CfP: Transatlantic museum mobilities: convergences of objects, people and ideas
Proposals are now invited for the panel, 'Transatlantic museum mobilities: convergences of objects, people and ideas'
(AM01), at the RAI conference, 'Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues
Past, Present and Future,' to be held in London, June 4-7, 2020.
Museums have been conceptualized as relational, "multi-sited,
multi-authored, emergent entities" (Gosden and Larsen 2007). They are
both sites and contexts where objects, people, and ideas converge and
transverse. Museums, and their close relatives,
worlds' fairs, may be considered the primary sites for the collection
of anthropological objects, and for knowledge production and
dissemination in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. The same period
saw the rise of transatlantic exchanges between North America
and Europe, through the embodied mobility of anthropologists,
anthropological objects, texts, and displays.
This session focuses on transatlantic mobilities that characterize
the convergences of objects, people, and ideas occurring in
anthropological museum contexts, as well as those influenced by museum
institutions. Proposals for papers which address a range
of themes are welcomed, of which some examples are: technological,
economic and geopolitical contingencies; the practices and mechanisms of
mobility; transatlantic social networks; spatial, cognitive, aesthetic,
material and affective dimensions of knowledge
transfer; object biographies; exchange agents and local relations;
audience reception; actors and institutions; the limits of mobility; the
legacy of museum anthropology and anthropological museums. Key
questions might include: to what extent did international
museums shape local practices of anthropological collecting and
knowledge production? What was the nature of the connections between
individual museums and their agents in a transatlantic context? How do
these formations continue to impact museum and disciplinary
practice?
To propose a paper for this panel, please go to
https://nomadit.co.uk/