'spaces that are not designed for those ways' (2019): Indigenisation, epistemic (in)justice, multiplicity, and radical trust in museums: - Alexandra Alberda in conversation with Shelley Saggar, co-hosted by CISCS and Kent's Centre for Heritage Wednesday March 23rd, 2pm
Alexandra Alberda, Manchester Museum’s first ever Curator of Indigenous Perspectives, was in conversation with the University of Kent’s Shelley Saggar, PhD student in the School of English and Centre for Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies and collections researcher at the Science Museum. They discussed how museums are grappling with colonial inheritances, the differences between decolonisation and Indigenisation and the emerging challenges that are becoming increasingly urgent for the arts and heritage sector to critically address.
You can view a recording of the discussion here: https://youtu.be/GCoHGzO6e7Q
The conversation made reference to two texts: Beatriz Marín-Aguilera, 2021, ‘Ceci n’est pas un subalterne – A Comment on Indigenous Erasure in Ontology-Related Archaeologies ‘, and “Indigenization is Indigenous“.
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The Speakers:
Alexandra P. Alberda, PhD., (Jemez of Pueblo/White) is the first ever Curator of Indigenous Perspectives at the Manchester Museum (University of Manchester). She joins Manchester Museum from Bournemouth University where she was a doctoral researcher in Graphic Medicine and Curatorial Practice and research illustrator, including The Data Storytelling Workbook (Routledge 2020). Her research and practice critically engages with institutional structures of power that limit civic engagement and do not facilitate needed reparative reconciliation, amplification of marginalised voices, and displacement of (colonial) power.
Shelley Angelie Saggar is a CHASE funded PhD researcher and museum worker based across the School of English and the Centre for Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies at the University of Kent. Her research examines contestations and reclamations of the museum in Native North American and Maori cultural texts. She also works as a collections researcher at the Science Museum, where her focus is on developing protocols for managing culturally sensitive items in the historical medical collections.