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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Museum practice, material culture and the politics of identity |
| Authors: | Davison, Patricia Klinghardt, Gerald  |
| Year: | 1997 |
| Periodical: | African Studies |
| Volume: | 56 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 181-194 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | museums Nama San material culture Bibliography/Research Education and Oral Traditions Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Anthropology and Archaeology |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1080/00020189708707874 |
| Abstract: | This article explores the ways artifacts become meaningful in the context of museum practice, and then focuses on one particular item of material culture, the 'matjieshuis' (mat house). This type of house, a vernacular dwelling formerly used by Nama-speaking Khoe pastoralists in Namaqualand, South Africa, and southern Namibia, has become a symbol of identity among present-day inhabitants of these regions, as well as being used more widely in the visual vocabulary and rhetoric of contemporary Khoisan identity politics. The notion of authenticity emerges as a key concept both in the museum domain and that of identity politics, but there are significant differences in the ways authenticity is invoked in relation to museum artifacts and in the dynamic of face-to-face experience. In museum displays artifacts tend to assume the unambiguous status of authentic specimens. In the context of cultural politics, on the other hand, objects depend on a lack of specificity in order to accommodate diverse responses, while at the same time providing a symbolic focus for people aspiring to a shared identity. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |
