Departmental Seminar on Transforming Museums and Heritage

On Wednesday 16th March at 3pm in W/243 in Wentworth College Sharon Macdonald will talk about her new research project, Making Differences in Berlin. Transforming Museums and Heritage in the 21st Century. Funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation until 2020, the project looks at how cultural, social and natural differences are being made in some of Berlin’s museum and heritage developments. 


A multi-researcher collaborative ethnography of the city’s museums and heritage, the project will investigate, analyse and in some cases contribute to ongoing developments, including the high profile Humboldt Forum in the centre of the city (which will house the ethnological, Asian and University collections, as well as a new exhibition about Berlin itself), the new Museum of Islamic Art and the ambitious new plans for the Museum of Natural History, as well as more small-scale and local initiatives, such as those designed for refugees.


 Making Differences will track and analyse the ways in which notions such as ‘diversity’, ‘biodiversity’, ‘multiculturalism’, ‘globalization' and ‘cosmopolitanism’ are variously mobilised, defined and put to work, and the effects that these have. Through comparative international analysis, it aims to understand the challenges and potentials of museums and heritage for more convivial social relationships and understanding.

Museums, Migration and Identity

A chapter co-authored by Gonul Bozoglu (2nd-year PhD) features in a new book called 'Museums Migration and Identity in Europe' (Ashgate 2015).

The chapter is entitled 'Constitutive others and the management of difference: museum representations of Turkish identities' and is co-researched and co-authored with one of the book editors, Prof Chris Whitehead from Newcastle University. It looks at museum displays in Turkey and Western Europe - particularly the Netherlands and Germany where there are large Turkish populations in relation to issues of identity, migration and alterity. 

With ever-increasing attention to migration both in political and cultural spheres, the book is a landmark contribution to a critical field of study and practice.

 

The imperatives surrounding museum representations of place have shifted from the late eighteenth century to today. The political significance of place itself has changed and continues to change at all scales, from local, civic, regional to national and supranational. At the same time, changes in population flows, migration patterns and demographic movement now underscore both cultural and political practice, be it in the accommodation of ‘diversity’ in cultural and social policy, scholarly explorations of hybridity or in state immigration controls. 



The book investigates the historical and contemporary relationships between museums, places and identities. It brings together contributions from international scholars, academics, practitioners from museums and public institutions, policymakers, and representatives of associations and migrant communities to explore all these issues.

Click here for more details about the book. 

If you are interested in buying the book with a 50% discount then drop Gonul a line on gb784@york.ac.uk to get a discount code

Gonul Bozoglu: international workshop on ‘Bridging the Gap between Museums and Archaeological Sites: Insights for Turkey’, Ertegün Scholarship Programme in the Humanities, University of Oxford, May 2014

Gonul participated in an international workshop on ‘Bridging the Gap between Museums and Archaeological Sites: Insights for Turkey’ at the Oxford University on 23 May 2014. The workshop aimed to bridge the gap between museums and the archaeological sites themselves in Turkey by questioning the role of museums in achieving effective heritage management, conservation and presentation of archeological sites. It also aimed to question the role of on-site museums in increasing public engagement with a site. 

A number of the papers related to management, preservation and presentation of museums and sites were presented by addressing current practices, such as the privatization of advertising, ticket offices, cafés, and souvenir shops and new cultural investment and sponsorship in heritage conservation and museum construction. This was done through different case studies, such as Sagalassos and Gre Amer Hoyuk. On the other hand, Sharon Macdonald’s introductory talk on ‘Anthropological Perspective on Museums and Heritage’ provided very interesting and broader ways of thinking about heritage and museums. Her talk set a theoretical framework for the workshop and brought other aspects of heritage and museums (new musicological (from the 1990s) critical perspectives (Marxist, Foucauldian, postcolonial theory etc), understandings of the meanings of objects, complexity, variations (where not everything works everywhere) affect and information, community involvement and neglected heritage. Her comments and questions also provided insights into other ‘gaps’, for example the gap between the state and museums and heritage sites in terms of national narrative. 

Gonul's talk on ‘Republican and Ottoman Histories in Contemporary Identity Politics in Turkey’ examined how Republican and Ottoman histories are used for the maintenance or construction of different ideal Turkish identities at the state level. However, the other two papers in my session presented work on the cultural heritage, memory and representation of some Turkish minorities. This session opened up a discussion about the gap between state representations of the nation and the minority groups’ identities which are excluded from the national story.