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How style came to matter : do we need to move beyond the politics of representation?

Witcomb, Andrea 2006, How style came to matter : do we need to move beyond the politics of representation?, in South Pacific museums : experiments in culture, Monash University ePress, Clayton, Vic., pp.21.1-21.16.

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Title How style came to matter : do we need to move beyond the politics of representation?
Author(s) Witcomb, Andrea
Title of book South Pacific museums : experiments in culture
Editor(s) Healy, Chris
Witcomb, Andrea
Publication date 2006
Chapter number 21
Total chapters 23
Start page 21.1
End page 21.16
Total pages 16
Publisher Monash University ePress
Place of Publication Clayton, Vic.
Summary In response to the increasing difficulties facing museums that attempt to work within a pluralist framework as a strategy for representing cultural diversity, this essay argues for the need to move beyond a characterisation of museum work as either progressive or conservative, pluralist or consensual. Central to my arguments is an attempt to extend our understanding of possible narrative structures in museums by focusing on questions of style as much as of content. I do this by looking back at two case studies in which questions around the political intent of narrative structures were determined as much by the form of the exhibition as by its content. This focus enables are cognition that fragmentary narrative styles are not by definition associated with alack of strong narratives. Quite the contrary. An alternative approach to exhibition making might therefore lie in an approach that moves away from eclecticism but does so not by returning to progressive, chronological narratives but by privileging an understanding of 'shared experience'. I attempt to open up what I mean by this term towards the end of the essay.
ISBN 0975747584
9780975747582
9780975747599
0975747592
Language eng
Field of Research 210204 Museum Studies
200299 Cultural Studies not elsewhere classified
HERDC Research category B1 Book chapter
Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30000928

Document type: Book Chapter
Collection: School of History, Heritage and Society
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