Museum as Process: Translating Local and Global Knowledges

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 process of translation and the collaborative mediation of cultural knowledges. Scholars from around the world reflect upon their work with specific communities in different parts of the world – Australia, Canada, Ghana, Great Britain, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan and the United States. Each global case study provides significant insights into what happens to knowledge as it moves back and forth between source communities and global sites, especially the museum. Museum as Process is an important contribution to understanding the relationships between museums and source communities and the flow of cultural knowledge.

Raymond Silverman is Professor of History of Art and Afroamerican & African Studies and founding Director of the Museum Studies Program at the University of Michigan.