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Museums of the Arabian Peninsula offers new insights into the history and development of museums within the region. Recognising and engaging with varied approaches to museum development and practice, the book offers in-depth critical analyses from a range of viewpoints and disciplines.
Drawing on regional and international scholarship, the book provides a critical and detailed analysis of museum and heritage institutions in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Yemen. Questioning and engaging with issues related to the institutionalisation of cultural heritage, contributors provide original analyses of current practice and challenges within the region. Considering how these challenges connect to broader issues within the international context, the book offers the opportunity to examine how museums are actively produced and consumed from both the inside and the outside. This critical analysis also enables debates to emerge that question the appropriateness of existing models and methods and provide suggestions for future research and practice.
Museums of the Arabian Peninsula offers fresh perspectives that reveal how Gulf museums operate from local, regional and transnational perspectives. The volume will be a key reference point for academics and students working in the fields of museum and heritage studies, anthropology, cultural studies, history, politics and Gulf and Middle East Studies.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Sarina Wakefield
Part I Museum Trajectories
Chapter 2: Repositioning the Past in the Present: Notes on the Development of Jordanian Museography
Irene Maffi
Chapter 3: Heritage in the Crosshairs: Can Yemen's Museums Survive?
Stephen Steinbeiser
Chapter 4: Transfiguring Islam, Ethics and Politics through Museum Practices to Forge the Sultanate of Oman
Amal Sachedina
Part II Development Models and Policies
Chapter 5: Qatar's Accelerated Museum Developmental Model: Rhetoric, Actors and Expertise
Serena Iervolino
Chapter 6: Cultural Diffusion and its Impact on Heritage Representation in the Kingdom of Bahrain
Pierre Lombard and Nadine Boksmati-Fattouh
Chapter 7: Location and Nation: Embodying Kuwait's National Narrative
Marjorie Kelly
Part III Cross-Border Practices
Chapter 8: Transnational Museologies in the UAE: New models or historicised global practice?
Sarina Wakefield
Chapter 9: Beyond Museum Walls: Envisioning a Role for Cultural Institutions as Instigators of Cross-Cultural Diplomacy
Alex Aubry
Chapter 10: Dubai's Alserkal Avenue: Cultural district or culture diaspora?
Sabrina DeTurk
Part IV: Community Engagement and Professional Practice
Chapter 11: Visitor Motivation: Sharjah Museums
Mona Al Ali
Chapter 12: From 'Academic Lectures' to 'Hands-on Learning':
A case study in the practical application of 'Appropriate Museology'
Catherine Cezeaux, Genevieve Fisher and Joseph A. Greene
Chapter 13: Does it matter if museums are 'global'?
Pamela Erskine-Loftus
About the author
Sarina Wakefield is a Lecturer in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester and Programme Director of MA/MSc Museum Studies by Distance Learning at the University of Leicester. She is also Founder and Director of the Museums in Arabia conference series.
Summary
Museums of the Arabian Peninsula offers new insights into the history and development of museums within the region. Recognising and engaging with varied approaches to museum development and practice, the book offers in-depth critical analyses from a range of viewpoints and disciplines.
