The Ethics of Collecting Trauma: The Role of Museums in Collecting and Displaying Contemporary Crises

The Ethics of Collecting Trauma offers an interdisciplinary dialogue on the ethics of contemporary museums that are involved in collecting moments of collective trauma.

Including a range of international contributions, the volume explores the ethics of collecting material that documents contemporary traumatic events. The case studies focus on four categories of such events: forced migration; terrorism attacks; major natural disasters; and cultural traumas, such as the ongoing legacy of colonization. Contributors consider whether cultural institutions have a right to collect materials about these events and what kind of materials they should focus on, if so; who is being memorialized, who should hold the power to decide what is collected, and what the critical timeline for such initiatives is. The volume also considers what the larger purpose of such collecting is and how to deal with past collecting practices, arguing that museums need to consider, in a careful and deliberate way, their ethical responsibilities as cultural institutions.

The Ethics of Collecting Trauma will be of interest to academics and students working in the areas of museum and heritage studies, cultural studies, trauma studies, memory studies, and migration studies. The book will also appeal to museum professionals working around the globe.

Alexandra Bounia is Professor of Museology at the University of the Aegean, Greece.

Andrea Witcomb is the Alfred Deakin Professor of Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies at Deakin University, Australia.