processes become much more important than the objects
themselves. But since by definition, museum objects are dissociated from their
originaI use and context, it would seem possibIe that objects themseives could
become unnecessary in a museum of ideas.
Museurns have become program-oriented more than object-oriented, reflecting
the emphasis on the local population and immediate social issues. Can the
tradition of docurnenting culture via its artefacts be extended to the production
of contemporary culture inlby museums?
The lines between people and museum have merged with 'the museum in the
country and the country in the museum', as it was poetically expressed.
Again, fear emerged of a homogenised world driven by influences fiom the
west, with the loss of local diversity and identity. There was perhaps less
optimism about the role museums might pIay in the maintenance of cultural
particularism.

Session 3: GlobaUsed museum practice: Exhibitions

Carolyn Turner introduced the third session, discussing exhibitions as one

of the central functions of museuins, and one which contains increasingly
international purposes. Big exhibitions often display works borrowed fiom
inuseums in distant places; they often travel to severd national or international
destinations; they address ideas of currency tbroughout the world; and they are
seen by travellers from al1 over the world. There has been a great proliferation of
exhibitions such as art bienniah which deliberately seek to showcase the gIobal
inter-connections of contemporary art. Such gatherings of modern culturaI forms
are nioving artworks beyond the idea of mere 'influence' on each other, and even
beyond syncretism. Turner suggested that such all-encompassing exhibitions are
non-liegenionic because they take a global perspective-they are genuine
partnerships which respect difference. The ideal of CO-curatorship may be the
iiieans of avoiding the traps of cultural imperialism.
Participants raised the following issues raised in discussion:
Art exhibitions may be globalising, but history exhibitions are more and more
focussed on the local (or national, or other variety of the particular). 1s it
possible to discover themes which unite these two fields? To what degree do
bot11 depend on word-explanations to convey their meanings? Some
participants questioned the apparent hegemony of bienniah as the dominant
fonii of contemporary art exhibition today-and ail of them, wherever located
(Venice, Sao Paulo, Havana, Kwangju), showing much the same kind of art. 1s
conteinporary art enrirely a hoinogenised, global product?
Tlie question of the place and needs of museum audiences aroused vigorous
discussion. Soine put the arguments that lnuseums are repositories of
ideaslobjectslimages for the use of audiences or communities. Others queried
 Summaty of Discussions

this service ethic to investigate the status and integrity of the makers of
museum ideas/objects/image-for traditionally museurns have honoured the
creative people who manufactureci what are today's coIlections rather than
merely made them available for mass consumption.
The globalised audience for international exhibitions was argued to possess
multi-skills and multi-consciousnesses with which to appreciate the cross-
cultural capacities of the new genre of rnuseum products. How cm we know
more about these potential audiences?
Again it was proposed that globalisation is neither mord nor immoral, but
amoral. We-individuals and community-must judge if and how
globalisation can be good for us. We must be discrimhating and demanding,
and not be ovenvhelmed or taken in by the allure of the glamorous.

Session 4: Globalised Communication in and among Museums

The keynote of the Iast session was given by Margaret Coaldrake, in the
form of an announcement that hi-tech, globalised communications are already upon
us whether we know them or like them, or not. She stressed that net
communication (the Internet) is here and though it is driven by the market, it is not
controlled by anyone. This gives inuseums tremendous apportunities to create and
market their own net-museum products, which wilI have an incomparabIy wider
reach than any physical museum (however international its exhibitions). Museums
on the net might function chiefly as educational or display techniques; and/or they
rnight tap into profit-making markets which could assist the survival of the real-
time museum itseIf. CoaIdrake presented ideas from a number of very recent
publications on the imrnediate trends of our time. Many of these turn on
communications possibilities.
She also stressed the user or audience end of the museum's communication
processes. The Xnternet enables peopIe to becorne creators of content as opposed
to mere colzsuiiiers. At the same time, people of the late 20th-early 2 1st centuries
are sophisticated, cynical and uncertain of the future. Museums must address
tliese states of mind with their cyber-products, from entertainment to information
to saleable goods and services.
The impacts of virhial museum presentations and other net-manifestations
generated rnany directions of discussion.
The enormous potentia1 reach of museum products on the net could mean that
inuseums wiIl not be able tu manage or control their use as is possible
pliysically on-site. This view was seen as having positive consequences for the
creative use of museum images (for instance) by people and in environments
tliat would never otherwise be tauched by the museurn. However, the negative
aspect of such lack of control over museum property is already to be seen in
problems about the copyright of collection items.
A vigorous line of discussion emerged conceming the materiality of museum
objects versus their irnages/representation on the net: are these manifestations
fundainentally different, or fundamentally the same? One line of argument
maintained tliat the net is a product of imagination, and that museology cannot
Summary of Discussions

investigate humans' inner world-only the meanings we give to material

objects and environrnents. The opposite argument was also put: that indeed
the inner world of human ideas, values, feelings and emotions can be explored
in museums,via their material expressions in objects.
The practicaI question arose, of whether a museum web site is the same or
different to the physical rnuseum presence. In some dimensions it is clear that
the web site can offer more-access to entire collection records, even of
material not on display; access to further information about objects;
connections to other reIated museums or web sites. At the same time, the
cyber-museum cannot offer the direct experience of the real object, which is
certainly a Ioss of experience. Maybe this question should not be postulated in
terms of quanti@, but of kind of experience. Do cyber-visitors read something
else than real-time visitors?
The question posed in the previous session, 'How can we know more about
these potential audiences?' was answered in this session, 'By using the taik-
back capacities of the net'. The interactive potential of virtual museums or
otller museum-cyber-product is one of its strengths, speciaIZy in the visitor-
sensitive environment of contemporary museums.
The commercial possibilities of net-based museum products are evidently
large, but who is to develop them? Many suggestions: the museum's own
specialist staff; the museum's marketing staff; licensed agents-or pirates? Tt
is uncornfortable, but we are pushed by the technology and must respond to it
or indeed, grasp it and direct it ourselves), open to negative possibilities as
well as positive ones. If rnuseums ignore the technology they are doomed to
the dinosaur's life and death.
Bishop: Kei Mura a Mua

Kei Mura a Mua-The Past Determines the Future:

The relationship between Museums and Maori people
in Aotearoa New Zealand

Cressida Bishop
Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New ZeaIand
cbishop@cantmus.govt.nz
http://canterbury.cyberpIace.org.nZ,community/museum. html

Kia ora

My name is Cressida Hinepau Bishop. I am named after my grandmother

Hinepau who was named after her great grandmother. Stones and events from the
past determine the present and future for us who have Maori ancestry and
therefore carry Maori whakapapa or genealogy. The past has determined the
present and will determine the future place of Maori people involved with
museuins in Aotearoa New Zealand.

hluseums and Maori

1 will speak briefly about the nature of the relationship between museums
and Maori and the development of a Maori museum forum in New Zealand. I will
discuss this in relation to the care of taonga tuku iho or Maori material culture
passed down by the ancestors. My paper will focus particularly on recent
developinents in the relationship between Maori and Canterbury Museum in
Christchurch where 1 am employed as the assistant to the curators of Archaeology
and Ethnology and where 1 also work as a Kaitiaki Maori.
As a child 1 was raised knowing that my grandmother was Maori and that 1
liad been given one of her names. 1 gew up proud that I had a long history as a
New ZeaIander. My ancestral lineage cornes from the Ngati Awa tribe of the
upper East Coast and the Tainui tribe of the upper West Coast of the North
Island of New Zealand.
The devastation experienced by my ancestors after European settIers
invaded and occupied their land in the earIy 1880s was typical of that experienced
by iiiany Maori of the time. My father's grandfather, Banjo McKay, escaped
froin his home in the Waikato district of the North Island when Pakeha confiscated
Iiis tribal land. He was dispossessed of his land and therefore his turangawaewae,
or place to stand.
Rapid and devastating colonial occupation and land acquisition intermpted
the whole of Maori society in the mid-1880s. As a result of this social
 Bishop: Kei Mura a Mua

imposition, the ideas and practices that helped to provide a coherent, constant and
vibrant Maori art tradition became the subject of Pakeha evaluation and approval.'
There are two general groups of people in New Zealand: Tangata Whenua,
Maori, who belong to the land by right of first discovery, and Tangata Tiriti, or
Pakeha, who belong to the land by right of the Treaty of Waitangi.
The Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document of New Zealand, was
hastily put together and signed by Maon Ieaders and representatives of the British
Crown on 6 February 1840. Its signing was surrounded by much confusion and it
is stiII the object of grievance. Discrepancies between the Maori and English
versions of the Treaty are the cause of much of this grievance. The Maori who
signed the Treaty believed that they were accepting the governorship of the
British Crown only, not ceding their absolute sovereignty and right of authority
over their cultural resources. The Crown promised Maori the tino rangatiratanga
or total govemance over al1 their resources and an equaI bicultural partnership with
Pakeha New Zealanders.
Tt has been demonstrated that these promises were grossly neglected by
the Crown. 'The Treaty was ignored and considered a "legal nuIIity" in the 1870s
and settler governrnents created absurd legislation to alienate Maori from the
ancestral lands, resources and cultural dignityYa2 The recent redressing of the
grievances caused by this neglect has liad an impact on museums as holders of
taonga. 'Today, the principles of the Treaty are based on equality and partnership
between the two parties'.3 Biculturalism 'means aclcnowledging the right of Maori
to detemine their own destiny. This is the logical outcome of recognising Maon
rangatiratanga as guaranteed under the Treaty of ~ a i t a n ~ i ' . ~
Virtually every museum in the country claims that it acknowledges the
principIes of the Treaty of Waitangi. In varying degrees, museurns in New
Zealand are inoving towards empowering Maori to controI the care and
interpretation of the taonga in their collections. Museums in New Zealand today
tend to cal1 themselves bicultural.

Taonga tuku iho

The proverb, 'he inatua pou whare e rokohia ana, he matua tangata e kore e
rokohia' ('the main (parent) pole in a house can always be found, but a human
parent cannot aIways be found'), encapsulates the nature of the taonga tuku iho
which resides in the tnuseums of New Zealand. Taonga tuku iho is Maori material
culture that represents to Maori both tangible and intangible histories fiom the
past through to the present.

' Hakiwai, Arapata, 1987. 'Museums as Guardians of our Nation's Treasures', AGMANZ Journal
18 (2), p.206.
' Tamarapn, Awhina, 1994. 'MuseumKaitiaki: Maori Perspectives on the Presentation and
Management of Maori Treasures and Relationships with Museums', Commonwealth Association
of hluseums/LJniversityof Victoria, Hull, 1996, p.43 The benchmark case for the Trealy being
considered a "nullity"occurred in the case of Wi Parata vs Bishop of Wellington 1877.
'Tamarnpa, Op.Cit., p. 43.
'Butts. D., 1994. 'The Orthodoxy of Bi-culturalism'. Neiv Zealaiid Milseunts Jorrrtial, 24(2), p.32.
Bishop: Kei Mura a Mua

A taonga such as carved house, or whare whakairo, is a physical reference

point to the spiritual side of Maori culture. It embodies both the physical skills of
the ancestors and the spirituality, history, protocols and stories that surrounded
the work from before its conception to the present day.5 Living Maori develop
cultural identity only through the place prepared for them in their whakapapa by
their ancestors. Taonga tuku iho embodies this whakapapa.
Because of the implications of whakapapa, al1 Maori working in museums
are responsible for the spiritual and cultural care of taonga Maori held in museurns,
regardless of their position of employment. We are their kaitiaki or culturaI
guardians within the institutions and provide the link between the spiritua1 and
physical Maori worlds. We could not fulfil this role without the knowledge and
support of our kaumatua and kuia, or elders.
For taonga to be cared for in a way that keeps them warm, or 'alive' by
preserving their dignity and prestige, certain belief systems and protocols have to
be acknowledged. When taonga tuku iho were placed in museums and not cared for
properly, their associated histories and spirituality was displaced from Maori
people. Such objects are part of the wahi ngaro, or Iost portion, of Maori culture .
Many museums in New Zealand hold a large number of such taonga.
Museums were traditionally 'bastions of European culture. Their
foundations were built on a western premise that honours imperialism and
prevents other cultures from explainhg their own realitie~'.~They developed in
the Victorian era, a time when a fascination with the past was the product of an
age obsessed with change.
The publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species and the popularity
of Herbert Spencer's phrase 'the survival of the fittest' promoted a concept of
progressivism which was designed to place European culture at the high point of
deveIopment and eliminate any society which could hinder progress. European
tlieorists assumed that the Maori were a 'dying race' of people who would be
eliininated by the superiority of the greater European race.7
'Maori material was coIlected and placed in museums to preserve the
"nobIe ~ a v a ~ e " ' . Early
~ museums were 'cabinets of curiosities' where stuffed
carcasses of exotic birds were placed alongside taonga Maori. Items were grouped
according to type and function rather than provenance or history. The first
director of Canterbury Museum, Julius von Haast, was a friend of Darwin and
sent colleagues such as the ornithologist, Walter Buller, on colIecting trips
tbroughout the country where he obtained Maori material for the Museum. Von
Haast was a scientist and avid supporter of progressivism and as a consequence
little is h o w n about tliese taonga.

hlead, H.M.,1985. 'Concepts and Models for Maori Museums and Cultural Centres',
ACMANZ Joirriial, Seplember, p.3,
"amarapa Op.Cir., p. 42.
' Sorrenson, M.K.P., 198 1. 'Maori and Pakeha', in Oliver, W.H. (ed.), Tlie Oxford Hisr001 03
hreii,Zecilotrd, OUP, \Vellington.
li Tarnarnpa Op. Cir.. p. 42.
Bishop: Kei Mura a Mua

Kaitiaki Maori group of museum workers, Mina persuaded many of us to follow a

career in museums.
She was a board member and chairperson of many heritage organisations, a
museum director and leader of museum studies, and the mentor of many Maori
and non-Maori museum studies students. She was a staunch supporter of both her
Rangitane Maori community and an authority on Maori heritage who was not
afraid to challenge anyone on issues she felt strongly about.

Biculturalism and New Zealand museurns associations

~'iculturalisrnand its vanous interpretations was a much discussed topic at

the Art Galleries and Museums Association of New Zealand's conferences in the
late 1980s. In May 1991, the annual general meeting of the Museums Association
of New Zealand (or AGMANZ), gave unanimous support for substantial
refocusing and revitalisation of the Association's structure and services. The new
name of the organisation was the Museums Association of Aotearoa New Zealand
- Te Ropu Hanga Kaupapa Taonga (MAANZ) and a new constitution was drawn
UP*

The composition of the Council changed to demonstrate the Association's

cornmitment to a bicultural partnership with the tangata whenua. The new council
was made up of ten elected members fiom the Association's membership and ten
members appointed from the membership of Kaitiaki Maori. Kaitiaki Maori is an
infonnal organisation of Maori people who care for Maori heritage in public
institutions.
These changes in the constitution were a clear sign of the cornmitment of
many in the museum profession to fundamental structural change which would
result in effective power sharing. Many positive Maori projects and hui were
supported by MAANZ.
At the combined 1996 conference of MAANZ and the New Zealand
Museum Director's Federation (MDF), the MDF proffered and it was agreed, that
a working group be fonned to develop a strategy for establishing a single-sector
organisation. This single-sector organisation was to be called Museums Aotearoa -
tlie Museums of New Zealand, and would provide benefits for both individual and
institutional members of the proposed association.
The opportunity to buy into the strategy was offered to MAANZ who
after soine discussion decided to accept in principle. Because of the bicultural
constitution of MAANZ, a major consideration for the integration of the two
organisations was the position of Kaitiaki Maori and how our needs rnight best be
inet by Museums Aotearoa.
Tlie financial resources of MAANZ, required by Museums Aotearoa to
coinplete the arnalgamation of the organisations, were to be divided between
iiidividual tiiembership and Kaitiaki Maori interests and a sum to be set aside for a
scliolarship in memory of Mina McKenzie. The Kaitiaki Maori representatives on
tlie MAANZ Council agreed to consider our position and the wider ramifications
of the anialgamation. Tlie opportunities offered by Museums Aotearoa were seen
 Bishop: Kei Mura a M u a

to be considerable and it was decided that any weaknesses in the proposa1 wouId
be dealt with through a strategic approach.
The decision to accept the Museums Aotearoa proposa1 by our Kaitiaki
Council was unanimous but it was agreed that acceptance was conditional on
Museums Aotearoa accepting several conditions. We assembled these conditions
into a document entitIed Kei Muri a Mua! -The past detemines the future!
The preservation of Kaitiaki autonomy in the organisation was considered
essential by the Kaitiaki CounciI. The transfer of the principle of bicultural
development and a cornmitment by Museums Aotearoa oa to its irnplementation
was seen to be the critical aspect but not necessarily the mechanisrn of equal
representation.
The hui agreed that 'Museums Aotearoa, acting as a parent body, and
Kaitiaki establishing as a subsidiary sector interest group, could formulate jointly a
bicultural strategy and in so doing achieve the autonomy and positioning sought
under the current proposal'.
To achieve this, Museums Aotearoa needed to be capable of implernenting
a bicultural strategy. This could be achieved by inserting the principIes of the
Treafy of Waitangi into its terms of reference. The Treaty was seen to be the
foundation document from which biculturaIism derived and therefore a critical
strategic instrument.
The Council requested that Museums Aotearoa create and dedicate
resources to a paid administrator position as part of the organisation's executive
team, charged specifically with Iooking after the affairs of Maori working in
heritage institutions.
In addition to these proposals, the CounciI agreed that the process of
organisational integration reIied on Museurns Aotearoa's preparedness to discuss
and action the following six-point strategy outlining the medium to long-term
priorities for Kaitiaki Maori:
Training and develapment that targets Maori specifically
Provision of resources that allow Maori to continue to network
A coinmitment to the development of services that meet the needs of Maori in
museurns
Recognition of tlie role that kaumatua play as the guardians of things Maori
Promotion of the role of Museums Aotearoa specifically to Maori
organisations.
These conditions for amalgamation of the two professional bodies were
presented, and subsequently accepted, by the Museums Aotearoa Board. The
Maori members of the Board are currently working to set up forma1 networks for
Maori inuseum and heritage workers. Previously, we had a very informal Kaitiaki
Maori group. A few of us got together at an annual hui and made an effort to keep
in touch and to give each other support and advice. There is a need for p a t e r
inter-institutional support for Maori museum workers.
MAANZ, in partnership with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa's
National Service's department, supported several bicultural projects. The most
important of these was Gerard OtRegan's research report Biculfural Developments
i i i Mirsewiis of Aotearoa: Wtat is die current status? This report identified two
Bishop: Kei Mura a Mua

types of participation by Maori in museums. Passive participation, where Maori

are consumers of museum products and services, and active participation, where
Maori contribute to the products and services a museum provides.
Maori participation at Canterbury Museum in the last ten years there has
been a great increase in active Maori participation in museums, as employees and
also in management and governance. During the twelve years since Te Maori
visited Christchurch and was exhibited at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery,
much has chmged in the relationship between Maori people and Canterbury
Museum. The Museum is slowly encouraging active rather than passive
participation by Maori in its activities.
Canterbury Museum has eurocentrie roots in common with most New
Zealand museums and until 1997, had an oficial relationship with Maori through
only one Maori person, a local tribal elder who was appointed by Ngai Tahu to
represent Maori on the Museum's tnist board. The Canterbury Museum Trust
Board Act 1993 stipulates one iwi nominee on a trust board of eleven members.
The authority over Maori interests and collections was therefore decided by a
group that was over ninety percent non-Maori. In 1997, a standing Maori liaison
cornmittee named Te Ohaki O Nga Tupuna was established to deal with al1 Maori
issues arising in the Museum that needed the support and advice of the Maori
coinmunity.
A hui entitled 'Ma wai a tatou taonga e tiaki? - Who cares for our taonga?'
was hosted by Canterbury Museum in Novernber 1997. Staff h m local museums,
artists, and members of the Maori community met to discuss bicultural issues and
Maori participation in local museums. The hui organising team decided that the
two greatest goals for the hui should be to try to help Maori to feel more
comfortable about visiting the Museum and to educate Museum staff about basic
Maori protocols and bicultural issues.
This was the first hui most Canterbury Museum staff had attended. Many
staff were afraid of what the hui might involve and required encouragement and
reassurance to feel comfortable about attending. A huge number of people in the
coininunity and the profession were invited to the hui and it was interesting to
observe who chose or were able to attend. The group who attended was dominated
by staff froin various institutions and Young, educated Maori people who wanted
to see how the Museum was going to care for their taonga. Several older member
of fie Maori community attended and were pleased to be invited into the
Museiim.
The hui was successful at making Museum staff more aware of Maori
issues but less successful at rnaking Maori people feel that it was okay for them to
corne and be part of the Museum's decision making process. The hui organising
teaiil decided that further hui for specific sectors of the Maori community would
be heId to gradually work towards overcoming this banier.
A Iiui is now held at the Museum each time an issue arises that requires
Maori to determine the outcorne. The word is spreading in the Maori community
that the Museuin is no longer attempting to make any decisions about Maori
~nattersfor Maori. The Museum is actively encouraging Maori decision-making
autonorny at a governatice level,
 Bishop: Kei Mura a Mua

Canterbury Museum still needs a bigger Maori presence. Of nearly fifty

staff, the Museum employs three Maori staff but none of us are employed as
Kaitiaki Maon in an official capacity; that is, our Kaitiaki work is not included as
part of our job descriptions. We are looking fornard to the tirne that a Kaitiaki
Maori can be employed to act as a liaison between Museum staff and the
community and provide suppo~? for Maori worlang within the institution. The
Ohaki cornmittee recently gave the Museum a Maori name, Te Whare Taonga-o-
nga-pakihi-whakatekateka-O-Waitaha. The name is used in speeches and
correspondence. As the Museum continues to communicate and co1Iaborate with
the Maori cornmunity the use of this name will increase.
Maori are aiready bicultural as a result of a more powerful culture being
iinposed on their own. It is the responsibiIity of the still Iargely eurocentric,
Pakeha, Treaty partner to evolve to a level of equal CO-existence.Museums and
other heritage organisations in New Zealand are helping this evolution by acting in
accordance with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Kaitiaki Maori are
looking forward to exciting advances in the future.

No reira, Ka mutu toku korero ino 'Kei Muri a Mua'. Kia kaha, kia rnanawanui.
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa.

References

Barlow, Cleve, 1991. Tikariga Whakaaro. Oxford University Press, Auckland.

Bennett, Manu., 1993. 'Quo Vadis?' in Ihimaera, Witi, Te Ao Maratlia 110.2, Reed
Books, Wellington.
Butts, D., 1994. 'The Orthodoxy of Bi-culturalism'. Nw Zealand Museuirrs
Journal. 24(2).
Doherty, Joe and Kaitiaki Maori Council, (1997). Kei Muri a Mua! -The past
derertizines the jltirre! Kaitiaki Maori and Museums Aotearoa. Unpublished
document.
Hakiwai, Arapata, (1 987). 'Museurns as Guardians of our Nation's Treasures',
A GMANZ Journal 18 (2).
Kawharu, 1. H.,(ed,), 1989. Maori and Pakeha Perspectives of the Treafy of
IVaitaizgi. Oxford University Press, Auckland.
Mead, H.M., 1985. 'Concepts and Models for Maori Museums and Cultural
Centres'. AGMANZ Jourrral. September.
Mead, H.M., 1986. 'The Nature of Taonga': Taonga Maori Conference.
Department of Interna1 Affairs.
Mead, H.M.,1993. 'Te Maori in New York', in Ihimaera, Witi., Te Ao Marama
no.2, Reed Books, Wellington.
New Zealarrd Milseums Jortrnal, 1995. Selected Conference Papers 1992-1994,
25I 1)
Nelu Zealarid Mrisnrnrs Juunial, 1997. Selected Conference Papers 1996,26(2).
Orange, Claudia, 1987. The Treaty of Waitarrgi.Allen & Unwin, Wellington.
Bishop: Kei Mura a Mua

OtRegan, Gerard, 1997. Bicultural Developnzents in Mweums of Aotearoa: What is

the current sralus? MONZMAANZ. Wellington.
O'Regan, S., 1991. 'Maori Control of Maori Heritage', in GathercoIe, P., and
Lowenthal, D.,The Politics of the Past. Unwin-Hyman, London.
Rau-Kupa, M., 1993. 'The MobiI Comection', in Ihimaera, Witi, Te Ao Marama
110.2, Reed Books, Wellington.
Reynolds, Sherry, 1991. ' AGMANZ' (editorial), New Zealand Museums Journal
21(1).
Sorrenson, M.K.P., 1981. 'Maori and Pakeha', in Oliver, W. H.,(ed.). n e Oxford
History of New Zealand. Oxford University Press, Wellington.
Tamarapa, Awhina, 1994. 'Museum Kaitiaki: Maori Perspectives on the
Presentation and Management of Maori Treasures and Relationships with
Museums' . Symposium papers publshed as Curatorskip: Indigenous
Perspectives in Post-Colonial Societies. Commonwealth Association of Museurns
ConferencellJniversity of Victoria, Hull, 1996
Te Atairangikaahu, Te Arikinui, 1993. 'The Closing of Te Maori', in Ihimaera,
Witi, Te Ao Maraiiia no.2, Reed Books, Wellington.

Aotearoa: New Zealand

Iwi: Maori tribes
Hui: Gathering, meeting for discussion
Kaitiaki: Guardians, cultural custodians
Kaumatua, kuia: Tribal elders
Maori: Indigenous person of New Zealand
Mihi: Greeting
Ngai Taliu: Tribal group from a large area of the South Island of New Zealand
Ohaki: Mantle
Rangitane: Tribal group from the centre of the North Island of New Zealand
Tangata Whenua: Maori, people who belong to the land
Taonga tuku iho: Maori material cultural n-easures
Tino rangatiratanga: TotaI governance
Tupuna: Ancestors
Turangawaewae: Home base, place to stand
Walii ngaro: Lost portion of time, place etc.

Acknowledgements

1 wouId like to thank the Iate Professor Keith Thomson for his bequest, leading to
the establishment of the Keith Thomson Mernorial Scholarship Fund, that
provided scliolarships for me and several other New Zealanders to attend the 1998
ICOM Conference in MeIbourne. 1 ain also grateful to Te Papa's National
Services for their coiitribution.
Coaldrake: Globalised Cornunications

Globalised Coinmunication
in and among Museums

Margaret
Managing Director of DG3 ConsuIting, Canberra, Australia
margaret.coaldrake@d~.com.au

In his recent text One World Ready or f i t , William Greider describes

globalisation as 'a wondrous new machine, stong and supple, a machine that reaps
as it destroys.. . sustained by its own forward motion, guided mainiy by its own
appetites. And it is accelerating.. ..' (Greider 1997:11)
Greider's view of the economic globalisation revolution is one in which
'new technoIogies enable peopIe and nations to take 'sudden leaps into modemity,
while at the same time they promote the renewaI of once-forbidden barbarisms.
Arnid the newness of things, exploitation of the weak by the strong also fiourishes
again.' (Greider 1997:12)
These are graphic, disturbing pictures of the globalised world context in
which to consider the effects of globaIised cornnunications within and among
rnuseums. They also constitute the best description of globalisation I have corne
across.
What are 'gIobalised co~munications'? How cm you have something
which is simultaneously global as well as 'within and among' a single set of
institutions? 1 am being deliberately pedantic here - of course we al1 know that the
juxtaposition between global and local is not only possible, but it is the core of the
globaIising phenornenon. But 1 draw the distinction to dernonstrate a key point.
That is, that museums have traditionally focussed on their 'Iocal'
audiences, depending on visitors, locals and tourists alike, who make the effort to
walk tlirough their front doors or visit their traveIIing exhibitions.
Global communications have made possible an almost infinite widening of
this focus. GIobalised communications give us the perfect opportunity to take our
niessages beyond the visitor to the great body of non-viitors. Globalised
corninunications Iet museuins turn non-visitors into 'users'; and at least some of
tliose users will then become visitors.
While universal access to new corrimunications technologies amongst the
global iiiuseum cornmunity is still far away, access is increasing at an astounding,
exponential rate. For instance, remote indigenous communities were among the
first in Australia to use the Intemet effectively for communications and marketing.
I~nportantly,there is within UNESCO a real effort now to ensure that developing
countries gain tlie expertise and technology to give them a voice in cyberspace.
\J71ienI asked ~nembersof this audience to raise hands if your museum has,
is linked to, or is developing a web-site, and how many of you use email regularly
to speak witli your colleagues, tliere was about a 90% positive response. Alrnost
as inany of you use the Internet for research as welI as communication.
 management of each object including conservation records, storage location and
catalogue data. Any Iack of commonality of thesaun, quality and quantity of
information between rnuseums is overcome by linking through the Internet on
sites such as Australia's Cultural Network (http://www.acn.net.au).
The global, virtual museum:AI1 museums together male up a gIobal museum.
We here at this conference, and Our colleagues at home, staff the global
museum. It includes coIlections held in private hands, in indigenous
communities and the oral and intangible cultures of al1 the world. The globe is
the museum. The virtual museum is something else. But tbat too is nearly here
as 1will discuss below.
Global expectations due to international travel by museum visitors: This is sdf
evident. We know from research that globalisation forms people's expectations
about future, as well as present, expenences. A study of more than 2000
households in 30 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa showed
that it is those who are already 'plugged in' to the Internet and other
technologies who are most wary of what the future might hold. Consumers
who are not yet plugged in are far less apt to express such concerns. (Matathia
and Salzrnan 1998:23)
ICOM as a global force: If ICOM is to remain relevant into the next
inillennium then it should take its globaI mandate seriously and consider taking
upon itself the task of ensuring that al1 museums and their workers have access
to the Internet within the next three years.
I would lie to expand on the issue of concem about the future which 1
dealt with briefiy above.
Today's consumers are cynical. They are less susceptible to the ploys of
politicians, preachers, teachers, advertisers - and alas, museums. They're receiving
infinitely itlore and more complex messages than they were even a few years ago.
And they're worried - about their futures, their countries, their jobs, their cities
and villages, their schools, violence at home and overseas. They want securie in
brands and relationships with things they know. Trend readers tell us that we are
suffering what has become known as 'premillennial tension'. Without taking take
the tenn too seriously, we sholild take seriousIy what it describes, namely, an
iilicertainty about the future and the changes it will assuredly bring.
Museology must take account of this anxiety. It has the capacity to allay
fears by himing people's view to their cultural heritage, their persona1 anchors.
This niust be a key objective for museums in the next five years. To do this,
iliuseuins need to grasp the next millennium by the horns, not to stand back and be
buffeted in the slip stream as the general population passes us by. Museums must
lead, not follow.
The examples below are some of the myriad ways in which
corninunications technologies can, or soon will be able to, help museums in this
task.
E-coiiiri~erce:The ability of consumers to purchase goods and services on the
Iiiternet is a potentially lucrative revenue stream for museums. Aero-
Space.com is an excellent exainple of how globaliscd communications and new
techiiologies can be used to enhance the future of museurns: a global
 Coaldrake: Globalised Communications

partnership of air and space museums which will place their digitised
collections on the Internet on a commercial basis with a consortium of
commercial partners. Aero-Space.com is designed to overcome the single most
important weakness that museums face vis a vis the new technologies. That is,
their inability to re-invest money at a suscient level quickly enough to renew
the technology as fast as their commercial cornpetitors.
Legal implications of globalised museums: To mention only two. The first is
dornain names and trade marks where 'there cm be as much value in an address
in the virtual world as there is in a trade mark in the real world'. (Deacons
Graham & James 1998a) The second legaI issue is the 'Y2Kbug', the known
but undefined issue of the likely failure of embedded technology at midnight on
31 December 1999 - now less than 500 days away. It canies major
implications for liabilities in, for example, public buildings. Museums need to
'implement a well devised risk management pIan assessing the impact of the
"millennium bug" and identifying contingencies.' (Deacons Graham & James
1998b)
Cyber-research (e-polls): Museums can use cyberspace as a vehicle for
consumer and marketing research, by staying in touch with visitors after their
visits or even before. A convenient and relatively inexpensive form of research,
xespondents tend to be opinion-Ieaders and change-agents, which counterack
the fact that the sample is never representative.
Cyberpersuasion: Smart companies don't only work to spread their message in
cyberspace. They also monitor Internet content and take whatever actions are
necessary to protect their brand.
Convergence: The coming half-PC-lialf-TV in a single box wilI be in an
estimated 20% of US households by 2002, The opportunities for museums
with access to this market are lirnitless.
Entertainment options on the Internet: Studies typically show that research
and email are the two biggest uses of the Net. However, online gaming, fan
clubs, hobby groups and chatrooizis are a11 increasing. In fact, there are millions
of people on the Net looking for entertainment. There are pIenty of examples
of chat fomn~sabout museology - but why don't museurns involve the public
in deciding wiIl see in museums?
Adjunct programrning on the Net: Specially constructed Internet versions of
exhibitions are increasing. There is no reason why this concept could not be
expanded to enable exhibition planning between museums by Intemet.
One-stop family entertainment centres: Museums should consider a presence
in the growing number of these centres which feature multimedia, Internet
access, film studios, arts and crafts centres, retailing and birthday party rooms.
Virtual travel: In this globalised world people no longer have enough down
tinie for real liolidays. Instead, they take virtual holidays such as a weekend in
Atnsterdain whicli includes access to varied travel and cultural experiences
iiicluding the Rijksnluseum and the Van Gogh Museum, visiting shops and
restaurants, and cmising the red-light district.
Coaldrake: Globalised Cornunications

Garnes for the business mveller: Many frequent business travellers instal
games on their Iaptop cornputers to play when not in meetings. Museums
could give them something far more edifying.
Virtual museums: With the advent of digitisation, museums have the
opportunity to create virtual representations of real objects. Many are already
taking digital p hotograp hs of collections or transferring images held b y
traditional means to a digital format. These new digital versions will form the
necessary basis for deveIoping virtual reaIity and digitally mastered copies of
objects and items in our collections or even items which have not survived.
VirtuaI reaIity is stiIl in its infancy and available only to a select few and then
in the context of bulky viewing equipment. But virtual reality 'rooms' or
'areas' are the coming technology. In these it will be possible to move freely in
a virtuaI environment. Museums can be at the forefront of this development.
This opens up possibilities of 'using' objects in a way not previously
possible. For example, it wiII be possible to ride in planes, trucks and trains, or
to sip imaginary wine from a jewel-encrusted goblet of inestimable worth, or to
practice smiling like the Mona Lisa. (see further Fopp 1998) This c m be
created not in one place but in dozens, if fimding allows. The experience of
virtual reaIity displays in museums to date suggest such virtual experiences
wou1d be Iiugely popular with peopIe who are not visiting museurns now.

To conclude, 1 retum to my earlier point about the tautology in the session

topic. If it weren't for more, better, faster communication there would be no
globalisation-globaIisation is communication and communication is global. In my
view they are synonymous.
Museums are endeavouring to present a world view at some level. In many
cases it is a wide and ambitious world view. To do this effectively they must
en~braceglobal communication or risk being Iefl as 'musealised specimens of their
own genre' (Young 1998:103). In Greider's words: 'The only way to escape a
sense of lielplessness is to confront this new world on its own terms... people and
natioiis Inay restore a sense of control over their own destinies only if they are
willing to face the complexity, onIy by grasping the operating impemtives that
drive the global system and the fuIl scope of human consequences that it yields.'
(Greider 1997:15-16 )
This will not be easy. Of the five latest-release books 1 read to prepare for
this paper, not one mentioned museums in the index. Only one had anything to
say about culture!
Where are we, the museoiogists of the world, in the greater scheme of
things? 1-Iow do we ensure that museums not onIy have a future but that our
future is controlled, and useful, and contributes to the human agenda rather than
just rolling with the corporate agenda? How do we contribute to UNESCO's aim
of a 'tniIy global culture of peace'? (UNESCO 1995: 58).
This,it seenis to nie, is the real question to be answered by museology in a
globalised lvorld.
 Coaldrake: Globalised Communications

References

Borland, Helen (Ed), 1994, Coiiiniuiticaiion di Idenfity Local, Regional, Global,

Australian and New ZeaIand Communication Association, Canberra
Brecher, Jererny & Tim CostelIo, 1994, Global Village or Global Pillage,
Econornic Reconstruclion From the Bottom Up, South End Press, Boston
Deacons Graham & James, 1998a, Eureka, intellechtal Propevp and Technology
Law Newsletter, April 1998, Deacons Graham & James, Perth
Deacons Graham & James, 1998, Year 2000 Statement, Deacons Graham & James,
Canberra
Dolan, David, 1998, 'Cultural Franchising, Imperialisrn and Globalisation: What's
New?' in Museology and Globalisation, ICOFOM papers for ICOM 19th General
Assembly
Fopp, Michael, 1998, 'Utilising the Assets of Museums in the Digital World',
paper delivered at IATM meeting, Adelaide.
Greider, WiHiam, 1997, One World Reudy Or Not, The Manic Logic of Global
Capitalisnl, Penguin, London
Hewison, Robert, 1998, 'Changing the business culture', in Smarts 15
Martin, Hans-Peter & Harald Schumann, 1997, The Global Trap: Globalization
and the assault on prosperiy aird dei~iocracy,Pluto Press, Sydney
Matathia, Ira & Marian Salsman, 1998, h l , Trends for the Future, Macmillan,
Sydney '
UNESCO, 1995, UNESCO and a Cztlture of Pence, Pronloring a Global
Moveiiient, UNESCO Publishing, Paris
Young, Linda, 1998, 'Globalisation, Culture and Museums: A Review of Theory',
in Mrlseology arrd Globalisafion, ICOFOM papers for ICOM 19th General
Asseinbly
Fromm: Think Globally, Act Locally

Think Globally, Act Locally

Annette B. Fromm
Ziff Jewish Museum of Flonda, Miami Beach, Florida

More and more museums worldwide are creating projects which caii for
active community involvement. h u a 1 meeting programs and professional
journals often have at least one session or article about program and exhibit
development with the participation of cornmunities. There are multiple reasons for
this impetus to reach out to their constituencies.
New community-based scholarship is creating new data about and different
approaches to the interpretation of artefacts long housed in some museums. The
proliferation of evaluation methods has provided information about visitor needs
at museums fiom many points of view including that of community members.
Finally, museum staff often seek reaffirmation from community leadership that
the information presented is correct. They are seeing an insider's perspective to
the topic at hand. The axiom of reinventing the wheel is at work in these efforts
which have been taking place worldwide over at least the past twenty years.
No inatter where museum professionals work with communities, the same
basic principIes are involved and necessary in order to reach a consensus and an
outcorne which is acceptable to both the museum and the cornmunity. Museum
professionals need to be aware of the comrnunity-inclusive planning that has taken
place and is taking place in even the srnaIIest museums in their own nations as well
as in other countries. They need to generaIise from the experiences of their
colleagues globally and to act locally based on the specific needs of their
institution and the comlnunity with which they are cooperating.
The following are some of the principles which are at play in museum-
coinmunity interaction. Insight for this essay cornes fiom approximately twenty
years of ivorking in niuseums of different sizes that were irnmersed in cornmunity
coIlaboration. In the late 1970s, the Greater Cleveland Ethnographie Museum was
unique in its representation of the multiplicity of over 80 immigrantlehic groups
in the major, Arnerican urban area, Cleveland, Ohio. The mission of the Fenster
Museum of Jewish Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is to strengthen the identity of a very
slilall Jewish community that resides in the buckle of the Bible belt. At the same
tirne, it seeks to educate nonJews about Jewish history, culture and beliefs. In the
seat of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation the Creek Council House Museum in the
O h u l g e e , Oklahoma, is devoted to telling the story of the Creek Indians. The
Miiseuiii is run by a non-Indian private organisation. The Oklahoma Museum of
Natural History is at a unique crossroads. Tt is moving from its small home with
4500 square feet of exhibition space to a new facility of 50,000 square feet a ten-
fold increase. Al1 archaeology and ethnography exhibits are being created anew
witli active participation of tribal members.
 Fromm: Think Globafly,Act Localiy

Central to any successful collaboration is communication. This ski11 takes

many shapes during work with community groups. The museum's intentions need
to be successfully communicated to participants - the community and the museum
staff. Cornmunity members as a whole aIso need to be aware of the purpose and
background of a project as well as receive regular updates of progress on the
project.
Once a project is determined using community participation, the
individuaIs hvolved in the project - fiomthe museurn and fiom the cornmunity -
need to accept that al1 participants have an qua1 voice in the proceedings. The
knowledge of scholars will not necessatily overshadow that of an elder. The
subjective approach and point of view of a community leader caries the same
weight as a museum staff member. Throughout the process, a sensitive team leader
will continually check and recheck with a11 members of the team that s/he has
interpreted their input and contribution sensitively and correctly. The ability 'to
frame and translate community-based ideas into museum language is an important
responsibiIity of the team leader.
New skills wiIl emerge in the team members as the process proceeds. They
will develop in response to different and distinct communication and rhetoric
styIes. For example, members rnay have to patiently wait through silences before a
key point is presented. On the other hand, they rnay have to listen to a lengthy
oration fiom a comrnunity member whose group values narrative skills before
another key point is reached.
Whether the project includes community members fiom conception or a
later date, al1 means of communicating with that cornmuni@ must be found and
used, openly. At certain regular points determined by the museum staff,
information should be disseminated to the cornmunity. Media such as
newspapers, newsletters, radio, and TV cm be effective in updating community
rnembers. Persona1 visits to important groups - councils, elders, etc. - also help in
reaching a broad representation of community members. Different leve1s of
leadership often exist within a community. An attempt should be made to
professionaIly separate the museurn from inherent factionalism and to bring
information about the process and progress of a given project to all. JndividuaIs
who may feel that their possible participation rnay have been overlooked rnay
coine forward after leaming more through effective dissemination of information
about the project.
In the process of Iistening, museum staff members rnay find that the team
xilembers from the community operate fiom a different value system. Different
approaches especially to such sensitive topics as death, illness, and belief systems
iiiight appear to be wrong to team members from another cultural background.
Teain meinbers wilI need to become aware of or ernpathetic to other value
systems. The ability to let go of or suspend their own ideas and concepts rnay be
a necessity in the process.
In tliat same vein, museum staff need to accept that they cannot be rnarried
to procedures or ideas once they have made the cornmitment to seriously inchde
coinmunity meinbers in a process. While this point falls into the category of
'easier said thail done', it is one which must be remernbered for success to follow.
Fromm: Think Globally, Act Localiy

Deadlines can be established and met in good business fashion. Meeting sessions,
however, rnight not be as fiequent and, thus, might last Ionger than museum-only
meetings. Ideas used to jump-start conversations may fa11 to the wayside as
community members ignore them and suggest ideas which are more relevant to
them. Of course, this note is pertinent to a l phases of work whether community
members are involved or not.
Community members often look for a long-tem cornitrnent of interest
which transcends the setting of the office. Museum staff members will find it
vaIuable to consistently participate in and attend comrnunity activities outside of
the regular working hour. Museum administration should commit to provide
comp time for after-hours activity. Such involvement serves many purposes. A
tmly observant staff member will see the context in which distinct speech styles
are vaIued and take place. They will also observe distinct value systems in
practice. Staff members may even find that empathy and understanding of these
differences can be developed. Furthermore, they will demonstrate to community
members a sincere interest in them and their culture and activities. Visibility
outside of the museum can assist in establishing a sense of credibility for the
rnuseum staff as well as the museum which, in the past, communities often viewed
as an unapproachabIe institution.
By way of conclusion 1propose a caution to individuals who establish the
goal of bringing community participation into the museum framework. Tokenism,
the designation of one, isolated staff member or an extremely limited number of
colnmunity participants in the process, should be avoided at al1 costs. Al1 of the
staff involved need to make time in their schedules to take part in some after-
hours, off-site community activities. Limits cm be placed on the number of
corilmunity participants. Budgets need to be met and work needs to proceed in a
tilnely fashion. However, museum staff and community representation
participation need to be somewhat equitable in order to queIl any perceptions of
hurnouring or tokenism.
Over the past twenty years or so, increasingly more attention and value
has been placed on including the voices of different constituent groups in the
rnuseurn context. Many examples of this effort by museums around the world can
probably bbe catalogued in another location. Most recently, an article in the official
publication of the American Association of Museums addressed planning of the
new Africa hall in the National Museum of Natural of Natural History. This
process included the involvement of individuals fiom the African and Afican-
Ainerican communities of Washington, DC aIong with museum staff and scholarly
coiisultants. The author posits that this endeavour 'may weli be a mode1 for
ethnology exhibits of the next century.' She would be well informed to have
researched the work of museums across the country.
Much has been accomplished with similar intensive community
involve~iient.Networking is one of the best tools in the hands of museum
professionals through the availability of telephone, e-mail, aimail and professional
meetings. Well-placed inquiries with colleagues can Save al1 of us from reinventhg
the wheel.
Gourgel: Musologie el mondiulisation

Musologie et mondialisation

Felizardo Gourgel
Museu do Dundo, Lunda-Norte, Angola

Abstract

At the dawn of the third millennium, humankind must ask questions about the
future. Thanks to new communication technologies, we are becoming citizens of
the world, divided by no borders. Does this mean uniformity? Paradoxically, this
is the moment when museums must become involved in the conservation and
valuing of each culture's special identity. To do so, museums, especially in
developing countries, must orient their collections and exhibitions to the
cornmunity. More, they must become places of discovery and of meeting others,
and thus centres of tolerance and mutual understanding.

Le troisime millnaire s'annonce comme le sicle d'ouverture. Les professionneIs

de muse ont pour mission essentielle de contribuer A la chute de frontires
artificielles afin de reconstituer un gros village, o la responsabilit colIective est
assuine et les identits culturelIes sont respectes. Cette citation appartient
Madame Shaje a Tshiluila, Prsidente de I'ICOMAC et s'intgre dans la
thmatique de la confrence de I'ICOFOM 'Musologie et mondialisation',
A I'approche de cette fin de sicle et l'ore du troisime millnaire,
noinbreuses sont les questions que chacun de nous tente de poser. L'homme est
l'heure du bilan. Mais, cette fois-ci, le bilan se veut global. Qu'adviendra-t-il de
nous et de notre civilisation ? Comment conserver et transmettre notre culture
nos descendants ?
Eii vrit, aujourd'hui, tout vnement qui se passe dans un pays est
divuIgu, visualis, cornu dans le monde entier. L'information, de nos jours, circule
tel point que chacun de nous devient 'citoyen du monde'. Chacun de nous se
sent concern par les problmes que vivent Ies autres tres humains mme ceux
d'autres continents. On ne porte plus gure d'attention aux frontires; c'est une
vritable remise en question.
La plante devient un village global. Cette globalisation touche presque
tous les secteurs de la vie. Les muses, s'il veulent survivre, doivent s'impliquer
dans cette nouvelle dmarche mondiaIe. L'implication signifie-t-elle uniformit?
Serait-ce que le monde du XXe sicle trouve son quilibre dans l'uniformit oii
tout le monde coifferait le mme chapeau comme disait Henri Bergson dans
L 'Honii~ieet la inachine.
En vrit ne serait-ce pas un paradoxe alors qu'on park de conservation,
prservation et valorisation des cuItures, que de tenter d'approcher la
~i~ondialisation des identits cultureIles?
 Gourgei: Musologie et mondiaZisation

Avant de rpondre a cette interrogation qu'il nous soit permis de parler de

l'volution des institutions musales durant ces dernires annes. II n'y a pas si
longtemps, les muses n'offraient a de nombreuses personnes qu'un intrt Iimit,
rserv aux rudits et aux spcialistes. Dans les pays en voie de dveloppement, la
phpart des muses existants n'taient pas frquents par la population. Souvent
ces types d'institutions raIisaient des activits pour attirer l'attention des
trangers. La communaut tait exclue de la participation directe la conservation
et Ia prservation de son identit spcifique. Ces muses taient, pour la plupart,
des rejetons du milieu cuIturel europen du XiXe sicIe, milieu rserv
I'aristocratie.
Ces types d'institutions taient mal adapts au contexte communautaire.
En gnral, la plupart des personnes n'taient dans les muses du type classique
que sur la pointe des pieds et en ressortaient sans avoir saisi Le message intrinsque
de l'exposition. II y manquait la chaleur communicative, le feed-back ncessaire
entre le visiteur et le muse. L'humanisation des muses est rclame un peu
partout. Les objets doivent servir pour communiquer avec le public. La
communication suppose le dialogue participatif de toute la communaut.
De nos jours, on s'accorde pour affirmer dans tous les forums de
musologie que les muses devraient vhiculer l'image relle de leurs communauts.
Ces n'est pas seulement un lieu de reconnaissance de notre propre hritage
culturel, c'est aussi un lieu de rencontre avec les autres. Comme lieu de rencontre,
il s'ouvre Ia comprhension mutuelIe. Il reprsente le miroir qui reflkte la ralit
objective de la socit.
Il devient donc capital, l'aube du XXIe sicle, de dfinir de nouvelles
stratgies pour que 1'voIution ou le progrs de nos muses puisse bnficier aux
communauts mmes dans lesquelles les institutions sont localises. Aujourd'hui,
surtout dans les pays en voie de dveloppement, on se pose Ia question de savoir
comment grer ces muses: l'autonomie financiere est inexistante et quand elle
existe eIle est insuffisante pour couvrir les besoins primaires.
Si l'on veut que le patrimoine des muses puisse tre conserv et valoris,
il faut que Ies gestionnaires de muses aient la libert d'orienter leur travail sans
ingrence. La libert de dcision ne sera possible qu'avec l'autonomie financire.
Les gestionnaires des muses doivent apprendre le sens de l'humilit pour que la
communaut puisse participer aux activits programmes par les muses.
Sans la contribution de la communaut, et mme avec l'aide
gouvernementale, il sera trs dificile une institution musale de s'affirmer
puisque c'est la communaut elle-mme qui donne vie au muse. Le muse est
souvent le reflet de sa propre socit. Ce sont les personnes qui vivent dans Ia
cominunaut oii se trouve le muse qui peuvent interprter correctement le
inessage transmis ;ce sont eux ou leurs ancitres qui ont utilis; les objets exposs.
Ces objets font partie de leur vie quotidienne.
Aujourd'hui, inme en Afrique, les barrires tribales disparaissent de plus
en plus. En effet, l'immigration provoque par l'indigence, l'instabilit politique et
les guerres poussent les communauts entires h se dplacer vers d'autres
territoires. On s'accorde pour afEirmer de plus en plus que Ies nouvelles
coiiirnunauts sont en voie de formation. La cohabitation dans une mme rgion
Gourgel: Musologie et mondialisation

des communauts ethno-linguistiques diffrentes est aujourd'hui un fait qu'iI faut

prendre en compte. Le syncrtisme est un fait qui touche la majeure partie de nos
communauts.
La musologie qui se cherche encore devra tenir compte de la dynamique
communautaire. Nous y insistons du fait que la pIupart des objets exposs dans
nos muses datent de la premire moiti de ce sicle. Il y a cinquante ans, le langage
actuel de l'exposition pouvait se justifier. Aujourd'hui, on assiste a la
dcomposition des anciennes socits et la formation de nouvelles socits. Nous
devons nous poser la question de savoir combien de gens alors s'identifient-ils
avec le message transmis par les muses ?
Le muse,comme toute uvre humaine, est condamn au changement. Il
doit, aujourd'hui plus qu'hier, intresser tout le monde et suivre d'une faon
intelligible l'volution de la socikt. Comme reflet de la socit dont il prtend
reprsenter les tmoins matriels, immatriels et les personnes,
Mondialisation, ce mot qui revient de plus en plus dans toutes les
discussions est aujourd'hui un mot qui interpelle chacun d'entre nous.
En vrit l'heure de la globalisation ne fait que commencer. Cette heure
s'annonce grce au boom de la communication. Les moyens de communication
rapprochent les villages, les pays et les continents. Les muses sont donc appels
accompamer 1'voIution des mass media. Ils doivent utiliser les nouvelles
techniques que la science met leur disposition pour atteindre le public.
Mondialisation ne signifie pas coiffer le mme chapeau comme disait H. Bergson,
elle signifie par contre ... (unintelligible) c'est le moment de transmettre aux autres
un message authentique tout en ayant accs au message des autres.
L.S. Senghor, pote et homme politique, parlait du rendez-vous du donner
et recevoir. L'heure du rendez-vous est aujourd'hui justifi. 11 est donc de
l'obligation des muses de jouer une rle significatif au moment oii nous rentrons
dans le X X e sicIe. La globaIisation, utilise d'une faon intelligente, peut tre un
instruilient efficace de comprhension entre les personnes et Ies peuples. En vrit
l'ignorance provoque parfois des attitudes contraires la coexistence pacifique
entre les nations.
Les muses coinme institutions se veulent les gardiens des identits
culturelles de chaque communaut ; ils doivent donc travailler conserver et
communiquer. La communication permettra de dcouvrir qu'il n'existe pas
beaiicoup de diffrences entre les hommes. Mais l o cette diffrence existe, elle
doit apparatre.
Alors coinment les muses des pays en voie de dveloppement pourront-
ils s'intgrer dans la dmarche de la mondialisation ? Nos pays ne dominent pas
I'iiifontiation. Les dtenteurs de ces moyens de communication font passer
qu'ils jugent ncessaire et important. Nous sommes de ceux qui pensent que
rilalgr la facilit des moyens de communication, il faudrait que l'kthique
professionnelle soit respecte afin que tout le monde ait les mmes facilits de
trans~nettreet de recevoir. La mondialisation ne peut pas tre synonyme d'une
nouvelle stratgie pour que les uns aient le leadership et que les autres demeurent
dans la souinission totale.
 Gourgel: Musologie et mondialisation

Il ne nous est pas rserv d'intenter un procs contre le mondiaIisation. La

mondialisation qui nous interpeIIe est une exigence contemporaine. L'analyse des
probables consquences du phnomne est encore une quation que nos arrire-
petit-fils auront A rsoudre.
En fin de compte, les muses doivent, comme tous les secteurs de la vie,
accompagner I'volution de la science. Mais cette volution ne doit pas impliquer
l'abdication de notre identit. C'est pourquoi la Confrence Gnrale de I'ICOM
qui a choisi pour thme 'Muses et Diversits Culturelles' au moment oii nous
nous approchons la nouvelle re, nous oblige respecter les diffrences dans un
monde de plus en plus resserr et gIobal.
Menu: Mondialisation et mus&ologie

Mondialisation et musologie

Michel Menu
LRMF, UMR 17 1 du CNRS, 6 rue des Pyramides, 7504 1 Paris cedex, France
m.menu@culture.fr

Abstract: Globalisation and Museology

One consequence of globaIisation is the need to reconsider the role of museums in

space and time. GIobalisation changes dramatically the social links. Societies try to
find solutions which are often illusions. Museums, helped by conternporary
artists, take a dare in fmding a real perspective to bring a coherent perception of
the new irreversible events.

No sabemos 10 que pasa, eso es 10 que pasa

Ortega y Gasset

La mondialisation est un phnomne gnral, global qui a voir avec le

temps, qui est affaire de temps. C'est pourquoi l'on parle aussi de l'mergence
d'un feitips ~ttondial,dfini comme un moment privilgi o les socits
rengocient en termes colIectifs et de manire assez forte leurs rapports au temps
et l'espace. Cette transformation macrosociale affecte tous les champs et en
particulier ceux de l'conomie, de la technologie, du politique et enfin de la cuIture
bien entendu.
Ce phnomne correspond i une tendance lourde de la civilisation, ainsi
Goethe crivait en 1827 (Conversations avec Eckertilann) : la littrature
nationale ne signifie plus grand chose maintenant, Ie moment est venu de la
littrature mondiale, et chacun doit s'employer hter Ia venue de cette poque .
Au-del de cette formule visionnaire qu'il faut cependant relativiser et remettre
dans son contexte, Goethe n'voque ici que le champ qui est Ie sien, celui de Ia
littrature, on voit que la mondialisation est une proccupation ancienne et qu'il
ii'y avait pas pour le pote de rticence, bien au contraire, la considrer. On
convielit gnralement que ce phnomne s'acclre depuis le milieu des annes
1980 sous l'effet de plusieurs causes dont Ies principales sont : l'kpuisement de la
rgulation tatique de l'conomie, la rvolution du temps rel et enfin,
l'effondrement de l'union sovitique, vnement qui contient une charge autant
syiiiboIique que politique puisqu'il apparat comme rkvlateur apparent de la
victoire du march. Alors le monde change d'chelle et on a bien affaire un
17ritablevnement au sens o il nous apparat que ce qui advient correspond
des cliaiigernents irrversibles et que, A la suite des bouleversements qui sont
induits, il va falloir rechercher de nouvelles mises en cohrence. Il me semble ici
que la culture et la inuso1ogieYen particulier, ont une responsabilit norme dans
 Menu: Mondialisation et mus&ologie

cette prise en charge du temps mondial. Les consquences de l'vnement

(vnement au sens que lui donnent les scientifiques, les politiques, Ies
philosophes) sont nombreuses et trs importantes ; de ces {{ temps nouveaux , il
faut formaliser la notion de tournant mondial, devant un gouffie entre la perception
intuitive du changement et sa formalisation, la conceptualisation de l'vnement.
Dans cette perspective, on doit penser le temps mondial en termes
d'enchanements plutt que de causalits. 11 n'y a pas de dterminisme dans Ia
mondialisation et il nous faut chercher comment nous allons vivre avec ce qui
nous arrive .
L'une des consquences qui merge est la pluralit de sens. Dans cette
apparence de drglement des sens, (a va dans tous les sens), et pour comprendre
cette rupture, il nous incombe de penser et de proposer des nonchs. Deleuze nous
dit qu'une poque ne prexiste pas aux noncs qui l'expriment, ni aux visibilits
qui la remplissent. Ce sont les deux aspects essentiels : d'une part chaque strate,
chaque formation historique implique une rpartition du visible et de I'nonable
qui se fait sur elle-mme ; d'autre part, d'une strate A une autre, iI y a variation de
la rpartition, parce que la visibilit r n h e change de mode, et les noncs changent
eux-mmesde rgime (in Foucault, 1986).
Une autre consquence importante est l'mergence d'une temporalit globaIe et
inobile qui nous incite penser Ie global en ternes de redcouverte du local.
Ce monde nouveau vhicule de nouveIles valeurs culturelIes. On vit dans
l'urgence, l'urgence des vnements, en niant la profondeur, les projets, les
perspectives, La pression sociale exige des services de proximit pour
contrebalancer les propositions abstraites d'une socikt de communication
gnralise, oh la communication est perue comme une ngation de la mdiation.
La proxiniit qui est cette valeur, vritable valeur cuIturelle, cherche & rduire la
distance entre l'autorit et le citoyen. Nous venons de le mentionner, l'une des
consquences perceptibles aisment, accompagnant le temps mondial est une
transformation (irrversible) de nos rapports au sens, I'autorit, au temps.
L'interactivit est une proposition alternative & notre rapport au temps et est une
valeur qui va bien au-del de notre prise en main des ordinateurs, de notre
utilisation du web ...
Pour Virilio, architecte-urbaniste qui a beaucoup rflchi sur les rapports
des vnements en termes de vitesse, donc dans un axe non seulement spatial mais
galement temporel, le phnomne de mondialisation correspond justement A un
accident H, celui du franchissement du ((mur du temps N, le mur du temps rel,
ceIui qui rgissait notre vie quotidienne jusqu'alors. Pour Virilio, on est dsormais
dans un temps-lumikre , dans l'instantanit sans retour possible un temps
matire, celui de l'espace-temps quotidien, de l'espace temps local, le temps qui
est celui qu'il nous faut pour effectuer Ies choses de tous les jours. Dans ce sens, Ie
teinps mondial est bien oppos au temps local. Le temps mondial est celui de Ia
gopolitique (la guerre du Golfe), de l'conomie (les marchs financiers), c'est le
teinps oii le monde entier est concern. Le temps local est le temps de l'alternance
du jour et de la nuit, le temps qui passe, le temps qui tourne, le temps qui fut, le
teinps qui fuit, le temps qu'il fait (selon l'heureuse expression du pote Armand
Robin). II y a l comme une chute du futur qui serait la consquence de l'mergence
Menu: Mondialisation et musologie

du temps mondial avec une prise de conscience de l'effondrement de la notion de

progrks. Virilio nous engage dans cet axe-l, rflchir pIus avant sur notre
apprhension du mondial et du local. Vinlio qui est, rappelons-le, urbaniste, nous
met, en mme temps, en garde contre une apprhension trop simpliste de cette
opposition. Schmatiquement, pour lui, Ie local serait devenu l'extrieur et le global
serait l'intrieur. Les baniieues ne seraient-elIes pas l'tranger ? la tendance des
socits modernes avances ne consisterait-elle pas a rejeter tout Ie local en
priphrie ?
A cause de ce changement d'chelle, de cette apprhension nouvelle du
monde, sans frontires, sans repres, dans l'urgence, au moyen de l'interactivit et
de la proximit, nous choit la responsabilit de trouver une nouveIle cohrence,
une nouvelle articulation du temps. L'espace et le temps doivent tre travaills. Il
s'agit l, selon Virilio, d'un vritable travail scientifique, entrepris dans tous les
domaines, pluridisciplinaire, pour inventer une perspective nouvelle du temps rel
qui supplanterait la perspective de l'espace rel, ceIIe dcouverte par les artistes de
la Renaissance. Cette perspective-l organise encore aujourd'hui notre vie dans le
temps local. Le rle, la responsabilit du comit de rirusologie de 1 'ICOM
pozlrraien t tre, selon nt oi,ici ininienses pour penser cette arficulation nouvelle du
tenzps et pour fournir aux muses les nroyens d'agir dans le temps mondial.
Par aiIleur, il ne me semble pas anodin que ce soient les artistes de la
Renaissance qui aient mis au point le systme de perspective qui rgit notre espace
quotidien. L'artiste libre est le mieux mme de proposer une alternative inventive
aux probImes qui nous paraissent parfois insolubles, tant nous attachons une
nostalgie aux vnements du pass et A la culture de Ia mmoire des grands
liomines M. ( nous avons vite fait d'oublier les vieux pouvoirs qui ne s'exercent
plus, les vieux savoirs qui ne sont plus utiles, mais, en matire de morale, nous ne
cessons de nous encombrer de vieilles croyances auxquelIes nous ne croyons mme
plus, et de nous produire comme sujet sur de vieux modes qui ne correspondent
pas nos problmes , Deleuze, Foucault, p. 114). Le thme de rflexion de
I'ICOFOM de 1997, Musologie & Mmoire (voir ISS 27 et 28), fournit les
fondations pour la question d'aujourd'hui sur la mondialisation : comment trouver
une cohrence, une nouvelle mise en perspective, une nouvelle faon
d'apprhender le monde, de comprendre et connatre ce qui se passe, afin que la
~nondiaIisationne soit pas celle de la pauvret, de la soufhnce, de l'impossible
rndiation (Vanda VitaIi).
Nous nous interrogerons tout d'abord sur l'impact de cette mutation
globale sur les muses. A partir de quelques exemples, nous tenterons de
comprendre comment le t~iuseaccompagne l'vnement et quelles rponses
iiiultiples il est capable de trouver. Quant l'artiste contemporain, il ne se pose
pas tant de questions. II vit dans le prsent de la cration et rinvestit le champ
musal sa manire. II s'installe dans les galeries du muse qui font rsonner son
uvre avec celles des matres anciens, sans retour ni oubli du pass. Puis, nous
rflcliirons colinnent la culture et la musologie, en particulier, anivent trouver
un quilibre nouveau entre mondial et local avec des effets de contraste simultan
des cultures. En conclusion, coinment trouver une nouveIle cohrence, une nouvelle
perspective dans le temps mondial? Aucune solution vidente bien-sr ne peut
 Menu: Mondialisaiion er musologie

tre aujourd'hui propose, mais ce sont les pratiques des muses mondialisks,
globaIiss, dans un rapport apais au local, qui fourniront des (< salves d'avenir
(Ren Char).

1. Quelles ralisations des muses dans l're de la mondialisation ?

Les muses eux-aussi sont pris dans cet vnement. Observons tout
d'abord comment de grands muses parisiens ragissent et s'intgrent dans le
temps mondial. Dans l'urgence, la proximit, l'interactivit, ils proposent des
solutions diffrentes qui fournissent des exemples repris en partie ou rinterprts
dans d'autres ralisations musales. Par ailleurs, des artistes contemporains
regardent leur manire les coIlections de muse qui deviennent un support leurs
installations.
A Paris, deux grands muses s'observent de part et d'autre du trou des
haIles aujourd'hui combl (Voir Zola, le Ventre de Paris, pour le rIe symbolique
et mtaphorique de ce centre vital, nourricier de la capitale). Le Centre Georges
Pompidou et le Muse du Louvre, ces deux immenses btisses dont la destination
et la configuration actuelles ont t voulues par les poIitiques ; eHes correspondent
deux expressions musales concurrentes dans la qute d'un public. Les noms, les
dnominations sont dans ce sens-l importants, porteurs de significations
syinboliques, conscientes ou pas d'un groupe, d'une socit.
Pompidou est un centre qui n'est pas constitu que du seul muse.
Pontus Hulten qui en a conu le projet le veut ouvert, pluriel, pIuridisciplhaire. Il
valorise l'aspect nomade de l'uvre en organisant des expositions temporaires, au-
dessus des salles d'exposition permanente (le Mude national d'art moderne,
proprement dit). t{ Pompidou est aussi une bibliothque, un dpartement du
dveloppement culturel, l'IRCAM ... (voir la thse rcemment soutenue en
Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication l'universit de Grenoble
par Bernadette Dufrne). Les expositions inaugurales, au milieu des annes 1970,
sont ici des mises en parallle successives de convergences et de contrastes entre
Paris et New York, Paris et Berlin et enfui entre Paris et Moscou. Une viile, une
culture ne peuvent s'expliquer par une simple exposition monographique, elles se
refltent dans les villes et les cultures voisines par des oprations de mimtisme et
d'opposition. Comment appeler le Centre ? {{ Pompidou u, l'homme politique qui
a promu son existence, devient une dnomination abstraite permettant non pas un
flou mais la proposition d'un concept, comme contour, contiguration,
constellation d'un vnement A venir (Deleuze, Guattari, Qu'est-ce que In
philosoplrie ?, 1991). L'architecture de Renzo Piano et de Rodger accompagne ce
dsir d'ouverture, de transparence. On voit Ies tripes >> du centre, les
niacliineries, les couleurs.
De l'autre ct, non pas en opposition mais en contraste, Le Louvre, qui
repose sur le pass, sur l'histoire de Ia France. S'allongeant le long de la Seine, il
regroupe des trsors, des uvres merveilleuses, des collections lentement et
piiissa~iiinentrassembles, Comnent appeler le muse ? Le Louvre, nom du palais
des rois de France, est ici une dnomination abstraite, un concept avec d'autres
articitlations, d'autres dcoupages, d'autres recoupements. Le symbole (rcent) en
Menu: MondiaIisation et nius.4ologie

est la belle pyramide de Pei. Symboliquement pourtant, la pyramide est l'entre

d'un tombeau, d'un tombeau ancien. Le symbole est donc celui d'une crypte
renfermant un trsor et un tombeau. L'instant considr est alors celui de la mort.
Aujourd'hui, l'automne 1998, est prsente, au Louvre, une admirable exposition
sur l'art funraire de l'gypte romaine, dont les portraits du Fayoum sont
I'expression la plus mouvante et la plus connue. {(Apostrophe muette (titre
d'un ouvrage de Jean-Christophe Bailly) d'un avenir qui nous attend, les yeux
ouverts devant la mort; le regard ayant fui dsormais les reprsentations.
L,'gypte romaine est en tant que telle une confrontation de cultures, de part et
d'autre du monde mditerranen, la mondialisation de l'poque, au dbut de l're
chrtienne, sans doute ! L'art funraire est ici la rsultante de cette opposition, de
cette survivance simultane de cultures, de rites, de conventions. La pyramide peut
tre galement regarde comme un cristal qui sort du sol, d'une mine, comme un
iceberg aussi dont seule la partie merge est visible. h partie non vue est
inquitante dans l'inconscient collectif. Elle ne recle que les strates successives de
son pass. Aujourd'hui, on dbat sur l'arrive dans le Louvre d'une galerie
consacre aux arts autres que ceux de la culture occidentde, mais ne s'agit-il pas
d'un cran (au sens psychanalytique du terme) ? Selon moi, ce qui frappe le plus
c'est la rticence d'une vritable ouverture du Louvre sur l'art contemporain.
Certes, quelques beIles manifestations organises par Rgis Michel, conservateur
au dpartement des Arts graphiques, ( le Beau idal , la srie des (< partis-pris )
ont tent de mlanger des uvres des collections avec des ralisations
contemporaines, ces partis-pris rvlent i chaque fois Ies aspects indits des
tableaux, des scuIptures, des objjets des diffrents dpartements. Ensemble, uvre
ancienne et uvre contemporaine accompagnent une forme de permanence de
l'activit artistique, jusqu'i nous, par l'esprit des artistes et attestent l'importance
syinbolique que l'on accorde cette activit de l'esprit humain. Toutefois, cette
confrontation reste marginale, comme si elle tait inquitante, trange.
C'est par exemple, l'activit de Sarkis que de reconsidrer les uvres du
pass et les intgrer dans ses instaIlations. Sarkis est un artiste qui investit le
cliamp inusal en lui adjoignant un clairage indit. Sarkis rvkle ainsi des aspects
laisss en sommeil des uvres, il runit des objets de cultures et de chronologies
diffrentes. Il installe une nouvelle temporalit et cherche capter le moment
enchss entre la lumiere de l'clair et Ie bruit du tonnerre .
C'est aussi le travail des sries de l'artiste amricain Allan McColIum (voir
catalogue de l'exposition rtrospective au Muse d'art moderne de Lille a
VilIeneuve d'Asq qui s'est tenue au dbut 1998). McCollurn moule les os et les
eilipreintes de dinosaures pour en raliser d'impressionantes sries exposes dans
les salles d'un muse de palontologie, ct des originaux (Muse Prhistorique
Price dans l'Utah aux USA). On peut aborder le travail de McCollurn de multiples
points de vue, celui du matriau en tant que tel, celui du savoir-faire, celui de la
reprsentation que l'on a des choses. 11 place le spectateur devant un objet d'art
qui est un objet de mmoire, mmoire d'un instant qui fbt mais aussi porteur d'une
trace de l'objet qui fut. Dans ce sens, I'ovuvre plastique de McColium interroge
aussi bien le physicien que l'historien d'art, aussi bien l'archologue que le
philosoplie. La question que l'artiste pose de faon rcurrente : quelle
 Menu: Mondialisation et must!ologie

transformation I'objct subit-il en acqurant le statut d'uvre d'art ? Quel est son
rapport au temps?
Ces exempIes tentent d'illustrer les diffrentes rponses contemporaines
cette nouveIIe apprhension du temps. Les artistes ont cette libert qui les autorise
proposer des salves d'avenir . Les muses, Ieur manire aussi, ne peuvent
pas rester des ilts prservs. IL s'installent dans une nouvelle re sans nostalgie
des instants du pass, mme si, comme au Louvre par exemple, les symboles
peuvent paratre lourds de sens.

2. RlondiaIisation et localisation

La mondialisation est-elle une chance de pouvoir retrouver le local ? Nous

avons vu que local et mondia1 pouvaient s'opposer et qu'il y avait, pour VXrilio,
comme une inversion de l'extrieur et de l'intrieur. Grosso modo, le citoyen
tnondial a Paris est plus prs du citoyen mondial de New York, Buenos Aires, Rio
de Janeiro, Melbourne que du citoyen rejet aux priphries de la ville. C'est
trivial. Mais n'est-ce pas non plus une sorte de rsurgence d'une vritable crainte
de l'habitant du centre des bourgs, inquiet que son quilibre soit un jour dtruit par
l'habitant de la priphrie ? Au sicle dernier par exemple, le bourgeois s'inquitait
des banlieues rouges. Les cits ouvrires taient perues comme des zones
dangereuses. Aujourd'hui, dans cette priode d'acclration du temps, la crainte
s'est dpIace dans son objet mais peut tre pas dans sa localisation.
Cette opposition, locallmondial, se retrouve dans tous Ies champs de la vie
individuelle et sociale. Pour la culture, les arts plastiques, les arts vivants
accompagnent ce contraste et iI1ustrent des dsirs divergents. En peinture, c'est le
tag dont Basquiat fut l'une des figures de proue, une tentative de sauvetage de la
cration en peinture de chevalet. En musique, c'est l'opposition entre Rap (local?)
et Techno (mondial?), entre parole scande, rythme et musique pure, abstraite.
Mais la perception n'existe pas en soi. Derrida (1972) soutient que <{ nous
percevons le monde travers un univers de signes, de traces, de renvois, de sorte
que notre rapport au rel est entirement mdiatis par les systmes de
reprsentations (in Marges de la Philosophie).
Aussi, dans cette crainte, dans ce repli sur soi, nous sommes tents
d'exclure les diffrences, non pas de Ies gommer mais effectivement de les nier
dans une entreprise aveugle et dsespre. Pourtant, la diversit du patrimoine
est un atout capital (Andr Desvalles, ISS29 p.32). On se rappelle avec plaisir
l'entreprise des trois muses, le musee d'ethnographie Neuchtel en Suisse, le
~ i ~ u s dee la civilisation de Qubec au Canada et le muse dauphinois Grenoble en
France, qui ont dclin le thme de la Dtfrence entre 1995 et 1997, entreprise
iiiondialisante, globalisante finalement elle aussi d'une certaine manire. Dans Ie
petit ouvrage publi par le muse de Neuchtel cette occasion, Grard Lenclud
insiste sur le fait que les {<cultures sont inoins diffrentes entre elles que
l'ethnographie ne le laisse supposer }} (p.30 et 31), mais qu'iI y a ncessit
d'exposer ces diffrences pour <{examiner la variabilit de l'exprience humaine ,
et alors dans ce contexte, les diffrences culturelles privilgiees et rapportes par
l'ethnographe ne sont pas et ne sauraient tre des donnes objectives, inclus dans
Menu: Mondialisation et mw$ologie

des << noncs imprgns de valeurs .Il faut gommer l'cart de Ia diffrence mais
ne jamais la nier. Cet effet d'amplification des diffrences des cultures voque une
analogie qui pourrait tre faite avec Ia physique et la perception des couleurs.
Michel-Eugne Chevreul, chimiste franais du 19' sicle, a mis au point une thoie
des couleurs lorsqu'il tait Ie directeur des teintures Ia Manufacture des
Gobelins. En 1835, il achve la rdaction de son livre De la loi du contraste
sirnulfan des couleurs. Il donne sa loi un caractre de la plus grande gknrdit :
deux objets diffrents, placs ct l'un de l'autre, paraissent par h
comparaison plus diffrents qu'ils ne le sont rellement .Mme s'il traite de la
couleur seule, on voit qu'il y a 1 une analogie possibIe avec d'autres phnomnes
du monde physique et humain. Le but de Chevreul est d'essayer de dgager des
principes agissant dans le contraste, et l'un d'entre eux est, pour la couleur, la
c< fonction discriminatoire du systme visuel qui consiste A ({accentuer Ies
diffrences en minimisant les similitudes . Chevreul conclut alors : (< en effet,
Iorsque certaines personnes envisagent deux objets sous un rapport de diffrence,
n'arrive-t-il pas que la diffrence s'exagre pour ainsi dire leur insu, prcisment
comme cela arrive dans la vue de deux couleurs juxtaposes, o ce qu'il y a
d'analogue entre les couleurs disparat plus ou moins ? .
La mondialisation peut ainsi tre perue comme un contraste simultan des
locals, et des cultures. Il y a une vidence cette analogie; pour le muse
inondialis, ne cherche-t-on pas amplifier les diffrences comme nous l'avons
dj voqu, sans s'interroger sur l'effet induit, en passant sous silence ce qui
runit. La juxtaposition produit donc dans l'immdiat de la perception, un effet de
contraste dont il doit tre tenu compte.
Quelle rponse domer ceux qui considrent, qui apprhendent la
mondialisation comme une transnationalisation. Les particularismes nationaux,
locaux sont alors redcouverts. Les particularismes ethniques, religieux sont remis
au got du jour. On expose les aborignes australiens dans les muses nationaux
australiens, on expose les cultures indiennes indignes (les <( native americans n)
dans des muses d'anthropoIogie. N'est-ce pas une remise au gofit du jour des
expositions coloniales du dbut du 20" sicle ?
Mais il y a plus grave: il y a dans une rponse l'angoisse de la
inondialisation un repli &leux sur des illusions dont aujourd'hui pourtant on
connat l'avenir. Le retour vers le pass est toujours une vkritable simplification.
Et il a des consquences dramatiques : l'arrt de l'mancipation de la femme, de
celle des minorits ; la rpression des marginaux.Un discours simplificateur a un
unique modle, le mythe du gourou avec le culte de la personnalit, du sauveur. La
globalisation est dans ce cas perue sous le mode de la pense unique impose par
l'conomique.
Une autre rponse consiste mettre en avant Ie concept de nation. Dans
notre monde des muses, se perptue l'mergence de muses naiio~raux.
Aujourd'hui encore, Canberra, un inuse national australien est en cours
d'achvement. C'est a se demander si Ie muse ne serait pas le lieu fondateur,
syinbolique de cette nation perdue, retrouver ou venir. Peu importe d'ailleurs,
ce que l'on y inet, ce que I'on y expose ! Pourvu que l'on ait Ie btiment rig,
tmoignant de la puissance de la nation (virtuelle alors) autour de laquelle le
 Menu: MondiaIisation et mus&ologie

citoyen est cens se retrouver. Il y a un retournement symbolique et smantique

fort, qui exprime au-del du statut l'effroi devant une ralit qui chappe encore et
qui a voir avec l'avenir.

3. Peut-on concIure ? la recherche d'une perspective pour le temps

mondial.

Les muses ont une responsabilit immense. L'ICOM, Association

mondiale des muses, est confronte aujourd'hui A un dfi indit, aussi important
sans doute que le pari de son eEcacit lors de sa cration, aprs les horreurs de la
seconde guene mondiale. Chaque muse se doit de promouvoir une alternative
cohrente et crdible au repli sur soi, I'ilIusion de sa propre survie (Seattle en
tait conscient lors de sa capitulation devant le gnral amricain pour {< entrer en
survivance , voir Mathilde Beilaigue, ISS29). 11 faut sortir ainsi du labyrinthe
mental dans lequel on est condamn A errer, hant par je ne sais quelle illusion du
temps, et accepter enfin Ie monde rel tel qu'il est dans sa diversit, sa
superficialit chatoyante, sa prsence immdiate, son vidence irrcusable. On est
plac devant cette responsabilit de faire en sorte que la mondialisation soit
justement ouverte, plurielle dans un rapport apais au temps correspondant aux
avances technoIogiques et scientifiques de la civilisation. Dans cet axe,
I'ICOFOM, dans son rle de penser, de rver les muses, doit promouvoir Ies
changements, vivre les diffrences, exprimenter et penser l'autre. C'est dire
enfin que l'exprience de l'altrit est un moment d'incandescence qui chappe la
communication ordinaire et au savoir philosophique. Mais c'est quand mme en
s'approchant des uvres de ceux qui ont t brls par cette exprience que l'on
peut renchanter Ie monde et, en quelque sorte, redresser l'infinit de ses
diffrences fi (Marc Guillaume, in La Diffrence, muse de Neuchtel, 1995).
Raoul Marek, artiste suisse, est un habitant du temps mondial et esquisse
des pistes suivre. II ralise une srie (en cours) qu'il intitule la Salle du monde ;
l'une de ses expressions est le service de tabIe du Chiteau d'Oiron, chteau de la
Renaissance qui abrite au centre de la France une collection d'art contemporain. Le
service de table qu'il fabrique en 1992 pour i 50 personnes du village est constitu
d'objets d'usage : pour chaque convive, une assiette en porcelaine de Svres avec
une reprsentation de son profil, une serviette avec ses lignes de la main, le verre
avec ses empreintes digitales. Chaque 30 juin, les 150 Oroinais sont convis un
repas dans leur propre service. L'installation Oiron qui attend cette
manifestation festive annuelle n'existe justement que pour ces instants l, rpts
dans leur diffrence. Pour Marek, les 150 portraits >> sont exposs en
permanence dans le chiteau pour constituer une frise. Dans l'espace d'exposition.
Mais la Salle Iiiatrger dlOiron n'est qu'une composante de l'uvre de Marek, le
service de table est le dnominateur commun de six villes ou villages relevant de
cultures diffrentes et qui sont relies autour du monde par cette activit, autour
des services de table et de la mise en scne des dners. C'est le temps mondial
coiiwe soiiime infillie de teinps Iocaux, de (( temps qu'il fait .
Caroline Turner, conservateur la Queensland Art Gallery Brisbane nous
a incit rflchir au rle du muse, du cabinet de curiosit de la Renaissance au
Menu: Mondialisation et muskologie

muse d'art, expression d'une puissance il y a peu (Catherine II de Russie offrait

un verre de vodka au visiteur qui venait de parcourir les ddaIes du muse de
l'Ermitage, le parcours tait organis de telle manire qu'il n'tait pas possible de
revenir en h r e ni d'viter de passer devant chaque objet expos). Le muse
commercial d'aujourd'hui associe les galeries d'art aux galeries marchandes. Les
biennales d'art contemporain participent galement cette tendance gnraIe de
prsenter l'activit d'une rgion, d'une nation en rapport avec le monde, mme si
parfois il y a une volont de minimiser l'impact sur les critiques occidentaux d'art
contemporain, par exernpIe la Biennale de Shanghai prsente uniquement des
ralisations d'artistes asiatiques. Caroline Turner est soucieuse dans son mtier de
conservateur de prsenter Ia diversit des rponses artistiques aux questions des
contemporains. Eue n'a de cesse d'accueillir Si Brisbane des collections de chaque
continent et de prsenter la diversit des manifestations artistiques. Elle propose
constamment une ouverture et elIe est bien consciente que c'est l'enfemement
dans une culture qui aveugle. La connaissance d'une autre culture a donc le mrite
de relativiser toute adhsion une seule culture (Marc Aug). Cette diversit,
sans la transformer en une opposition de valeurs, confre aux uvres d'art un r61e
de tmoins, plerins d'une modernit apaise, d'une confiance sans anglisme dans
un prsent o la mondialisation est plurielle, ouverte. Ce rapport apais au temps
correspond aux avances technoIogiques et scientifiques de la civilisation.
Face cette tentation de retour vers le pass qui semble tre, de faon
illusoire, une rponse la mondiaiisation, I'ICOM devrait pouvoir montrer une
autre voie, puisque les muses sont un rel enjeu dans les transformations
macrosociales en cours. C'est chaque muske de proposer des orientations
nouveIIes, sinon des soIutions. Dans ce sens, les muses de socit ont cherch,
dans l'urgence souvent, rduire cette tension angoissante de la mondialisation
pour proposer de nouveaux repres de proximit et retrouver un autre contact.
L'artiste contemporain avec son inventivit, sa crativit, sa sensibilit
accompagne lui aussi les mutations, Ies changements. Il propose sa manire des
pistes pour fournir une cohrence, une perspective dans une redcouverte du
tetnps et de la distance.

Merci Mathilde Bellaigue pour sa relecture anricale.

Bibliograpliie

Les ICOFOM Study Series

Marc Aug, Les fortlies de l'oubli, Manuels Payot, Paris, 1998
Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, Minuit, 1986.
Gilles Deleuze, Flix Guattari, Qu 'est-ce que la philosophie ? Minuit, Paris, 1991.
Marc-Olivier Gonseth, Jacques Hainard, Roland Kaehr' La Diffrence, Muse
d'ethriographie de Neuchtel, 1995.
Georges Roque, Art et science de la couleur. Chevreul et les peintres de Delacroix
1 'absti*action,Edition Jacqueline Chambon, Nimes, 1997.
Pau[ Vinlia, C~lberilioride,la polifiqile du pire. Textuel, Paris, 1996.
 Murphy: Museum, GIobalisation and CulfuralDiversity

Museums, Globalisation and Cultural Diversity

Bernice Murphy
Museum of Conternporary Art, Sydney

We live today in volatile times, as we mark a century drawing to a close.

So much to do with society and culture is undergoing critical change. Everywhere
there are pressures upon structures of social affiliation. There are tensions around
constructions of nation; of state or territory; of race; of ethnicity; of indigeneity;
of religious faith; of political class. Concepts such as 'comrnunity', 'nation' and
'class' are ever more ambiguous or contested in their usage.
Many of the previously sustaining concepts of culture - in the broad
anthropological sense of a totality of human activities - have been destabilised.
The terrn 'culture' itseff was originally linked to the idea of 'cuItivation' of Iand:
the tilling of soi1 and raising of crops, and an agrarian basis of social organisation.
Meanwhile 'cornmunity' irnplied a homogeneous people, settled in a single locale,
speaking a common language, sharing a continuous1y evolving sense of social
definition, history and heritage. It suggested an enco~7lpnssingsocial congruence
that is radically contradicted by late-twenieth century realities.

Culture and communities in contention globally

Few situations today in which cuItural heritage is at issue involve that

ancient setting of agrarian community, of mutually binding experience. In a more
globally self-conscious world, there are now paradoxical pressures occurring
around changing forms of experence, affiliation and identification.
There are re-assertions of srnaller units of people: of group, clan, tribe, and
many claims of 'minoriw' identity. Meanwhile there are expansive counter-
movements, constructions of large and daunting geo-political groupings, as well as
racial, ethnic, religious or social configurations: 'people of the Third World'; the
'Fourth World' of indigenou peoples trapped within nation-states as a result of
coIonisation; 'the slmic world'; 'the European cornmunity'; 'the Graeco-Serbian
world'; 'the Chinese diaspora'; 'latin Arnerica'; 'the Asia-Pacific region'. All of
rhese cons@uciions- leaving aside their prescriptive motives or their foundu~ion
in concerns with political and economic power - are intenszfiing pressures on
people 's lives. They are transforming culturc~lidentities and experience.
The rupture from settled origins as a more generic (or 'global') condition of
contemporary life is such that border comrnunities, diasporic communities,
travelling communities, 'ethnicaI1y cleansed' communities, migrants, boat people,
orphans, refugees and exiles are the emblematic witnesses of convuIsive change in
our times. Their staccato testirnonies or appalling silence b h g new pressures t o
.
bear on any discussion of culture and cornmunity They inevitably tension our
conceptions of hurnan cornmunity. They challenge Our work of sustaining cultural
heritage.
Murphy: Mus~ums.Gtobalisation and Cultural Diversi9

Cultural identity has corne fonvard as one of the most compelling social
(and urgently political) subjects of our time. Creahires stniggle for survival,
s p u ~ e dby the Iife instinct. But under the sign of identity, human beings wii
revoke their most valued achievements as comunities. They will relinquish and
destroy everything attained by a group, a society. They wilI sacrifice the lives of
their families and themselves. PeopIe wiIl risk al1 in the name of protecting or
defending their cultu~ulidentity.
Such are the transforming social and political contexts of the contemporary
world, that we ail live, in varying ways, in new kinds of societies in trumition.
These circumstances are globally registered. They have an inescapably strong
impact on the concept and mission of museums. They vitally impinge on the
contexts in which museum work and museology are being produced.
In the work of sustaining cultural heritage, people who work in museums
must be as much concerned with the curatorship of ideas as with the museum's
traditional role of curatorship of material culture, documents, or objects. This
means an attunement to the concepts that circulate around and through material
expressions of culture, as well as their evolving objectified forms.
Inter-dsciplinary work is the life-blood of progressive museum work
today. It opens up the expansion of means necessary to enable 'cultural heritage'
to be rescued from its disabling conditions of fragmentation, across disparate
rnuseum collections and activities, both institutionally and physically. Inter-
discipIinary work is vital to enable museurns to participate in the compelling work
of the reunification of culture and human knowledge. Tt is needed to facilitate the
re-connection of d l aspects of human activity and identity into a comprehensible
framework of interna1 connections. Without a more coherent and integrative
framework, 'cultural heritage' cannot ever pretend to be 'whole'.

There continues to be a need to re-entexture 'intemationalism' with more

multiple understandings: to open out a fuIler understanding of the varied social,
historical, cuItural and even sub-cultural settings of inter-national engagements
evolving today. If the internationa1 work of museums is to have a more vital
function of cuItura1 sustenance, it must continue to re-examine critically how
intemationalism itself operates as a framework and aspiration for museums'
endeavows.
For exarnple, museums cannot continue to address international exhibitions
as a single space of exchange or 'universal' vdidation. Museum exhibitions and
displays continue to be made in the fiagmented conditions of late modernity -
already re-figured for many as the age of post-rnodernity, whiIe many more others
are sti1I struggling with the early phases of industrialisation that mark the painful
transition into 'modernity ' itself. Numerous people live simultaneously with
aspects of modernity and counter-modernity, in syntheses that are globally more
prevalent than is reckoned by those who still adhere to a cendising mode1 of the
progress of a single kind of modernity.
 Murphy: Museums. Giobalisa~ionand CuIturaI Diversity

However there has been insuficient impact of such diverse international

reaiities in the rnethodologies still adopted by museums. Museology cannot
continue to support the illusion of a seamless speculac world, a hall of mirrors in
which institutions, collections and displays are pcesumed to reflect back
transparently upon each other, speaking in Esperanta.

Globalism

Addressing the history of al1 peoples more inclusively than ever before (in
the midst of continuing disparities as to whom may speak for, or f?om within, any
comrnon sense of history), one of the most wideIy shared nuances of
contemporary voices, arising in al1 parts of the contemporary world on the subject
of cultural heritage, is a sense of momentous impact of the changes installed by
globalisation.
However the animating force of 'globalism' is abstracting. The term
'world', by contrast, has always been more socially conditioned and flexible.
Historically, as more peoples encountered foreign peoples through exploration, the
latter term was quite readily able to be doubled or pluralised - from 'world' to
'worlds'. However the 'globe' has always been a more scientific and cartographie
construct. It has been an instrument of colonisation and the map-making of
conquerors.
GIobaIisation needs to be reconsidered radicaIly in its circumstances and
effects. A problernatic concept that invariably contracts the discussion of
globalisation is McCluhanYsrnetaphor of the global village - one of the most
distorting fomulations arnong late-twentieth century descriptions of social
experience. There is a continually misleading tendency to conflate global economic
and communication forces (which have undeniably real and powerful influences on
everyone living in the world today) with social and cultural effects (assuming that
a11 are infl uenced similarly, colIapsing diversity into uniformity).

GlobaIity versus Iocality

Undoubtedly we cm reach out into more parts of the world today, through
travel, than pseviously haginable. And there is an ever more reflexive possibiIity
of contact and feedback through communications systerns that are dramaticaIly
global. However the more one engages with different parts of the world - in
terms of the actual processes of cuIture -the more one encounters the insistently
shaping powers of local traditions, local languages, local decisions and local
priorities.
We may watch the sarne satellite news footage on television, but the
niornent this material enters our minds and conversation, it passes into the more
restricted field of particularising perceptions and experience. At the point of entry,
or conversion into any cu1turaI situation, it is invariably negotiated through the
transition into the field of language. In that moment it surrenders some of its
international or trans-national character. It has ernbarked on a conversionary
passage into the more particular, regional, or even local.
Murphy: Museums, Globalisalion and CuItural Diversiry

In this ongoing process of transformation of meaning, gIobal phenornena

must also meet, alongside the conditions of local reception, many forces of local
resistance. Ultimately, of course such processes are two-way in their movements
and muIti-directional in their networks. Local a u e n c e s impact back through
global circuits, changing and accdturating global conditions themselves.

AnthropoIogy and globaIism

We may recall the West's first 'global' preoccupation with human society
and an interconnected wor1d through the development of anthropology: in the
contacting, observing, and describing of the social flows of others. Such study,
applying the methodology of ethnography, or the 'participant observer' narrative,
was invariably pursued in distant places (geographically), in bounded locations
(physicaIIy), involving particuIar populations (socially), and explaineci through
specific patterning of behaviour (stnicturally).
Individuals, groups, and finally whole streams of behaviour and symbolic
ideas were analysed and recorded. An expanding array of distant 'local' societies
(and the more complex issue of the location of the human subject - in respect of
the ones studying and those king studied) - crucially helped to build the sense
of a metaphorically encompassing geography of human engagement. This
expansionary inteliechal project involved the idea of radial, linear movement. It
was choreographed as an intellectual passage from European centres of knowledge,
resources and values, dong various trajectories to disparate peripheries. It was
presumed to entai1 decreasing densities of knowledge dong the way.
And so aIthough it was only in the domain of the social sciences (notably
in anthropology) that 'culture' continued to indicate a cornprehensive breadth of
reference - an address to the total scope of human behaviour - the excIusive
frameworks of disciplinary formulation proved radicdly reductive.
Anthropology's grounding in evolutionist thinking, and its foundational,
Eurocentric preference for inodels of progress in culture among human societies
(from simple to more complex forrns), reduced the scope of intellectua1 inference.
Enthralled by Darwinian ideas, anthropology amassed volumes of detaiIed
social narratives, which arrested temporality and the interna1 dynamics of human
stmggle and conterition. AnthropoJogy built a picture of human groups in the
rnonumentaIising descriptive mode that is summarised as the ethnogruphic present
of classic anthropological fieldwork. This inhibited the character of anthropology's
formulations, and embedded intellectual attention in the ritualistic forms of
ethnological case-studies - crocheting the details of micro-worlds, staticaIly
enclosed, and seemingly 'beyond' history.
The dynamic cultures of many distinct peoples, in diverse parts of the
world, were thereby stratified and congeded into self-typifying, repetitive cycles.
Such methodologies on the part of the Western interpreter produced habits of
forniaIistic cornparison and falsely universalising inference. Such habits stiII cliig
tenaciously inside much anthropological debate at present, even after radical
disciplinary revision by the 'ethnographic avant-garde' within the acadernic
institution itself.
 Murphy : Museums, Globalisafionand Cultural Diversiv

The splitting of 'culture' and the segregation of cuItura1 forms

A paraIlel fracturing of the idea of culture into radically different usages

occurred sirnilarly through the institutions of art. It contoured the building of 'fuie
art' collections. This splitting was abetted by the differentiating conceits of 'hi&'
and 'low' culturaI forms. Having long absorbed the perfume of social prestige in
its high cultural usage, the idea of 'culture' became detached from its humbler
origins (and vitalising resources). Culture in is dynamic and 'high' foms was
reserved as the prerogative of the West itself. It was narrativised in self-
descriptions of the progress of Western history, institutions and art. As with
anthropology, modeIs of progress in art disguised the fact that the death of
innovative productivity in art is fomialisrn; and 'purity' induces aesthetic
leukernia.
Meanwhile the unschooled and undifferentiated creativity of ordinary life,
the efforts of those working in unaccredited foms, were relegated to catch-al1
descriptions of 'popular' or 'folk' culture. EIsewhere, when dealhg with
anything from exotic sources, cultural production was compartmentaiised by
further categories of restricted esteem and constrained effect: 'ethnic artefacts (or
crafts)' or 'ethnie arts'. (The culture of the West yielded 'art'; the cuIture of
others yielded 'ethnic expression'.)
The creativity of indigenous cultures, in consequence, was rnostiy relegated
to the institutions and collections of natural history. Only recently has there been
an effort to re-open the issues (and representation) of indigenous societies'
aesthetic productivity in relation to the institutions of 'fine art' .
The resuIt is that similar artefacts have been dispersed throughout radicalIy
different types of museum coIlections and displays. Materials produced by the
same peoples may appear in starkly different institutions, located cheek-by-jowl
in major cities of the world - with an increasingly broad public that visits these
institutions given littIe heIp to understand the distinctions that have given rise to
such different systems of colIection and representation.
What has resulted is an unsustainable and violent monopoIisation of
categories, regulating and oppressing the diversity of values accorded tu human
creativity and expressive activity at Iarge.

The centrality of cuIture to the notion of human society and heritage

Returning to the intellectual sphere of the progress of knowledge in the

West since the eighteenth century: the severe restrictions of formulation across the
whole range of disciplinary scenes, from anthropology to art, have disguised the
urgency and insurgency of questions arising through the cen~aliwof culture itself
in any historica1 comprehension of human progress and heritage: both for the West
and for a11 of its 'others', equally.
For in the pre-historic theatre of biologicaI evolution, it was through
cultztre that we became what we are. Jdentity: homo sapiens. The gradua1
emergence of inter-social thinking, and an innovative propensity to cornmunicate
 Murphy: Mrcsetlms, Globalisarion and Cultural Diversiy

and organise behaviourai endeavour, enabled our ancestors to take the citical
evolutionary turn that produced our upright gat, the general shape and
' instrumental usage of our hands, and the collaborative ventures that secured food
and shelter, and speculative ideas. Eventually - unlike the Neanderthals, whose
survival was imperilled by their random existence and fragmentation - the crucial
shift occurred towards fumily groups. This led to stxuctured kinship (and
genealogical control through the incest taboo); and to the beginnings of symbolic
life that mediated and stabilised the relationship between past, present and fuhue.
Cultural organisation gave us language and communication. It sifted raw
experience through patterning memory and engendered story, performance and
Song. Culture assisted control of practical affairs and the progress of cornunities.
It precipitated the consolidation of group identity and shared history, and enabled
empirical habits of mind to develop - leadhg to abstract analysis, philosophy
(and religion), and experirnental science in recent centuries.
The patteming provided by culture (deeply connected to the developing
somatic and neurologicaI adaptability in the brain of each human creature born)
was therefore pivotal to the emergence of 'the human being', around whom we c m
track the rise of cultures in the plural, a11 over the world. The human mind cannot
form any architecture of thought, much less regulate its desires or drives (situated
in a constraining body), without cultural tooIs and concepts. And without cultural
ordering systems and reflexivity, human groups, social bodies, and indeed whole
populations, would be ungovernable. They would be riven by irreconcilable
conflicts, beyond the tractable influence of any consensual control.
It is only by means of cultural constnicts that we can think ourselves into
a place in the world, define or map that place in relation to the place of others -
even imagine ourselves as athers.
It is therefore through culture that we are al1 linked (incredibly intimately,
as it turns out, across al1 races, within a shared genetic inheritance). And we are
most acutely linked through our cultural diversi@. We are propelled into a myriad
forms of difference through the narratives of our diverse adaptation: into many
societies and syntheses of cultural influence; into many options for hurnan
ontology; inta various styles of inter-personal relationship, pigmentation and
political reality .
It continues to be the case for every person alive in the world today: that it
is only through the foundational inheritance and constant assistance of cultural
behaviour that we undertake each individuated journey of becoming hurnan, within
a comrnon sociality that links the one to the many - or to human history , and all
human communities within history.
Culture is thus not an ornament or mere accompaniment to our social and
material existence. It is not an optional extra, or 'value-adding' supplement to
survival. It is the arterial system and pulsatile movement of purposive human
thought. 1t facilitates al1 human signing and symbolic exchange of our mutually
learned and intercuItwa1 differences. It is through cultural activities that we
develop, communicate, imagine, learn, remember, endure, and transmit any heritage
to others.
 Murphy : Museums, Globalisa~ionand Culural Diversiry

Cultural diversity as 'interculturality' rather than cmuIticulturalism'

1 corne finally to a stress (al1 too briefiy here) on the important issues of
inter-culturality, and cross-cultural relationships and exchange in cultural heritage
work at present. Cultural diversity, comprehending the affirmative forces of
synthesis, hybridisation and cross-cuItural influences within the evolution of
cultural forms, indicates a much more comprehensive and subtle sense of cultural
process than 'multiculturalism'. The most stratified (and in the view of the
present author, disastrously reductive) conception of cultural diversity has been
presented in recent tirnes as ethnographic muliiculturalism.
Cultural repertoires today are composed contextually more than
classically. They cohere or defiect in a constant flux of re-combinative,
hybridising modes. People function in multiple cultural contexts, serially or even
simu1taneousIy (but experienced from many different vantage-points). As
mentioned at the beginning of this commentary, cuIturai foms are no longer
govemed by the integrative structures of a unified, dominant source culture, but
rather by the dissonant (and sometimes disintegrative) pressures of both
convergent and divergent infiuences concurrentIy.
The notion of interculturalify, in seeking to highlight the complexity of
contemporary cuIturai experience, needs therefore to be sharply distinguished
from the widely canvassed and Ioosely used term, multiculturalism. The t e m is
deceptive and problematic. It frequently masquerades as a progressive emblem of
accommodation and inclusion, especially when used as a mantra of political
policy. However its strongest advocates (again, especially in the political sphere)
have often scarcely dislodged the power relations of dominance and
marginalisation in which many social descriptions are still grounded.
Inrerculturnli@ (as a conception of cultural diversity) focuses on the
reciprocally involving links berneen cultural expressions. It is animated by
dynamic boundaries of ever-changing and mutually sustained dzyerence. It does
not support the usuaI separalion and stratification of difference that is sustained
by multicuIturalism - and especially not in its starkly schematic fom of
ethnographic rnulficulturaIism (cultural difference cast as separate parcels of
ethnicity). Far from being progressive, ethnographic multiculhiralism al1 too
quickly reveaIs its reactionary underside: a regress towards origins; an artificial
arresting of cultural cornpIexity under displays of fxed identity; and an inhibition
of the dynamic flows of contest, displacement, renewal and change within ad
cultural histories. The sharpest reminder of the oppressive potential of unreflected
multicultural ideaIs may be found in the fact that muIticu1turalism was often used
as the public alibi of the deoIogy of apartheid in South Africa.
By contrast, interculturaIity seeks to comprehend a more internalised and
contradictory - even conflictual - set of connections involved in cultural
expressions of difference, within al1 cultures, and between al1 cultures. The
interactive movements within and between cultures should be understood as
involving cultural groups in constant fluctuation and foms of multifbious alliance
with others. They are never monolithical1y distinct or autonomous. Inter-cultural
forces are thus constantly engaged with intra-cultural dynarnics, in rapidly
Murphy: Mtiseums, GIobaIisation and Culhrral Diversity

mutating contexts of social change, on a scale that is ever more glarnorously

'global'.

The challenge for museums and museology

The issues touched on here are inescapably urgent in the present worId of
complex social transition, and dazzIingIy evolving technology and communications
globally. Many observations about cultural change rnight still seern, to some, to
strike away fiom the subjects and territories of the museum - to be more about
an ethics of international social relations. In reality, hey strike right into the most
pressing issues tensionhg the metaphoric Iandscapes of conternporary
museological practice. They spur some of the most ground-changing cultural
heritage work being underiaken today .
Towards the end of this turbulent century, the work of musewns cm no
longer be reliably shaped by their rich traditions alone, or by any autonomous
methodologies of collection, research or representation. The activities of museums
are inescapably interconnected with the extraordinarily expanded and accelemted
circumstances of social and technological change of our age. They are confronted
by the clamour of imageries, stories and materials that solicit our gaze, fil1 our ears,
and saturate our (ever more diversely moulded) consciousness.
In such conditions, experimental museology and practice - that is, the
continuing possibility of museurn work that is critical, multiply engaged and
transformative - must navigate a uniquely inquiring and propositional existence.
It is tensioned by new awareness of the kinds of knowledge that can, but also
cannot, be represented within any sequence of objects or display, or be contained
within the methodologies of a single institution or discipline. It is stretched to
engage to an unprecedented degree with new subjects. It is startled and thrilIed by
new experiences. It is often daunted by vastly expanded or quite new horizons of
activity. It is uniqueIy stretched by rnuItipIe kinds of knowledge, bubbling
disparately and simultaneously, rather than resourced by centralised repositories
of well-sifted thought.
However this is also one of the most exciting times of enlarged inteilectual
scope, together with methodalogical, sociaI and ethical challenge, for museums and
museology. Museums have the apportunity tu address the provocative conditions
of the global forces of late modernity, In the process they will need increasingly to
recognise the absolute, irreducible values of cultural diversity in the maintenance of
culturaI heritage.
 Gorgas: Museum and the Crisis of People's Identiw

Museurns and the Crisis of Peoples' Identity

M6nica Risnicoff de Gorgas

Casa del Virrey Liniers, Alta Gracia, Cordoba
Argentina

By way of introduction

When examining the meditations on museology and museurns undertaken in

the Latin American context over the Iast twenty years, two recurrent topics show
up: the social function of the museum and the relationship museudidentity.
Since 1972's Round TabIe in Santiago de Chile, it seerns evident that the
museum's social function has been one of the most important contributions that
Latin American museoIogy has made to museological thought worldwide. In the
process of going over the museum notion as a European import and asking 'what
should be its goal in the context of developing countries?', many voices have made
clear the fact that the concept of cultural development implies social development
- tliat it is not possible to consider one without the other.
Thoughts on 'museums', 'heritage', 'identity' and 'development'
permanently turn up Iinked to this topic and inseparabIe from it. Identity, the
construction of identity and the strengthening of identity are addressed...
In one of the evaluation papers on ICOFOM's Iast twenty years of work,
presented at the Museology and Me~?io?ysymposium under the topic
'Museological Orientation and Authors' Geographical Origin', the authors noticed
a coincidence among the contributions fiom South America in considering the
Inuseum as an institution of European ongin that doesn't reveal the diversity of
our continent. The mission that Latin American museologists long to develop for
museums is provide answers to the people's needs. Latin American history is of a
continent subjected to many social and economic stresses. The museum shouId be
an identity-revealer, pIaying the roIe of educator; an institution with a social
inission, whose very existence depends on its insertion in the Iocal sociocuItural
context.
The particular concern over the definition of the Latin American museum
as an identity-revealer or as a means to achieve identity's reaffirmation, clearly
sliows tliat we are undergohg an identity crisis. It is most frequentIy in these
inotnents of crisis that populations and individuals ask themselves who they are,
wliere they corne from, where they are going...
It is therefore appropriate to set forth the origin, cause and features that
determine the crisis suffered by the peoples of our continent. In the case of
Argentina - 'a mixture of cultures due to conquest, immigration and integration of
areas that belonged to different ethnic and cultural nuclei" - a diversity of cultures

' Dujovne, Marta. Entre nirisos y iriusni-&as. Fondo de Cultura Economica de

Argentina. 1995.
Gorgas: Museums and the Crisis of People's Identity

assembles to form a national identity. In this case it is paradigrnatic to analyse

how voluntary and involuntary obIivion, and concealment of conflicts derived
frorn this same construction, have connibuted to this identity crisis.
The distortion of confiicts, clearly seen in Argenthian history museums,
answers ta a way of teaching history, often '...an almost absurd crystallization of
the handIing of history in educational institution^.'^ It has contributed to make a
population lacking a defined identity - and without considering diversity a source
of cultural wealth. In other words, the problem is not diversity or plurality, but
the desire to show a fake homogeneity.
Such questioning is not new. A series of voices has brave1y and clearIy
undertaken the topic. Marta Arjona said in 1982: '...if one wants to contribute to
safeguard our nation's values through museums, it is necessary to begin by saving
' ~ do we bring it up again today? In the first place, because
the historic t r ~ t h . Why
it is not yet resolved, and in the second, because during the course of these last ten
years our identity crisis has become worse, due to economic gIobaIization and
changes in the communications system which affect our self-perception and
confront the museum with an ethical dilemma.

The concealment processes

Studying the construction of Argentinian history, we notice several

specific features as well as broad similarities with other American counmes.
Conquest and settlernent of the place; insensitive battles for power; rival interests
between Metropolis and inland; anival of consecutive migrant groups with diverse
origins, who settled down and tried to strengthen their sociaI position, leavhg
traces and exercising influences as diversely as their origin - al1 these resulted in a
complexity that reveals the richness of the different contributions and the conflicts
of power derived from these same characteristics.
Official history has systernaticaIZy denied these conflicts, as well as the
difficulties of integration. A fragile memory that does not choose what to
reinember and what to forget resuIts in an altered image of ourselves. We find it
very difficuIt to recognise and sincerely accept ourselves since we don't see what
ive are and we see what we are not, which decreases Our self-esteem instead of
increasing it.
Behind tlie optirnistic notion of the 'melting poty learned in childhood, a
series of unsolved tensions, which neither museums nor educational institutions
liave had the will to clarify, can still be found. Hebe Clementi's concepts are still
in vogue:
that rnosaic of cultures and social values that reveals such an uneven population,
- -
requires under pressure the ability to analyse and elucidate; the latter being an
even more difficult task, since historic culture is not cornmon and one cannot have
access to it by rneans of mcthod and appropriate sensitivity. On the contrary, the
most frequent is the diatribe, the judgement and the non-discussed position taking
... tlie iininigraiit's prescnce, atso discriminated against in lower social levcls,
w l ~ i d ionly found tlie way to omission and oblivion through the possession d

' Dujovne, Marta. 0p.cit.

Mt1sei1111,Vol. XXXTV, No2. p.75.
 Gorgas: Museums and the Crisis of People 's I d e n t i ~

wealth, generated more confusion in this map of bias... [since] aristocratie values
and a covered up but persistent discrimination, suppopd by scorn for
crossbreeding and colour hm prevailed in Argentinian society.

Museology, the theoretical thought on the cantexts of communication and

hurnanity's encounter with the revealing testirnanies of Our identity, must always
bear in mind this particular situation and the probIems corresponding to the
cultural diversity of our continent's peopIes.
An important contribution cm be made from the museum to clan@ and
elucidate the confIicts that - if they remain unknown - may prevent Latin
Americans h m recovering their dignity and appreciating their cultural diversity.
This is of particular importance in the histone moments in which regional
identities tend to dissolve in favour of an impoverishing unifomity.
Museums, which are in a privileged position to generate a collective will
for the preservation of cuItual identity, must take sides, particularly in the
countries of our continent where cultural diversity exists due to the concurrence of
identities.
The museums of our continent will not contribute to the development of
their peopIeYsfostering unifomity or homogeneity, far from the notion of unity or
integration. It is the acknowledgment of diversity and appreciation of it that
contributes to the socio-cultural development of our societies.
It is desirable that diversity be recognised as a value that needs to be
defended, requiring a distinction between diversity and pluralism.
Diversity should be understood as recognition of the Other and notas toleration d
the Othcr ... Pluralism onIy summons tolerance: different approximations to our
own are admitted in the same interest field. We accept the existence of alterity: the
Other is inciuded as part of our own world. [Onthe contrary] the recognition of
diversity prcsupposes the existence of global conceptions diffemt to ours, with
meanings and values that urge us to becorne decentred fiom ourselvcs in order to
understand them. In tliis case, the Oiher is not formed from ourselves, but from its
own origin. It does not assume another view of the same reality - done by us but-
a view that perceives its own reality. We have stepped f o r ~ a r d . ~

It is of particular importance to stress and praise diversity in pIaces where

museums are embedded in multipIe identity societies. This valuation can never be
achieved by concealing conflicts. On the contrary, by unmasking realities and
problems, we can help to recover the dignity that conveys responsibility and
fieedom of choice.
Only the responsible can be free. Free to decide, by ethical decision, what
wiI1 be our attitude in view of the advances of globalization and of an idea of the
future, which cannot be avoided and may irnpIy the impoverishing of our own
c u h r a l forms.

Clementi, Hebe. 'Museologia e Identidad'. Simposio Museologia e Ideiztidad.

ICOFOM papers presented by the Argentinian representatives,StockhoIm, Sweden.
' Schmucler, Hctor. Meinorin de Icr cotnunicacida. Buenos Aires. Biblos. 1997.
Gorgas: Museums and the Crisis ofleople 's Identip

Memory and communication in the construction of identity

The big changes that have taken place in the world, affecthg us deeply,
have been generated with a speed unthinkable in other times. This phenornenon,
caused by changes in the communications, Iead us to pose the question of the role
of the museum as a rneans of communication.
One of the fields of study in museological thought is the way in which the
encounter between hurnanity and cultural heritage bkes place. We are therefore
talking about rnemoT and communicuiiopi. Thus it is appropriate to ask what we
understand at present by coninrunication in the museum context: how does this
topic reIate to the ethical dilemma referred to and the role played by mernory in
this equation?
Schmucler rnakes a very interesting distinction between communication
seen 'from the top' and communication seen 'from the bottom'. In its 'top' sense,
communication is understood as one of the human attributes through which we
share things with our fellow humans. Considering this last meaning, to
comrnunicate would mean 'to act in common', to live with the other instead of
transmitting something to the other. If communication were only transmission, the
question wouId be 'Iiow to do it?' or 'what are the instrumental means of
corninunication?' If we decide to support the broader or more elevated meanhg of
corninunication, the question would have other implications and lead us to wonder
why things have a ineaning.
FolIowing these terms, we can oppose 'mass communication' to 'museum
coinmunication', linked to the concept of communication as component of the
hurnan essence or the human way of being in the world. Seen as 'individuality's
inanient af transcendence, it changes its relationship with the concept of cu~ture.'~
Questions from the ethical perspective would be: 'which communication for which
inuseuiii?'; 'which recognition or valuation of our own cultural heritage and which
recognition of the other?'
The reIationship between communication and mernory is inevitable when
co~ii~iluliication
raises the problem of meaning without considering rnemory as a
container, but as an act of will through which we become responsible for the
rnea~iingstliat we confer.
When talking of museality, the musealized object is not: as important as its
ineaning, its expressive and symbolic condition. The social representations, the
conceptions of the wodd are projected upon material testimonies,
wliere the population's thought on its own identity i s recorded, unnoticed in
iiiaiiy opportunities and relegated, in spite of its full influence on the apprehension
of reality and tlie construction of tlie future.'

Our heritage, the expression of our identity, is a product of the conflict and
concurrence of different cultural forrns and world conceptions. The object's
heniieneutics, ivhich tries to confer a meaning based on a deep study and
- -

"chniucler, Hctor. 0p.cit.

' G u z m h , AIdo Luis. Coiiirtriicacidn y cultura en la cvisis de la modernidad.
Atenea. Cbrdoba, 1997.
 Gorgas: Museum and the Crisis of Peuple 's Identity

knowledge, requires of rnuseums unendhg reconstniction of the context and

imagination of its meaning according to ideological principles. But let us not forget
that the material doesn't operate a meaning, it only recalls it. Making wrong
contextualizations implies negative influence on its value.
Despite an inevitable future gaining contro1, we can stilI build an alternative
on our own, in the process of recovering historic memory, admitting the
importance of diversity and understanding that we are a concurrent muIti-identity
people with confiicts that must not be masked. The ethicaI attitude to assume
from the museum's context will greatly depend on the communication concept
adopted from which we raise our actions.

1s the future a possible construction or an inexorable destiny?

Museums must consider on the one hand, the destiny of regional

particularism and national identities with regard to the 'global village' notion, and
on the other, the limit and reach of the communication concept. ln other words, we
are interested in knowing what we really refer to when taiking about the reach and
power of mass media today.
Regionalization and globalization are addressed as two simultaneous
processes that take place in this particular time and space that we !ive in. But do
we really understand that:
globalization consist of a dissolution of frontier betwcen countries in ordcr to
facilitate the activities of transnational coinpanies, and that regionalization consits
in the constiiution of regional blocks in order to defend the interests of cornpanies
- already settled down in the region - against firms h m other countries or
regions'Ia

Through the interpretation of rnuseums' material testirnonies, we try to

revalue our own particular ways of being a people, a culture. When talking of
culture, in some way or the other, we are referring to the particular way in which
inen coininunicate and live in a detemined time and space,
wc are speaking about considering individuals' ordinary course of time, that is to
Say, their ways of working, the economic relationships they establish, thcir Iinks
to society, their religious beliefs, their feelings of love, their attitudes towards
death, their ideas about time and space?

But the economic mode1 that dominates us, the globalization of production,
inversion and technology, arouses similar consumption habits al1 over the world.
Jos Joaquin Brunner skilfully States that, whiIe in other societies access to
~llodernitytook pIace through the written word and its correlative educational
system which ernbraces most of the population, in Latin America the
iricorporation of such modemity is produced by fusing elecmnic images with
illiteracy and an unfinished and delayed school system, together with an intense
internalization of the masses' symbolic world.
- -

Wi Marco, Luis Eugenio. Lci regibrr et2 el ilu un do global. 'La Voz del Interior'.
Cordoba. 1998.
Schmucler, Hctor. 0p.cit.
Gorgas: Museums and the Crisis of People's Identiy

So, where do Our national identities stand? 1s it in the speech of those

whom the system qualifies, or is it in our concrete way of living now and today?
We can't stop considering the fact that technological patterns are often opposed to
the time and space notions of the peoples they dominate. And this is in the t h e
and space coordinates where each culture builds up its own vision of the world,
The power exercised fiom a technoIogy that affects alI our behaviours and
the coinmunication's mediation, support the idea that we are inexorably heading
towards a 'happy world.' This affirmation hides several non-silent voices. With
regard to this, Nicolis CasulIo states:
We could Say that nowadays, different than other times, it is rather difficult to
Iocate the ground of power. It is like an abstract figure that seerns not to have a
face, and on the other hand, as a feature of this age, the power or powers make
increasingly invisible their denial in view of the alternatives or dernands. Power's
denia1 never appears in the screens, it is inscribed in some oiher place, like a sort
of irreversible history which in some way has become an absolute pat ... power's
denial is 1ike a silenced history, which would not be history any Ionger but a sort
of archaic 10~ic.'~

Nowadays, Latin Arnerican museums face an ethical dilemma. It is fitting

for ii~useologyto do some theoretical thinking on what is at stake, raising the
question whether it is desirable to support what the systern imposes, lemhg
behind any previous judgement, or to imagine and create other options from the
museum with the full conviction that it is necessary to support national identity
and cultural diversity.
We cannot think of the museum as the institution that will soIve al1 the
problems of the contemporary worid, but we should consider that 'perceived by
the population as a worthy institution that if chosen, cm grant or denigrate
values,' it is able to accompIish an important role by stating other development
directions."
If the future is not something fixed which we are obliged to arrive at, but a
genninating construction of our present time, the decisions taken today will
prefigure the imrnediate universe.

"' Casullo, NicolBs. tci iiegncibti irrvisible. 'La voz del Interior'. Cordoba. 1998.
Arte. Museos y sus deinandas, laficcidn de la exhibicidn. ISS26
" Kennedy, S:B:.
ICOFOM Study Series. Brazil. 1996,
 Gorgas: Museum and the Crisis of Peopb's Idenfi0

Bibliography

Casullo, Nicolis. La negacibn invisible. 'La voz del Interior'. Cordoba. 1998.
Clementi, Hebe. 'Museologia e Identidad'. Simposio Museologin e Iiientidad.
Basic ICOFOM papers presented by the Argentinian representatives piiblished in
Stockholm, Sweden.
Di Marco, Luis Eugenio. La region en el mundo global. 'La Voz del Interior'.
Cordoba. 1998.
Guzmhn, Aldo Luis. Comunicaci6n y cuItura en la crisis de la nzodernidad.
Atenea. Cbrdaba, 1997.
Kennedy, S.%. Arie. Museos y sus deniandas, la ficcidn de la exhibicibn. ISS26
ICOFOM Study Series. Brazi1.1996.
SchmucIer, H6ctor. Menturia de la cornzrnicacidn. Buenos Aires. Biblos.1997.
 Roberts: Militarisation and Mtrseologv

Militarisation and Museology: Exarnples of

Globalisation at the Australian War Memorial

Tim Roberts
Australian War Memorial, Canberra
Tirn.Roberts@awm.gov.au

One of the major concerns expressed in presentations for the museology sessions
at the ICOM conference was the varying impact of globalisation. The increasing
connections between individuals, organisations and the sources of finance, technology,
ideas, transport and communications raised many questions about the capacities of
cultural institutions. The most conceming questions were how to continue operating,
adjusting and creating original exhibitions and rnanaging collections that would further the
institution's aims, and take advantage of global situations and practical arrangements
such as the worldwide communications networks, without losing the essential identities
and the trust of visitors, sponsors, tnistees and staff? The very fact that this concern
was expressed at an international conference suggests (and many papers confimi this)
that the museums profession and the theory and practice of museoIogy has also became
globalised.
Dr Linda Young presented a paper which surveyed theories of globalisation and
how they related to museology. It is this presentation that rnotivated me to comment on
a particular form of gIobalisation, that of militarisation, and attempt to illustrate how
inilitarisation and museology combine at the Australian War Memorial. 1 emphasise that
tliese comments focus on the museum aspects of the Mernorial but, of course,
cornmernorative aspects are a significant influence.
As I understand it, militarisation has been one of the most infIuential types of
globalising forces in this century: the two world wars are very dramatic axamples of how
resources, people, organisations, technology and finance have been mobilised on a global
scale. Militarisation has also produced, or at least strengthened more global forces, the
Tiltemet being one of the most popular. Today, the Memorial staff are using the Net to
advance the organisation's aims, which contributes to museum practice. This activity is
also an increasing element of museum theory. It is easy to forget, because of the
increasing excitement about the Net's possibilities, that the Net itself originated as a
iiiilitary application during the Cold War (another example of militarisation in action), to
cope with extreme dernands for decexitralised communications. This military application
brings us back to the origins of the Memorial itself, in war correspondent/oficial
liistorian, Charles Bean, who was inspired to plan a combination of mernorial and
iuiiseum that would not only be the best in the nation but would also be of a world
standard.
Another example of militarisation and museology is the annual Anzac Day
cererilonies, especially the main parade. (Anzac Day is Australia's chief military
coi~iti~etnoration day, iiiarking the Australian and New Zealand Amy Corps retreat from
Gallipoli, Turkey, in 1915). This event shows the large number of countries involved in
tlie wars in which Australians have fought, and the audiences's cuIturaVnationa1
Roberts: Militarisation and Museology

backgrounds include a wide range of former Allied, Axis and non-aIigned countries. From
a museology perspective, the Memorial displays a collection of objects, symboIs and
ideas, including flags, medals and service hymns (tangibIe and intangible heritage that al1
need to be sensitively managed), al1 strongly representative of AustraIiaYshistory of
militarisation. The Memonal is also involved in presenting a public program that
impacts on the history of the Memorial and visitors' reactions to it. in addition, the
participation of the armed services continues the historical connections with war
experiences and the military machine. Military bands, guards and the fly-past provides
the type of mass spectacle which wouId not be possible, or even approved, without the
commemorative role of Anzac Day being such a fundamental part of the whole
ceremonial experience.
The Anzac Day example is unusual for museum practice and theory. It is not
easy to reconciIe with more traditional studies of collections or the exhibition of ideas
and objects. WhiIe the history, purpose and particular vested interests in the Memorial
will limit or even forbid the use of some ideas and practices derived from museology, 1
do not believe the Memorial is a 'hopeless case'; far from it. Current gaIlery
redevelopments have created new grounds for interesting possibilities.
By attending the international museums conference 1 have had opporhinities to
find out about rnuseums around the world. Even before 1 came back to Canberra I knew 1
had learned more about the Mernorial's continuing possibilities as a cultural institution.
As a student of museology, I believe there is the possibility that museum theory and
practice can, without seriously clashing with commemorative ideals, provide an ongoing
source of ideas and viable methods for making the most of what the Mernoria1 has to
offer a globalised AustraIia and the globalised world at large.
 Turner: Globalised Exhibitions

Globalised Exhibitions: Museum Practice Today

Caroline Turner
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia

A theoretical dimension of globalisation, particularly in the future, defines

'Nothing but nothing is ever bound to happen', as Dick Hebdige observed afker the
fa11 of the Berlin ~ a l 1 +Or
' as the editor of Le Point ,Claude Imbert, puts it,
'Impossible to read the future...The chrysalis knows nothing of the b ~ t t e r f l ~ ' . ~
The themes that emerge most conspicuously from the papers presented to
this conference are paradoxical but unambiguous. Globalisation appears to be a
present reality but it may not be the wave of the future. And it brings greater
opportunities for the discovery and appreciation of diverse cuItures, but perhaps
at the risk of literally annihilating them. Mike Featherstone warns that the
increased cuItural flows consequent of globalisation may not necessarily produce
'a greater tolerance and cosmopolitanism. An increased familiarity with the
"Other" rnay equally lead to ...a retreat from the threat of cultural disorder into the
security of ethnicity, traditionalism or the active assertion of the integrity of the
national culture in global ,cultural prestige con test^.'^
1 now turn to the papers in our discussion volume by members of
ICOFOM. The majority of the writers are at one in declaring that the role of
rnuseurns now, and in whatever future can be foreseen, is to defend true reality
against virtual reality, to give priority to the preservation of living culture,
especialIy indigenous cultures, and in fmding ways to bridge the past and the
present. 1 am reminded of a statement made very oflen by indigenous peoples
from AustraIia and the Pacific that for them, the past may be in front of them: in
other words, their past is their future. Emmanuel Kasarherou of the Centre Jean-
Marie Tjibaou in New Caledonia in his fine keynote address to this Conference
pointed to the activist Tjibaou's statement that identity for Kanaks was ahead and
still to be created.
Vice-President of the International Coinmitkee of Museology of ICOM,
Andr Dsvalles, denounces globalisation as 'the rampant cancer...of money
compting al1 cultural activities as it has corrupted most sporting activities', and
quotes the warning of former UN Secretary-General Prez de Cullar, against 'so-
called cultural tourists who contribute to a demand more or less artificial for the
theatricalisation and ritual presentation af cultural traditions' out of c ~ n t e x tAn
.~
Laishun from China has presented us, however, with the fascinating possibilities

'Dick Hebdige quoted by Mi ke Featherstone (ed.), Global Culture: Nariottalisin, Globalizatiott mrd
Modcriiify ( A Tlteoiy Ciilriire atid SocieQ Special Issue) London, Sage, 1990.
'Claude Imbert, 'Symptmes', Le Point, 1358,26 Sept 1358. p.5.
Feaiherstone. Op.Ci(.
Andr Desvalles, 'Muse et patrirnonie integral: le future du pass', Linda Young (ed.),
Miiseology aiid Globalisario~i,ISS 29, University of Canberra, 1998, p.25-33.
Turner: Globalised Exhibitions

of an international concept - the ecomuseum used to create a new future out of

heritage for the Miao minoriv people,
Many writers stress the critical role of the museum in preserving and
nurturing cultural identity and diversity. 'We priviIege the virtual', Mathilde
Bellaigue says. But she asks, 'will not this presence immaterial, ghostly, literally
disembodied lead to a certain perversion of human relations?' 'Economic man is a
being of irnmediacy and technology'; but this means that we have lost the capacity
to 'inhabit time', in the words of Jean-Marie Tjibaou. The paradox of our age is
that 'those who have the strongest awareness of the tnie dimension of space and
time are the dislocated, the exiles, the emigres who have Iost their land.' The
essential concern of the museum in the 21st century must therefore be 'the
rematerialisation of the world', giving priority to the 'here' and the no^'.^
Maria Bezzeg of Budapest notes (while not necessarily agreeing) that some
critics regard globalisation as 'nothing Iess than the incorporation of the entire
world into the crisis of the late rnodernity of western civilisation'. She quotes
Miklos Almasi, arguing that 'a veneer of [Western] global culture is itself non-
viable... unIess it... nters into a relationship with the more deeply eembedded
layers of local, national or regional culture,' And museums can 'play an
outstanding part in the preservation of this locaI culture' as many speakers at this
Conference have suggesteda6
SirnilarIy, Nelly DecaroIis of Buenos Aires afirms the role of the museum
as the 'guardian of the authentic values that have made up humanity's
universe...Iinked to the identification of the past...a means for recovering a
tlireatened identity'.7
Odalice Miranda Priosti from BraziI asks, '1s this world order really
essential? If it is necessary to globalise, living cuIture is above al1 a resistance
riiovement of the cultural identities.' The new responsibility of the museum is to
be 'David versus GoIiath - despite the supremacy of the market and consumerism,
tlie faithful steward of its living culture. Global culture cannot be Iost in the
hegemony of those inost favoured economically and technoIogically.' Museology
is thus 'the art of reaching understanding with the Other, with al1 the contrasts
wvhicli that enta il^.'^ Or as HiIdegard Vieregg puts it, 'Cultural education has now
becoine the most important social finction of museums in regard to the public of
tlie future. The primary purpose of museums is to become centres of cultural
e~cliange.'~
AI1 this has immense impIications for museum professionals in curating
exhibitions: the means by which we approach cultural exchange through
exhibitions. International exhibitions, transnational lending, borrowing and

Mathilde Bellaigue, 'Mondialisation et mmoire', Miiseology alid Glohalisatioit Op.Cit., p.5-12.

"aria Bezzeg, 'Theinfluence of globalizaiion on museology', Museology atd Globalisarion
Op.Cir., p.13-18.
' NeIly Decarolis, 'Globalization and diversity: a delicate balance', Miiseology attd Globalisation
Op.Cir., p. 19-24.
Oddice hlimnda Priosti, 'Archologie d'une colleciion inacheve', Museology attd Globalisarioii
Op.Cir., p.75-78.
Y Hildegard K. Vieregg, 'Museums: a vision of Utopia?', Mtrseology atid Globalisatiott Op. Cit.,
p.79-86.
Turner: Globalised Exhibitions

regional rationale. These latter join exhibitions of local projection such as the art of
the non-aIigned countries in Jakarta in 1995.
These have more particular relevance to Australia's region. Last year 1
attended a conference on international exhibitions in Bellagio, Italy, to represent
the Queensland Art Gallery's Asia-Pacific Triennial, a relative newcomer in
recUrnng international exhibitions. The Triennial, along with exhibitions such as
the new Asian Art Show in Fukuoka, Japan, represents a somewhat different
mode1 from Biennials in that they are museum-based exhibitions of the living art of
a specific region, undertaken for reasons related to educating local audiences about
our neighbours and current regional difference, rather than international art
exhibitions of mainIy European and North Amencan 'international' art. One could
see these exhibitions as a postmodernist phenomenon in their emphasis on
difference. Their museurn base makes them distinctive in that they represent a long
term cornmitment to research and collect as well exhibit, and are accompanied by
museum-based documentation and research centres. The important new Centre
Jean-Marie Tjibaou in Noumea represents another example of a site for experiment
and reconciling past with future. The Asia-Pacific Triennial has one further
characteristic of criticaI importance: CO-curatorshipbetween Australian Curators
and those in different countries in selecting and contextualising the works. Co-
curatorship is not easy but, done with mutual respect, it is rewarding and
important to an outcome which is not just the projection of one country's views
on another.
Among the questions raised by this topic is whether transnational
exhibitions are sheer cultural imperialism? Some undoubtedly have been, are, and
will continue to be so. The new museological modds we are developing, however,
suggest a determined effort on the part of many museums in the Asia-Pacific
region to reject any such hegemonies, at least as irnposed fiom the West.
Singaporean critic T.K.Sabapathy, writing in the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial
CataIogue in 1996, referred to this 'deeply felt current, a wariness towards
accepting or succumbing to orthodoxies emerging, imposed or acquired from the
West.' He noted also the resistance within countries to 'totalising or homogenising
strategies prompted by national andor global force^."^
My experience with the Asia-Pacific Triennial is to have encountered the
saine strongly felt rejection of Euro-America-centric values and the need to move
beyond cultural orthodoxies to new critical models. In the same Second Asia-
Pacific Triennia1 Catalogue, Australian anthropologist Nicholas Thomas noted the
linlits of globalisation in regard to Oceanic cultures, especially the need to move
beyond the outdated dichotomy of traditional versus contemporary in dealing with
the art and culture of the Pacific today.
An enormous international change has taken place in the last few years in
accepting the contemporary culture of Asia and Latin America, and the issue of
tlie derivativeness of Western art, long enunciated by critics in the West, has at
long last, 1 believe, been put to rest. Marion Pastor-Roces is ainong those Asian
critics 11r1io has supported the need 'to create new intellectual tools that can go
10
T.K. Sabapathy. 'Developing Regionalist Perspectives in South-East Asian Art Histariography',
Tlie Secoiid Asia-Pacific Tiieiiriial of Coiiteiiiporaty Arr [exhibition catalogue], 1996, p. 13.
 Turner: Globalised Exhibitions

beyond the tems syncretic or even perhaps hybrid and certainly beyond that sad
word influence."' However, Vishaka Desai, Director of the Asia Center Galleries
in New York, speaking in Tokyo in 1997 acknowIedged that the Asia Society's
first exhibition of contemporary Asian art - 'Traditions/Tensions' - had been
better received on the West Coast of North America than in New York, still a
bastion of resistance to the new contemporary art of Asia. Interestingly, around
30,000 visitors saw that pioneenng and exciting exhibition in New York, compared
with 120,000 at the last Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Australia.
One of the most critical issues for museums in tems of international
exhibitions, as many speakers and commentators at ICOM have noted, is that of
context. Fumio Nanjo in the catalogue to his 'Transculture' exhibition noted
'without a lcnowledge of the social and cultural context a true understanding is
Museums will need to work very hard in the future ta deal with the
complex contexts of diversity, whether of other cultures or of multiculturalism
within societies. Often I believe the type of internationa1 exhibition says much
about the society staging it. Et is v e r - revealing that the favaurite blockbusters of
Western society are the orientalist attractions of ancient Egypt or the untroubIed
pleasures of the French I~npressionists. Yet Australian audiences have also
responded enthusiasticalty to conteinporary Asia in the knowledge that our
society and peopIe must Iive and work in the region and that we need to gain a
more substantial understanding of the dynamic contemporary societies of our
region.
Put very sirnply, the main topics that we seem to have touched on for
global exhibitions of the 2 1st Century are:
1. Our environment
2. Linking past to prescnt
3. Cultural syncretism and multi-culturaIism
4. Knowing our neighbours and celebrating diversity
The final issue for our session is of new international exhibition modeis for
museums in the next century. 1would suggest that these must include:
1. Exhibition models that are non-hegemonic and the establishment of scholarly
partnerships based on equality.
2. A genuine cultural engagement based on real understanding of contexts and
respect for difference.

Bibliography

Fivst Asia-Pacipc Triermial of ConteinporaqvArt, Queensland Art Gallery, 1993

Second Asin-PaciJic Trierinial of Contenrpormy Art, Queensland Art Gallery, 1996
Caroline Turner & Rhana Devenport (eds), Present Encounters: Papersfroni the
Coiferei~csof The Secotrd Asia-Pac~ficTriennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland
Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1998

" Quoted by T.K. Sabapathy, Op.Cit., p. 13.

''Fumio Nanjo, 'A book that is never finished', in TrarisCitlture La Biennale di Venezia
Iexhibition catalogue], 1995, p. 13.
 A post scriptum: Museology and Globalization
What is it? Peut-on conclure?

Vanda Vitdi
cdli2
50 Lombard Street, suite 2404,Toronto, Canada

Rsum

Cet article donne le spectre des dfinitions et descriptions de la globalisation qui

ont t donnes dans les prsentations et commentaires de participants
l'Assemble 1998 de I'IFOCOM. Ces positions refltent invitablement Ies
options culturelles, conomiques et politiques des intervenants. L'article suggre
un moyen de rendre pertinente l'utilisation de mots aussi gnriques que ceIui de
globalisation.

The ICOFOM session, held during the ICOM '98 conference in

Melbourne, Australia, in October, 1998, and entided 'MuseoIogy and
GIobalizationY, brought together a number of museum practitioners and
tlieoreticians from around the globe and a group of leading Australian museum
curators, directors and academics. Under the able and innovative leadership of
Linda Young, University of Canberra, the ICOFOM session was well organized.
In tlie tradition of ICOFOM sessions, discussion papers were published in
advance of the sessions. This provided authors witli an opportuniv to build upon
tliem, and gave al1 participants an occasion to express their opinions and debate
issues during and outside the official session.
As a participant, 1 came back stimulated by the discussions. However, in
trying to prepare a report for my colleagues who were unable to participate in the
meetings, 1 found myself stmggling.
If we consider that museums are essentially concemed with human
experience (cultural, scientific, etc) as it manifests itseIf in different historical,
geographic, or civiIizationa1 circumstances, and that the role of the museum is to
exhibit and promote tlie specificity of this experience and, therefore, to iIluminate
diversity, 1 believe that presenting the coinmunaIity of humanity in a widely
diverse natural and social ecology, is the most appropriate framework for working
with global and local issues in museurns. It is within this dialectic relationship
between the communaIity of human situations and the diversity of responses to
those situations that museums should find a response to the current tendency to
centralize and honiogenize the world in which museums exist.
The ICOFOM '98 discussion presented a spectnim of definitions and
assessiilents of globalization as seen in the cornments of just a few of the
participants. For instance, Linda Young stressed the tl~eoreticalaspects of the
flow of people, equipment, information, commodities or ideologies and the
positive aspects of such fiows. Caroline Turner, Assistant Director of the
Queensland Art Gallery, Australia, an invited speaker, talked about practical
aspects, partnerships and CO-curatorshipsfor exhibitions that become possible in
the new, globalized world. For Bemice Murphy, Director of the Museum of
Conternporary Art in Sydney, Australia, an invited speaker as well, globalization
offers new challenges and opportunities for local cultures, in particular aboriginal,
to 'absorb, rnodify and hybridize their culture'. This development, according to
Ms Murphy, appears as a strong factor in the manifestation of contemporary
culture. For Michel Menu, Laboratoire de Recherche du Musee du Louvre, France,
a discussant, 'globalization' and niondializatim need to be distinguished: for him,
t~tondializationrepresents cross-cultural influences whila 'globalization' refers
essentially to financial domains. For Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty, Director of the
Indira Gandhi National Museum of Mankind, India, a discussant, the impact of
globalization on the developed world as compared to the developing world is very
different and needs to be distinguished, sa that there is a greater clarity as to which
values are being emphasized and which values may be lost. For Teresa Scheiner,
new President of ICOFOM, from BraziI, globalization can be seen as
colonialization that bnngs powerful extemal concepts and values, for instance, by
means of travelling exhibitions. Another angle of past coloniaIization was raised by
Trevor Pearce, heritage consultant, Australia, an invited speaker, who felt that the
repatriation of artifacts represents a major issue in world museology today.
Thus, gIoba1ization and the way it is reflected in the museurn world,
represents different visions ta different people, ranghg from colonialization
tlirough mono-culture ta comrnon human experience. This demonstrates the extent
to wliich different facets of globalization, as a concept, are emphasized, depending
on cultural, economic or political circumstances.
In turn, tliis raises the question of the usefulnes of globalization as a
concept. Indeed, one may ask if globalization is a fiag of convenience to obscure
the processes, both good and bad, of rapid political or economic change, change
that can be destructive for some and constructive for others.
The use of a 'blanket terni', such as globalization, appears not always to
be Iielpful or even intellectually defensible. Discussions are an essential part of a
pracess to which al1 need to contribute. Wawever, if terms such as globalization
are to be of use, they need to be augmented by definitions that state the values of
globalization tliat are of concern, those that are encouraged, and those that are
feared. It is through this understanding of the values associated with concepts that
iiluseums will promote a respect for different needs in an increasingly complex and
interdependent world.
 Voi: Ziving Culhrres' and Museums in the Pacific

'Living Cultures' and Museuins in the P acifc

Mali Voi
UNESCO Sub-Regional CulturaI Adviser in the Pacific, Apia, Samoa
M.VOI@unesco.org

Introduction

There are differing notions about the storage of history and heritage
between the cultures of the Pacific IsIands and the West. These differences should
be understood so that the pIanning of programmes and activities can be designed to
be meaningfut for the users.
In this paper, an attempt wil1 be made to highlight contrast of storing
history and heritage. A passing remark on some of the dilemmas that the museums
have been facing in the Pacific wiIl be made. Then some suggestions wouId be
made on what could constitute the role of museums in the Pacific to ensure that
they perform their traditional function as keepers of history and heritage and
explore the educational role of museums in promoting 'living cultures' of Pacific
Island societies.

Traditions and belief systems in the Pacific

In the Pacific there exist traditional taboos that one must observe in order
to conduct a healthy life. For example there are sacred burial caves at Hakupu in
Niue, These burial caves have remained very much sacred because the local people
still hold the belief of the sacredness of the burial caves despite strong influence of
Christian religion over the last 150 years or so. According to the people of
Hakupu, one can not enter these sacred buria1 caves that still contain the skeletons
of their ancestors because it is a taboo. To enter these burial caves, one must go
tlirough the processes of traditional sanctification, through the traditional rituals.
Othenvise one would be inviting disaster to self and the family. The head person
(normaIly a chief), who conducts the sanctification proceeding has to fast and seek
spiritual permission for himself and guest/s to enter the sacred buna1 caves before
the act of visiting the site takes place.
When the head person completes al1 the traditional protocols then he
co~iductsa session with those that he intends to bring so that they may be insured
froln being contaminated when they get to the burial caves. The last one of this
was done last year to allow Gerrnan photographers to get inside and take pictures
of tlie liuman bones that have been there for many years. The chief, who had the
traditional authority to insure people to enter the sacred burial caves, had died just
a week before 1visited Niue from 7 to 11 September 1998.
It was at his invitation to protect the sacred burial caves from the foreign
visitors that I had planned to visit Niue. Had 1got to Hakupu as originally planned
(17 - 22 August), 1 would have spoken with him and that he would have
Voi: Ziving Cultures' and Museums in the Pacific

conducted the traditional protocols for us to enter the sacred caves. The chiefs .
son, accordingly, has been given powers to conduct the traditional protocols of
protecting those that he would bring to the sacred caves and himself. He would
ensure the safety of visitors from being contaminated at the burial caves. At this
occasion, it wouId have been his first time to conduct such a traditional protocol.
He, however, was unsure whether he was able to guarantee the safety of myself.
Indeed this visit would have been his first time to conduct one without his father.
We held a long discussion and aIlowed a day passed. At the end we decided to
allow some time for hirn to seek spiritual consent in the meantirne we would give a
miss to going to the sacred burial caves.

Traditional Sacred Houses

There are other designated sacred sites such as forests, lakes, and rivers,
waterfalls and etc that the commwiities give significant importance and reserve
them as places of taboo. In some Pacific Island countries elaborate building were
erected to store rnaterial culture. Such places as the 'Haus Tambaran' of the Sepiks
of Papua New Guinea.
In the traditional concept, these designated houses were not opened to
everyone in the community. These were reserved exclusively for only select
persons who entered them and participated in those programmes such as initiation
cerernonies, worship, and the like. The chiIdren and women were strictly forbidden
to enter into them, let alone go near them.
Same of them kept rnaterial cultural object, which had spiritual powers.
Since skulls and human bones were usually kept there, the members of the
cominunity were afraid to get near them because they did not want to b h g
~nisfortunesupon themselves or to their families if they did not upheld the cultural
observations. The spiritual world in effect, so the beliefs go, guards and protects
the well being of the Iiving. So the daily conduct of self is very much dependent on
strong ethicaI and moral values, which are supervised by the spiritual worId.
Hence the regdatory measures of self-control and the conduct of the business of
living.
In these places they have w a h g libraries and rnuseums of traditional
knowledge and wisdom. In fact 1 fully endorse the citation that was made of an
African who said that each time an old person passes away, a library or a museum
is gone. It is al1 too true for the Pacific Islands. These people have not been given
recognition by the modem Inuseum management. Similarly in the field of medicine,
the traditional rnedicinal herbs and practices have had little recognition. For an
exainple in one of the themes of the Vaka Moana - Ocean Roads of the Pacific
UNESCO Programme, an encouragement was made to have the indigenous people
to coiiie fonvard with their uses of plants for medicina1 purposes. The view was
tliat if any of the inedicinal plants were identified as having pharmaceutical value,
UNESCO could Iielp them to have traditional intellectual property right protected.
Already a loss has been inade on one of the traditional use of plants to the
coiiiiiiercial world ... the kava. Just as to how much more of loss will occur is
anyone's guess.
 Voi: 'Living Cultures' and Museums in the Pacific

Some dilemmas of modern sacred houses: or museums

The modern sacred houses are the museums. They have their traditional
Eunction to keeping history and heritage. This is the traditional Western view but
due to change, the modern museurns, in my view, are evolving to take on an added
dimension. That is to say that they are continuing to provide their traditional
function but at the same time they are explonng the economics of cultural tourism.
There are two reasons for this. The first reason is that museums are
accommodating social and political transformations that are taking place. The
world is but one of a global village where there has been, and increasingly so it wilI
be, a large movement of people across the continents. The economics of tourisrn
has had a profound impact upon world econorny. Museums just like any dynamic
organisations that have to respond to the prevailing global social, economic, and
political movements so as to make them relevant.
The museums in the Pacific are beginning to respond as well. To be of
relevance in these changing circuinstances, they need to have fm foundations.
And these foundations are their oral history, Iegends, arts and cultwe. For a long
tiine the majority of the grassroots people regard these museums as foreign
enterprises, 'em sarnting bilong waitman' (soinething for white man) as the Tok
Pisin expression goes. Such an attitude raises a very important concern for
iiiuseum managers and adrninistrators. The longer the local people regard the
museums as foreign institutions, the less grassroots support will have for
museums. If the inuseums are to gain an important place that they always
coinmanded, they need to have the grassroots support. It is at this level that the
living cultures are held and practised.
Many of the museums in the Pacific do not have trained and qualified staff
to manage their operations as expected of their functions. Even if they have
graduate staff, opportunities for professional training after they gain their forma1
qualifications to effectively carry out their work is ofien a common concem. This
is by no means any fault on their part. The facilities are just not there. Other than
tlie traditional courses in anthropology, archaeology, fine arts, history, and the
like, the regional universities in the Pacific do not teach courses in museurn
management and administration or cultural management and administration for that
inatter.
Support from public funding, just as in other public museums elsewhere,
has been slowly dwindling to the point where many of the museum operations
have to be scaled down. In other words the annual grants have been reduced to the
level that they have to close their doors during the weekends to save their
overheads costs. Under such a circumstance, how can they operate?
111 solne cases the repair and maintenance of the facilities have been
~ieglectedfor a Iong time to the point where physical facilities may pose danger to
tlie safe keeping of tlieir history and heritage. This situation is also no fault of the
iiianagers and adriiinistrators of museum. This is directly a result of the inadequate
public funding froin their respective govemments. This scene is unlikely to
iii~prove.If anytliing else it is going to be further reduced due to their govemments'
Voi: 'Living Cultures' and Musmms in the Pacifie

economic circumstances that they now face. Many of them have devalued their
currencies to cope with the downturn of their economies.

An added dimension of museums

In spite of the unattractive scene painted above, it is my humble view that

the museums in the Pacific can and do have the potential of lifting themselves out
of those and begin to give an inspiration back to the grassroots people the support
from whom the museums couId not ignore. There are a certain amount of experts
in the Pacific Museums and they need to use these to their advantage. They have
historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, natural scientists, educationists, and
etc. These skills should be mobilised and start to extend the activities to be
brought to the grassroots people.
There are cultural and natural heritage sites in the communities that need to
be revitalised. The oral history and legends of the people and places of significance
that need to be brought into focus. Then aspects of interpretive or interactive
planning could be done with the view to developing cultural tourism of each site. It
is possibIe to do this in an integrated and interdisciplinary approach. That is to
Say that the museums have certain amount of technical expertise, which can
contribute to the developrnent of cultural and naturaI heritage sites. Then dialogues
should be made between the tourism industry, business and commerce, and city or
provincial authorities to create visitor centres, some of these could be an
educational extension amis of the museums.
The museurns in the PacifIc are best recommended to move into ecotourism
industry and develop their expertise in the area because there are more natural
heritage sites than building and monuments in the Pacific. They have extensive
ainount of marine heritage that has yet to be explored. They should be able to have
their marine biologist to address this area. Indeed UNESCO has a draft Convention
for Underwater Heritage to be debated in the 1999 UNESCO General Conference.
The museums in the Pacific shouId take a great interest.
They should also be interested in the World Commission for Culture and
Development Report, Our Creative Diversip by Perez de Cuellar's Commission
of 1995. The fundamental philosophy of this report is to address development
froiii tlie cultural dimension. To put it another way, use the existing social,
econon~ic,political, and cultural structures to conduct developrnent for the peopIe.
I take the view that museums are an instrument of reconciling the past with
the present and constructing the future with strong hope. This is because the
rnuseurns have a subtle way of bringing about social transformations a more
ainicabIy than other forms of interventions.

Tliere exists in tlie Pacific a vast amount of traditional knowledge and

wisdoiil but to date it has not been hlIy tapped. The living culture is alive and
well in spite of the colonial and religious interventions in the past. The growing
global iritervention is uiiIikely to succeed either because human nature is as such
 Voi: 'Living Cultures' and Museunis in the Pa@

that physieally man may be suppressed but intellectudly and spiritually he lives
forever.
It is h m this philosophical perspective that the museums jn the Pacific
shauld explore the tangible agd intangible hmitage pursue &air added dimension
functions ta bring about strong cultural identity but at the same time their pmpf e
to participate in same cornmon human values that we share... Our Crentiv~
Diversity (World Commissian for Culture and Develapment, 1995, UNESCO].