Preserving What Is Valued: Museums, Conservation, and First Nations - Softcover

Clavir, Miriam

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0774808616 ISBN 13: 9780774808613

Publisher: UBC Press, 2002

Synopsis

This is an exploration of the concept of preserving heritage. It presents the conservation profession's code of ethics and discusses four significant contexts embedded in museum conservation practice: science, professionalization, museum practice and the relationship between museums and First Nations peoples. Museum practice regarding handling and preservation of objects has been largely taken as a given, and it can be difficult to see how these activities are politicized. Miriam Clavir argues that museum practices are historically grounded and represent values that are not necessarily held by the originators of the objects. She first focuses on conservation and explains the principles and methods conservators practise. She then discusses First Nations people's perspectives on preservation, quoting extensively from interviews conducted throughout British Columbia, and comparing the BC situation with that in New Zealand.

About this title

Product Description

Museum practice regarding handling and preservation of objects has been largely taken as a given, and it can be difficult to see how these activities are politicized. Author Miriam Clavir argues that museum practices are historically grounded and represent values that are not necessarily held by the originators of the objects. She first focuses on conservation and explains the principles and methods conservators practise. She then discusses First Nations people's perspectives on preservation, quoting extensively from interviews done throughout British Columbia, and comparing the British Columbia situation with that in New Zealand.

Review

Preserving What is Valued will resonate with conservators and curators in Australia who work with Indigenous Australian material culture. Clavir’s book elucidates the culturally-determined nature of values and motivations in cultural preservation, and the importance of adopting appropriate conservation methods. It is among the first major texts to provide a detailed examination of these issues.

Author: Moira Simpson, author of Making Representations and Museums and Repatriation Source: Museums Australia Magazine, May 2005

Preserving What is Valued: Museums, Conservation and First Nations, a revised version of the author’s doctoral thesis, makes a significant contribution to the discussion of cultural heritage issues from a conservation standpoint.

Firstly, Clavir is skilful and largely successful in drawing out the local focus in order to examine and illustrate far broader questions that concern us all: and, secondly, the depth in which the detail of often conflicting local views is explored is itself central to the making of some of the book’s most important views.

I found this to be an interesting, richly researched and carefully presented book. It is an excellent resource for those wanting to explore museum-source community debates about cultural heritage in Canada and in the relatively neglected area of conservation practice, and has considerable overall value as a text for those wishing to explore cultural heritage sites.

Author: Sandra Dudley, Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester Source: Journal of the Society of Archivists, Vol. 26, No. 1, April 2005

Edition details

• Publisher: UBC Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0774808616
• ISBN 13: 9780774808613
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320