Mobile museums : collections in circulation

Abstract

This book presents an argument for the importance of circulation in the study of museum collections, past and present. Bringing together international researchers from a wide variety of disciplines (including the history of science, museum anthropology, archaeology, geography and postcolonial history) to consider the mobility of collections, we aim to provide an overview of some urgent themes in the study of museums and collections. From the first chapter to the last, the book seeks to nove between questions of theory and practice, and so our cont include museum curators working with a variety of collections in the UK, Australia, the United States and Austria. The 13 essays that follow combine historical perspectives on the circulation of museum objects in the past with contemporary accounts of their re-mobilisation, most notably in the context of Indigenous community engagement. The authors seek to explore processes of circulation historically in order to re-examine, inform and unsettle common assumptions about the way museum collections have evolved over time and through space.