Narrating Objects, Collecting Stories: Essays in Honour of Professor Susan M. Pearce

Citation

Spree, U. (2013), "Narrating Objects, Collecting Stories: Essays in Honour of Professor Susan M. Pearce", Online Information Review, Vol. 37 No. 4, pp. 663-664. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-05-2013-0118

Why and how should string figures (cat's cradles) be collected and exhibited in museums? What insights can be revealed by exploring the relationships between different pieces of ancient sculpture that share the same temporal and landscape provenance? How does the accessibility of (archaeological) museum displays for a general audience benefit from focusing on the social life of museum objects, by bringing together various aspects like creation, use and reuse of objects as well as information on discovery, conservation and documentation?

The above questions are a random selection of topics addressed in the 16 essays published in this book, written by a wide range of contributors from such diverse backgrounds as archaeology, museum studies, history, art history and ethnology. The essays explore the relationship between objects and their collectors in various historical, social and institutional contexts. Collections covered include European (Britain, Greece) as well as non‐European examples (Africa, America, Australia, Tibet) and range from everyday objects, interior design and ancient archaeological finds to folk culture. All essays can be understood without reference to each other; however, for the purpose of providing additional correlations the editors have packaged the essays in four chapters, each preceded by a short introduction.

Part 1, The Mutuality between Objects and Persons, examines the interrelatedness of people and objects, for example by studying the role souvenirs from their native country may gain for immigrants. Part 2, Object Meanings in Context, explores the influences of political‐historical discourses on terminologies and applied values to collected objects. Part 3, Collectors and Collecting in Focus, gives examples of how collectors use their collections in social relationships and also studies the importance of these collections for identity construction. Part 4, Representational and Narrative Strategies, evaluates current museum concepts regarding the display of collections that allow for audience integration and do justice to cultural, political and gender‐related differences.

This is good reading for anyone interested in the field of culture and museum studies in general and who wishes to gain an impression of the variety of questions and methodological approaches such as Actor Network Theory, feminist theory or intercultural studies. The use of the book for consultation on individual subjects is supported by a catchword index. Considering the diversity of approaches, it is in the nature of things that, depending on the background of the reader, contributions may not always be perceived as jargon‐free, making it difficult for readers from other academic backgrounds.

A major shortcoming of the book is that it completely dismisses a discussion of implications of the “material turn” in cultural studies on requirements for museum documentation like the creation of inventories, especially regarding the implementation of the pertinent metadata standards, Cataloguing Cultural Objects (CCO) and Conceptual Reference Models (CIDOC/CRM).

My suggestion for possible future editions or related collections is that the editors include contributions from information specialists in the field of cultural studies regarding questions of metadata management and documentation, thus encouraging a fruitful collaboration between information professionals like archivists or cataloguers on the one hand and domain specialists like historians, anthropologists, exhibition curators on the other hand.