Return to Baguia: an ethnographic museum collection on the edge of living memory
Date
2018
Authors
Barrkman, Joanna
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The question of what significance ethnographic museum collections
might hold for source communities in the current era,
particularly when collections sit on the edge of living memory,
is explored in this thesis through a case-study of the Baguia
Collection and its virtual return to the Makasae people of Baguia
Sub-district, Timor-Leste, in 2014.
The Baguia Collection was acquired by Dr Alfred Bühler on behalf
of the Museum der Kulturen Basel, Switzerland, in 1935 using
salvage ethnology methodologies. This diasporic collection now
exists in Switzerland as a record of Bühler's accomplishments
and of Swiss ethnographic history, and as a time capsule of
Makasae heritage.
This research explores an initial phase of engagement between the
residents of Baguia and the Baguia Collection. Makasae responses
to this Collection, which consists of 691 material culture
objects and over 300 historical photos, raise issues pertinent to
contemporary museology practice as it seeks to identify
appropriate relational processes in collaborating with source
communities. The research findings support proposals for the
flexible, pro-technological access and digital return of museum
collections to source communities, yet considers the inherent
limitations and complexities in this methodology as well.
I argue that the Baguia Collection has shared heritage values and
that digital access arrangements will enhance the restitution of
cultural knowledge and its subsequent inter-generational
transmission in Baguia while also providing the Museum der
Kulturen Basel with more updated and relevant information about
the Collection. My project demonstrates that access to digital
images of the Collection has enabled residents of Baguia to
assert their cultural authority over the Collection, and that
with further digital access they would activate the Collection to
meet their own development agendas. By animating the Collection
through 'acts of transfer' the Baguia community illustrated the
potential for the Collection to become a source of metacultural
production that reinvigorates contemporary Makasae identity and
develops Makasae social and cultural capital, while ultimately
enhancing their capacity to aspire.
Description
Keywords
Museum practice, ethnographic museum collections, source communities, communities of origin, Baguia, East Timor, Timor-Leste, Makasae, digital return of museum collections, contemporary museum practice, curatorial practice, community engagement with museum collections
Citation
Collections
Source
Type
Thesis (PhD)
Book Title
Entity type
Access Statement
License Rights
Restricted until
Downloads
File
Description