National Museums in Africa brings the voices of African museum professionals into dialogue with scholars and, by so doing, is able to consider the state of African national museums from fresh perspectives.Covering all regions of the continent, the volume’s thirteen chapters allow for a deep and nuanced understanding of the intricate interplay between past and present in contemporary Africa. Taking stock of the shifting museum landscape in Africa, with new players like Chin...

The museum has become a vital strategic space for negotiating ownership of and access to knowledges produced in local settings. Museum as Process presents community-engaged "culture work" of a group of scholars whose collaborative projects consider the social spaces between the museum and community and offer new ways of addressing the challenges of bridging the local and the global.Museum as Process explores a variety of strategies for engaging source communities in the pr...

In Ethnicity, Inc. anthropologists John L. and Jean Comaroff analyze a new moment in the history of human identity: its rampant commodification. Through a wide-ranging exploration of the changing relationship between culture and the market, they address a pressing question: Wherein lies the future of ethnicity?Their account begins in South Africa, with the incorporation of an ethno-business in venture capital by a group of traditional African chiefs. But their horizons are...

About the practices and politics of place and identity formation – the slippery ways in which who we are becomes wrapped up with where we are – this book exposes the relations of place to power. It links everyday aspects of place experience to the social theories of Deleuze and Bourdieu in a very readable manner. This is a book that takes the social critique of built form another step through detailed fieldwork and analysis in particular case studies.Through a broad range of case s...

Historic sites, memorials, national parks, museums…we live in an age in which heritage is ever-present. But what does it mean to live amongst the spectral traces of the past, the heterogeneous piling up of historic materials in the present? How did heritage grow from the concern of a handful of enthusiasts and specialists in one part of the world to something which is considered to be universally cherished? And what concepts and approaches are necessary to understanding this global obsessi...

Museum Frictions is the third volume in a bestselling series on culture, society, and museums. The first two volumes in the series, Exhibiting Cultures and Museums and Communities, have become defining books for those interested in the politics of museum display and heritage sites. Another classic in the making, Museum Frictions is a lavishly illustrated examination of the significant and varied effects of the increasingly globalized world on contemporar...

The People, Place, and Space Reader brings together the writings of scholars, designers, and activists from a variety of fields to make sense of the makings and meanings of the world we inhabit. They help us to understand the relationships between people and the environment at all scales, and to consider the active roles individuals, groups, and social structures play in creating the environments in which people live, work, and play. These readings highlight the ways in which spac...

Contemporary American society, with its emphasis on mobility and economic progress, all too often loses sight of the importance of a sense of place” and community. Appreciating place is essential for building the strong local communities that cultivate civic engagement, public leadership, and many of the other goods that contribute to a flourishing human life.Do we, in losing our places, lose the crucial basis for healthy and resilient individual identity, and for the cultivation ...

Museum exhibitions focusing on Native American history have long been curator controlled. However, a shift is occurring, giving Indigenous people a larger role in determining exhibition content. In Decolonizing Museums, Amy Lonetree examines the complexities of these new relationships with an eye toward exploring how museums can grapple with centuries of unresolved trauma as they tell the stories of Native peoples. She investigates how museums can honor an Indigenous worldview and...

As the twenty-first century moves towards its third decade, applied theatre is being shaped by contemporary economic and environmental concerns and is contributing to new conceptual paradigms that influence the ways in which socially engaged art is produced and understood. This collection offers fresh perspectives on the aesthetics, politics and histories of applied theatre. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, the book illuminates theatre in a diverse range of global con...

This book takes it as a given that the city is made of multiple partially localized assemblages built of heterogeneous networks, spaces, and practices. The past century of urban studies has focused on various aspects—space, culture, politics, economy—but these too often address each domain and the city itself as a bounded and cohesive entity. The multiple and overlapping enactments that constitute urban life require a commensurate method of analysis that encompasses the human and non-human...

This book considers the state of the city and contemporary urbanisation from a range of intellectual and international perspectives.The most interdisciplinary collection of its kindProvides a contemporary update on urban thinking that builds on well established debates in the fieldUses the city to explore economic, social, cultural, environmental and political issues more broadlyIncludes contributions from non Western perspectives and cities...