Liverpool: The Museums Association Annual Conference 2008

• Places and Spaces – conference theme

Museum studies, I argue, is currently experiencing a ’spatial turn’. In recent years, museum studies researchers have become increasingly aware of the ways in which museum spaces are implicated in the display, interpretation and consumption of exhibition narratives. The sessions in Liverpool did not disappoint, covering themes as varied as the place of the museum in the production of civil pride and the changing role of architecture in museum design. Over the course of the three days, one geographer was repeatedly mentioned - ’Doreen Massey’ and her definition of place in relation to the global city. Massey’s ideas worked particularly well in relation to the aims and objectives of the new ‘Liverpool Museum’ under construction between the Albert Dock and the Liver Building. Geographers have the potential to make a significant contribution to this ’spatial turn’ and museum studies could benefit from a greater engagement with the geographical literature. (See MacLeod’s Reshaping Museum Space 2005)

If you would like to discuss any of these themes further, please email me or use the comments box below.

The author of this blog also featured in a short video about the Cultural Olympiad!

How do you like the sound of a field trip? An afternoon or morning away from the conference venue? I know field trips were what initially excited me about geography. The plan would be to visit a museum in Las Vegas. This call for participants is to find out if anyone would be interested in a curator-led tour of a museum, for example The Atomic Testing Museum (associated with the Smithsonian Institution), followed by a discussion session – on themes such as collaboration, material culture, collections, museums, public geography, not to mention the subject matter in question – for example public engagements with science and technology. This trip would hopefully form the basis for a more formal and extensive field trip to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC during the AAG 2010. At this stage, all I need are expressions of interest or comments on the field trip idea. I look forward to hearing from you. Please email me at h.geoghegan@rhul.ac.uk

Contact: Dr Hilary Geoghegan, ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London (h.geoghegan@rhul.ac.uk).

CHAT (Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory) is a popular conference that attracts a truly interdisciplinary audience. The next CHAT is in mid-November and registration has just opened. The theme this year is ‘heritage’ – organised in collaboration with Atkins Heritage, English Heritage and the UCL Centre for Museums, Heritage and Material Culture, the conference offers a unique discussion of the subject, and approaches to it, from both practitioners and academics.

Concern for heritage of the recent past has long been confined to the particular interests of a sub-set of architectural historians for whom listing post-war buildings (notably of the reconstruction years) was a clear focus. Archaeologists are also now taking an active and enthusiastic interest in the modern period; the only surprise is that it has taken so long. After a steady start, and an almost inevitable concentration on industrial and military sites and landscapes, it has quickly become more than the fringe interest it perhaps once was, a side-show to the main attraction. In local planning authorities, archaeological units and trusts, as well as national agencies and universities, the heritage interest in contemporary and historical archaeology has now emerged with strength and alacrity. English Heritage’s Change and Creation programme, in partnership with Atkins Heritage, and the universities of London and Bristol is evidence of this, as is the Images of Change book (Sefryn Penrose 2007), the recent Modern Times issue of Conservation Bulletin (2007), numerous published articles and several entries in the Heritage Reader (Fairclough et al. 2008). A head of steam is quickly building.

I last attended the conference in 2006 and presented some of my doctoral research on enthusiastic cultures of industrial archaeology:

“If you can walk down the street and recognise the difference between cast iron and wrought iron, the world is altogether a better place.” The Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society: a case study
Hilary Geoghegan (Ph.D. Candidate, Royal Holloway, University of London)

 

Founded over afternoon tea in 1968 by two engineers and a locomotive driver, the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society (GLIAS) currently has over 600 members; making it the largest Industrial Archaeology Society in the UK. Borne as a response to the rapidly changing industrial landscape of London and the fear that sites would be lost without a trace, GLIAS brings together like-minded people to record and monitor the shifting city. Drawing on interviews with GLIAS members, their newsletter and journal, as well as participant observation, this paper considers what has been described to me by one GLIAS member as ‘the ugly offspring of two parents that shouldn’t have been allowed to breed’ – industrial archaeology. I comment on how industrial archaeology is understood by Society members and the perceived prejudice members felt from the discipline they refer to as ‘dirt archaeology’. My fieldwork with GLIAS has also suggested a movement away from the recording and monitoring of industrial sites to a series of ‘quasi-academic’ Society lectures and walks. Taking as an example the Society’s current project – the recording of the lower Lea Valley (site of the 2012 Olympics) – I explore the changing methods of industrial archaeology as practiced by GLIAS; raising questions of site access, health and safety, an ageing membership, committee formation and the inherently challenging problem of defining industrial archaeology.

 

This year, the organisers have kindly accepted my abstract on ‘heritage at home’ and I look forward to reporting back to readers on the conference findings.

Heritage at Home: Having a passion for the past

Hilary Geoghegan (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Enthusiasm for the past has never been stronger. The British public visit heritage sites all year round; examples include visits to National Trust and English Heritage landscapes and properties as well as national, local and private museums. The research discussed in this paper moves beyond these more formal and public spaces of heritage to consider how individuals with a passion for the past cultivate their interests in the domestic space of the home. Drawing on the author’s earlier work into cultures of technology enthusiasm, she considers the domestic spatialities and materialities of having a passion for the past; from neat shelves of local history newsletters in the study, to collections stored in the attic, and model railways in garden sheds. This paper introduces a new research project that seeks to explore the hidden cultures of heritage at home.

 

 

For those readers interested in technology, there is a radio programme for you on 8th September 2008

The Rise of Retro Tech.

Archaeologist Christine Finn examines the importance of collectors of old technology and their mission to educate and inspire. Focusing on California’s Silicon Valley, she argues for the past being important for understanding the technology of the future and considers the various generations of computers and those who collect them.

I would also draw your attention to her excellent book - Artifacts: an archaeologist’s year in Silicon Valley (2002/MIT Press). This is also an opportunity for me to plug one of my case study groups – the Computer Conservation Society. A dedicated group of engineers and programmers who take it upon themselves to rebuild, restore and preserve early British computers for future generations. See link on right.

So when is it on: 8th September 2008, BBC Radio 3, 11pm.

You can also follow this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00db0vw

PS Thanks to those of you who drew this programme to my attention.

In 2000 the journal Social and Cultural Geography was launched and the first edition included agenda setting papers. For example the oft-cited Jackson (2000) on rematerialising geography. Please find below a call for papers that encourages a reflection on where our sub-discipline has been and where it is going:

• What and where is contemporary social geography?
• How important are individual, self-definitional markers of the members of Social and Cultural Geography?
• How are social geographers now defined by ‘others’ outside of the research group?
• Where does social geography currently fit within the context of Social and Cultural Geography, and the wider disciplinary boundaries of human geography?
• Have the set(s) of practices employed by social geographers changed over the last decade, and, if so, how have they changed?
• Have the overlapping interests of social geography with other sub-disciplines of human geography been re-cast over the last decade?
• Are perceptions of the marginalisation of some streams within Social and Cultural Geography accurate?
• How inclusive / exclusive are Social and Cultural geographies?
• Are social and cultural geographies inseparable?
• Is there substance to some interpretations of the ‘policing of sub-disciplinary boundaries’ within the Social and Cultural nexus?
• Are discussions of internal conflicts harmful for the vitality of Social and Cultural Geography, or simply evidence of a vibrant and active research group?
• Is a deep splintering of sub-groups unfolding within Social and Cultural Geography?
• Does the current mission of the Social and Cultural Research Group provide a meaningful base for social geographers?
• How do social geographers currently interface with other sub-disciplines of human geography?
• Are social geographers increasingly multi-positional within human geography, and is this linked to the activities of the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group?
• Should social geography be restricted to analyses of social relations?

Last week, as advertised on this blog, it was the RGS-IBG annual conference. Geographers from around the world gathered to enjoy papers from across the discipline. A series of sessions I didn’t mention below pertained to maps and the future of mapping. Some might argue maps are what geography is all about – I remember what friends used to say, “Isn’t geography just about colouring in maps?” Hilarious, but this week it became a serious question addressed at the IBG conference and more generally in the national press. Take this article from the BBC news website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7586789.stm) entitled “Online maps ‘wiping out history’”. The digital era has enabled the creation of readily accessible maps online, customised to our interests, not to mention GPS technologies. But this is a serious question, has sat nav replaced the map? How has it impacted upon the ways in which people experience place? We can now zoom across computer generated landscapes with little need to refer back to the trusty road atlas or A-Z. But a few weeks ago, I experienced what it was like to have sat nav fail you, making a sorry beep and then shut down, we were half way to Martock in Somerset, stuck behind a zillion caravans, few roadsigns in sight, infrequent mobile signal and shock horror no road map. Crisis point. TomTom, it seemed, had also decided to go on holiday. We managed to regain a mobile signal, phone a friend for directions and make it past Stonehenge without too much trouble. The very next day we bought the new road map for 2009. Personally there is something comforting about the material presence of a guide that in many ways brings geography to life – from points of interest and labelled motorway junctions to planning routes and measuring with my fingers how far it is from home to where we are going. Long live the map.

Just over a week to go before the Royal Geographical Society’s Annual Conference begins in London. For non-geography readers, this conference is a large gathering of geographers from across the numerous sub-disciplines and an opportunity to present new work and get feedback from your peers. Looking at this year’s programme there are lots of interesting sessions across the three days of the conference. I will plug a few here that look particularly relevant:

*         How was it for you? Towards shared imaginaries of qualitative data analysis, writing up, and the research trajectory (Pernille Schiellerup (University of Oxford) & Tara Duncan (University of Otago, New Zealand))

The starting point for this session is that relatively inexperienced researchers can often find themselves a bit lost in two ways (and perhaps even more experienced researchers too…?). The first way is with respect to qualitative data analysis as such, how to do it, how to write up, how those relate to each other, and to the overall process of enquiry. While there are normative accounts, the shared imaginary of what it is really like is less often committed to print, or otherwise shared in formal ways. Access to such a shared imaginary would help less experienced researchers situate their own experience of data analysis and writing up. Moreover even for the more experienced we think there can be value and pleasure in sharing the nitty gritty of such aspects of social scientific practice. The other way that one may find oneself lost, is to do with the research trajectory proper, and this is probably not particular to qualitative enquiry. Here being lost pertains to having little or no grasp of the shape that research trajectories may take, and therefore little or no idea of where one is on this journey. This can be quite disempowering. For both of these topics there is the possibility to open up to the sensualities, materialities and emotionalities of either data analysis and writing up and/or the research process as a whole. It is also possible to interrogate what Thrift’s call for methodological innovation implies for analysis and writing up.

*         Building heritage: cultures and sites of architectural conservation (Bronwen Edwards & Ian Strange (Leeds Metropolitan University))

In the last decade we have talked a lot about heritage. Geographers have contributed important knowledge about the complexities of searching for and producing the partial and plural past in contemporary society. This session is concerned with broadening our understanding of the specifically architectural aspects of our ‘cult’ of heritage (Lowental 1998). It will explore the kinds of heritage produced in urban and rural built landscapes, and in buildings ranging from the domestic and social, to the commercial, military and industrial, buildings that are protected and those that are neglected. We are particularly concerned with identifying the contributions geographers can make to the current debate about building conservation policy and practice, for example in the UK context debates surrounding the White Paper Heritage Protection for the 21st Century (2007). The session is also motivated by a desire for geography to engage more confidently with the aesthetics and materiality of design, with surface and fabric as well as space. This involves addressing the problematic, often hidden, role of ‘taste’ and changing historical sensibilities within conservation processes and cultures, and the ways in which theses are narrated and legitimised. This session brings together a collection international case studies by new and established researchers working within geography, planning and architecture. Together they consider built heritage in terms of policy and custodianship; urban renewal and sustainability; networks and communities. 

*         The promise and problematic of Technology: (Re)thinking bodies, spaces and times (Sam Kinsley (University of Bristol) & James Ash (University of Bristol))

Recent geographical research has been haunted by the assumption of the increasingly integral concept of ‘Technology’.  This paper session offers a forum for critical discussion and theorisation of technology.  Further, an opening is suggested to unpick how such theorisations are mobilised in geographical accounts of the world.  Drawing on the ubiquity of technology in everyday life and its manifestation in particular commercial, political and cultural realms it seeks to interrogate how technologies shape times, spaces and bodies, whilst asking what is meant by the term ‘Technology’ itself. As such, this session asks how particular narratives and theorisations of technology are written into accounts of the world and the power and the potential of technology in constituting particular embodied subjects. The session therefore seeks to draw together empirical and theoretical accounts of technology to think through the blurred boundaries between the human and the technical, in both a performative, ontological and discursive sense. The session then welcomes papers on a variety of topics including: •  Technologies as commodities, practices and things •  Critical theorisations of technology itself •  Performativity and technology •  The intersections between biology and technology •  Technology and temporality •  Gender and technology 

*         (Re)Thinking Expertise: Spaces of Production, Performance, & the Politics of Representation (James Porter (King’s College London) & Joseph Hillier 9University College London))

What does it mean to “be” an expert? Although social constructionism has identified similarities between science and other social practices, recently a controversial call for a “Third Wave” of science studies (Collins & Evans, 2002) has drawn attention to the problem of Extension – the infinite regress encountered when looking for techno-scientific advice if we can no-longer tell the difference between expert and lay-knowledge. Expertise has previously been understood to be the unyielding pursuit of authoritative knowledge that is honed through practice and enforced by political and academic institutions. In this sense, the professional identities presented to the outside world are carefully crafted so as to conform and exhibit ideological norms not dissimilar to Merton’s ideals. Such readings, however, arguably present an overly romantic, simplistic, and homogenous rendering of experts and their expertise. What is needed is examination of how experts’ identities are constructed (when and by whom), how they are negotiated between actors and institutions, the historical context in which they are played out, and ultimately how they function (or don’t) instrumentally to serve or suppress certain realities.

*         Matters of Interdisciplinarity: Archaeology meets Geography (Divya Tolia-Kelly  & Richard Hingley (Durham University))

In this session we aim to link to the conference theme ‘Geographies that Matter’ and bring together current interdisciplinary research which bridges the disciplines of Archaeology and Geography as they attend to national heritage and history. In recent geographical research the influence of Anthropology has been significant in the areas of materiality and landscape. Many of our archaeological colleagues are also engaged with a post-processual approach to landscape, monuments, ruins and sites which engage with memory, phenomenology, emotional experience, sensory textures of touch, light and sound as well as making analyses of various antiquarian sites and texts through varied theoretical approaches, including post-structural theory, post-colonial theory, cultural materialism and issues raised through political economy. The session is inspired by the AHRC’s Landscape and Environment programme which is currently funding many interdisciplinary collaborations.  

 For more information on the conference and other excellent sessions that I didn’t have room to mention here please visit: http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+Conference/Annual+International+Conference+2008.htm

The Museums Association conference is coming up in early October. This year it is hosted by Liverpool museums – tying in with the city’s position as ‘European Capital of Culture’. A key theme for the conference is ‘Places and Spaces’. This is particularly relevant to geographers with an interest in museums. The conference will discuss themes as varied as museum architecture and display space, the museum as landmark in the city, and the ways in which the museum relates to its locality and represents its audiences/local community. This theme was devised by Suzanne MacLeod (Leicester) who has also edited a book entitled ‘Reshaping Museum Space (2005). She argues: “Museum space is now recognised as a space with a history of its own, a space active in the making of meaning and, most importantly, a space open to change” (2005:1).

Please check out this YouTube clip for more on this particular theme:

Other themes at the conference include: ‘Collections’ Life Cycles’ and ‘Democracy and Dialogue’. See also: www.museumsassociation.org

The last steam locomotive ran on our British railways 40 years ago today, there is much debate over the exact geographical location of the very last sight of steam on our railways, but enthusiasts up and down the country are celebrating today. Celebration? Surely they should be commiserating this loss, but without it perhaps the many excellent preserved railways may not have given so much pleasure to so many. In fact as one enthusiast pointed out last night on a Radio 5 phone-in, this is a time to indulge in a nostalgia for the past, steam locomotives and a childhood spent spotting! For more on this listen again at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cqhkz and http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/upallnight_steamnight.shtml

Fascinating. *****