Sense and sensitivity
Museums are restricting access to certain artefacts so as not to give offence, says Tiffany Jenkins
Despite much talk of access, museums are being encouraged to hide artefacts away from 'inappropriate' public gaze. At the end of last year. an Internet news group for ethnographers in museums discussed the role they play in this. As one curator began, 'We've recently had an Australian anthropologist looking through the Hancock Museum's small collection of aboriginal Australian artefacts. As a result, some of the material is now separated into boxes to be seen only by males, others in boxes to be seen only by females, and various items are not to be put on display or otherwise are restricted in access.'
'So far so good,' the email continued. So far so good? It seemed the curator was less concerned with the ethics of restricting research than the legal trouble he could face for breaking the UK law on sex discrimination. 'If a female researcher wants to look at a Churinga [sacred object]; he went on, 'would I be breaking the law if I refused access? And if, say, an Arrente researcher was allowed to see the Churinga and a Western researcher was refused access, is this breaking the law on race discrimination?'
The items in this case that women and Westerners may be prevented from seeing are the sacred objects of the Arrente tribe from Central Australia. Churinga were given to young men as totems when they went through their initiation into adulthood. The museum's catalogue on the website indicates that 'because Churinga are held to be sacred by people of the Arrente community, access ... is restricted'.
When I called to clarify the situation, I was told. 'The collection is not restricted, it is highlighted as potentially restricted ... due to legal problems we cannot stop access completely but we can highlight access as a potential problem .. . So if people ask to see it we can think about it.'
Another curator confirmed that in his experience 'no inappropriate person will demand access if it is explained to them what the views of the source community are. If any such prospective researcher did continue to demand access then I would argue that by definition they were not a bona fide researcher and could quite reasonably be denied access. I have informally operated in such a way for the past few years and have never had a problem. Indeed, I have found that prospective researchers are at least as informed and sensitive as I am!'
What's significant and alarming about this story is not just that researchers and the rest of us may be denied a chance to study objects and their cultural importance. A situation where museum curators are no longer obliged to defer to the idea of research being integral to their employment by the museum is deeply disturbing. Instead they seem to be playing the role of high priests, hiding the ancient saint's finger as a relic in the basement, only to be seen by the privileged few chosen by birth or background.
Restricting research material and objects because of the potential offence to certain communities is not confined to a few witchdoctor curators. The code of ethics for museums', published by the Museums Association, argues that this should happen across the sector. The code applies to all the major museums (601 of them) and many more individuals. The code defines standards above those required by law but asks all members to comply and 'promote' the code of ethics as a professional obligation.
The code wants museum professionals to 'consider restricting access to certain specified objects where unrestricted access may cause offence or distress to actual or cultural descendants'; to 'recognise that individuals or communities may have a stronger claim to certain items than the museum'; and to 'respect the interests of originating communities with regard to elements of their cultural heritage present or represented in the museum'. The code urges museums to 'involve originating communities, wherever practical, in decisions about how the museum stores, researches, presents or otherwise uses collections and information about them'. And, importantly, because it indicates that the MA would like museums to be proactive about it, to 'inform originating communities of the presence of items relevant to them in the museum's collections, wherever practical'.
The idea that one group of people has a greater connection to and understanding of historical artefacts than another reduces knowledge or inquiry to irrational intuitions which are non-verifiable, nontestable and certainly not communicable. Without information there can be no shared ideas or exploration of other cultures. How are we to understand the Arrente if we cannot examine their sacred objects? How can we confront prejudice about them if we do not know as much as we can?
The explicit view is that people relate to cultural artefacts because of some spiritual, quasi ethno-biological attachment. But this is limiting because we then become defined by our roots and past, something we have no influence over. It dictates that we are shaped and determined by culture, not the more optimistic idea that we can shape culture ourselves.
I am an atheist but find many altarpieces and portraits of the Virgin Mary enlightening and beautiful. Similarly, the collection of ancient treasures in the Cairo Museum holds my attention for hours. I do not need to be a practising Protestant or Catholic or an Egyptian to appreciate the objects.
Knowledge and culture once freed us from the restraint of dictated authority and tradition. It allowed us to argue for change and not be limited by present circumstances. People tried to influence their surroundings and created wonderful expressions of their ideas. Today these new thought codes are turning institutions of knowledge into temples of a new shamanism, hiding fetishes from the eyes of the profane. We should have no faith in those who promote ignorance and who hold a mystical idea of culture that directs and determines who we are.
Tiffany Jenkins is director of arts and society at the Institute of Ideas.
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