This thesis is an overview of problems of violence towards indigenous people across the world and seeks to analyze how these groups protect themselves through lack of government support. Then,...Show moreThis thesis is an overview of problems of violence towards indigenous people across the world and seeks to analyze how these groups protect themselves through lack of government support. Then, there will be looked into the problems of violence within Brazil and how it relates to environmental crime. The indigenous groups Pataxó and Tupinambá will be used as a case study to look into the violence in the Northeast of Brazil. There will be an analysis of how the Brazilian indigenous protect themselves against violence from land owners invading their lands.Show less
On September 12, 2015, an indigenous tribe, the Kaviyangan married their ancestral pillar to the president of the National Taiwan University (NTU). The pillar Muakaikai was taken from its tribe by...Show moreOn September 12, 2015, an indigenous tribe, the Kaviyangan married their ancestral pillar to the president of the National Taiwan University (NTU). The pillar Muakaikai was taken from its tribe by the Japanese colonizer to the anthropology museum of NTU during the colonial period (1895-1945). As a national treasure, Muakaikai bares the colonized history of its tribe and the possibility of a new cooperative approach between the museum and the source community. Although the authorized heritage discourse still guides the practices of heritage in Taiwan nowadays, the Kaviyangan resisted it with their traditional cultural practice, and eventually came up with an innovative way of dealing with Muakaikai’s repatriating issue. In the heritagization process of Muakaikai, the Kaviyangan people not only built a long-term relationship with the museum but also strengthened their collective identity and intimacy to the tribe.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
The societal role of museums has changed and is still constantly changing, the Museo de América in Madrid, Spain, is no exception. This research aims to capture the evolving role of museums by...Show moreThe societal role of museums has changed and is still constantly changing, the Museo de América in Madrid, Spain, is no exception. This research aims to capture the evolving role of museums by taking on the Museo de América as a case study. The Museo de América was chosen due to the limited international scholarly literature on the relationship museums in Spain, a once powerful and important colonial power, have with contemporary museological discourse. The research question is therefore, to what extent is the Museo de América able to create ‘contact zones’ and capture the changing narrative about indigenous communities in the Americas. This thesis uses Anthony Shelton’s methodology underlying critical museology as a set of tools as well as James Clifford’s concept of ‘museums as contact zones’. This research provides a better understanding of how an ethnographic museum in Spain addresses the colonial and authoritative practices in which museums were built on. The analysis of the Museo shows that some of the Museo’s underlying curatorial practices are consistent with Shelton’s methodological interdictions. However it also identifies a few limitations to the Museo’s capacity to navigate the challenges of bridging historical and cultural gaps across centuries. The most significant being the lack of an indigenous voice regarding the conquest itself. By including indigenous voices and presenting them as active participants, museums can play a critical role in providing visitors with the tools to better understand the evolution of modern society’s values.Show less
Recent decades have seen the development of a post-colonial museum praxis in which research and authority is shared between indigenous people and museums. With these new developments suggestions of...Show moreRecent decades have seen the development of a post-colonial museum praxis in which research and authority is shared between indigenous people and museums. With these new developments suggestions of collection management en restoration possibilities have made questions of authenticity within these ethnographic objects necessary. Authenticity is a concept which cannot be limited to several criteria, since questions concerning authenticity of objects van only be answered within their own cultural context. Developed definitions of authenticity are culture specific, and the application of western notions of authenticity to ethnographic objects poses difficulties. Since there is not one definition of authenticity which can be applied to ethnographic objects, research must be performed on an object per object basis, which makes this kind of research a costly one. This is emphasised by several museum professionals who have practical experience with these questions from a museum context. They emphasised the importance of cultural background and open communication with indigenous people in discovering the authenticity of collections and planning for future management. Questions of authenticity can only arise when there is the possibility that there is inauthenticity. Those inauthentic objects were at first thought to be hybrid objects; objects made within indigenous culture but using materials external to that society. The interviewed disagreed and stressed the importance of these objects in the understanding of contact between indigenous communities and cultural change within this modern world. Application of both the theories of authenticity and the opinions of the interviewed to two case-studies confirmed the difficulties of the concept of authenticity within ethnographic objects. From the case-studies it became clear that the objects could not be considered authentic on the criteria presented by Lowenthal in 1992. Although the concept of authenticity of context seemed to provide the best opportunities, it still did not consider the fact that in modern museum practice indigenous communities reengage with their ancestral objects in museum collections. This makes clear that for application to ethnographic objects new considerations of authenticity are necessary. As Gustaaf Verswijver stated during the interview, if indigenous people consider an object as authentic within their own cultural context, this view should not be contested within a museum context. The application of concepts and theories of authenticity to museum is a complex matter, but studies which are focussed on this topic will enrich not only knowledge about collections but also might be used to strengthen bonds between museums and source communities. Therefore it should be more common in museums to research all aspects of their collections authenticity.Show less
Attitudes toward the past can be recognised in many different ways. European worldview in physical protection of cultural heritage, reflecting in the formal heritage laws, has frequently carved out...Show moreAttitudes toward the past can be recognised in many different ways. European worldview in physical protection of cultural heritage, reflecting in the formal heritage laws, has frequently carved out social elements of such heritage rooted in indigenous societies, for example, the belief of sacredness. This research, therefore, focuses on problems that probably arose during the introduction of Western legal systems to protect cultural heritage in non-Western societies: Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Canada and Australia. From the study on sociology and history of law, it shows that European-based law when first introduced to the regions has very often excluded customary law which obtained social respect. This created a gap between legal comprehension and people who are the subject to law. Up to present day these European influences of the legal system regarding to heritage management can still be discerned in international conventions. To bridge this gap, two suggestions are given in this research: one to work cooperatively between the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage and the 2003 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Conventions; another to reinterpret in situ preservation in the 2001 UNESCO Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention as a way to treat the site with respect. The integration of traditional practices and heritage laws make it possible for indigenous and local people to gain more understanding of the heritage laws and thus to obey to these laws more easily. Hypothetically, the formal heritage laws become more effective.Show less
