Museums and Maori: Heritage Professionals, Indigenous Collections, Current Practice

Description

For centuries, M ori treasures, or taonga, have been some of the most prized, popular and precious objects held in museums around the world. From Te Maori to Te Papa and beyond, initiatives in Aotearoa New Zealand over the last 30 years have continued to provide new models for museums around the world. With this has changed the role of museum staff who face new challenges in collecting, caring for and exhibiting the taonga of the M ori people in partnership with iwi (tribes) as well as developments involving the repatriation of human remains, the opening of cultural centres, and debates over identity, cultural property and heritage management. How do museum professionals deal with the indigenous objects in their care from day to day? How do they engage on a practical level with tribal communities? How do museums structure themselves to meet the needs of visitors as well as these communities? For the first time ever, Museums and M?ori answers these questions. Using practical examples and the voices of the indigenous professionals and community representatives who have transformed museum practice in New Zealand over the past three decades, this all-new book provides an up-to-the-minute snapshot of New Zealand museums today across the whole range of museum work: mission and governance, management and staffing, collection care and management, exhibition development, education and public programmes, research and training. Ground-breaking initiatives - and their legacies - are revealed through interviews, policy documents, images and observations of professionals at work in museums ranging from the national museum Te Papa to the tiniest regional galleries. Museums and Maori addresses a major gap in the literature and a yawning gulf in professional training, making it indispensible as a reader for students, a handbook for professionals and a critical study relevant to the academic fields of museum and heritage studies, anthropology, art history, cultural studies, history, indigenous studies, and development studies.

Conal McCarthy is the programme director in the School of Art History, Classics and Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington.

"Using a theoretical perspective grounded in museum practice, McCarthy masterfully brings the experiences of both museum professionals and Maori communities together over the past three decades and discusses the successes, pitfalls and frustrations posed by the social and ethnic tensions that exist in New Zealand despite the governments attempts at 'biculturalism' This case study of museums and Maori could fit any country where Europeans invaded and colonized indigenous peoples. This book is required reading for museum professionals currently working in museums that hold and exhibit indigenous collections and for anyone planning to become a museum professional. I would also recommend this to anyone studying identity politics, the history of colonization and de-colonization, and the advancements by indigenous peoples throughout the world who are engaging in the process of self-determination.' Shelby Tisdale, PhD, Director Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, Santa Fe"