culture and heritage

Indigenous heritage and museums today. Encyclopaedic museums were institutions born of 'Enlightenment' values and committed to a belief that through the study of things from all over the world, truth would emerge. Museums were also thought to broaden cultural horizons and foster a greater understanding of cultural diversity. For the last quarter-century however, these principles have been called into question. Roger Fyfe examines how increased ethnic and cultural self-assertion has attacked the legitimacy of those museums which are full of objects taken from other places in other times.

Museums in the Colonies The great natural history and encyclopaedic museums of Europe arose as colonial empires were expanding round the globe. Efforts to organise, classify and display the material culture of distant peoples can be seen as a cultural echo of the era's political imperialism. So what happened when newly arrived colonial communities in the so called 'source countries' (eg North America, Australia, New Zealand) set about establishing their own museums? Were the inspired ideals of European museums diluted or compromised? Roger Fyfe searches for answers in the the foundation years of the Canterbury Museum.

Temples to Science: Museums continue to be a burgeoning worldwide phenomenon. They come in a myriad of sizes and guises. Today it seems no community is complete without one or more! But how many of those amongst us who flock to museums in every increasing numbers, both at home and abroad, stop to ask ourselves 'where did this peculiar notion called a museum come from'? Roger Fyfe traces the genesis of the modern museum to some profoundly eighteenth century intellectual vision and values.