Current discourse on Indigenous engagement in museum studies is often dominated by curatorial and academic perspectives, in which community voice, viewpoints, and reflections on their collaborations can be under-represented. This book provides a unique look at Indigenous perspectives on museum community engagement and the process of self-representation, specifically how the First Nations Elders of the Blackfoot Confederacy have worked with museums and heritage sites in Alberta, Canada, to represent their own culture and history. Situated in a post-colonial context, the case-study sites are places of contention, a politicized environment that highlights commonly hidden issues and naturalized inequalities built into current approaches to community engagement. Data from participant observation, archives, and in-depth interviewing with participants brings Blackfoot community voice into the text and provides an alternative understanding of self and cross-cultural representation. Focusing on the experiences of museum professionals and Blackfoot Elders who have worked with a number of museums and heritage sites, Indigenous Voices in Cultural Institutions unpicks the power and politics of engagement on a micro level and how it can be applied more broadly, by exposing the limits and challenges of cross-cultural engagement and community self-representation. The result is a volume that provides readers with an in-depth understanding of the nuances of self-representation and decolonization.

Considerations of the effect of trauma on heritage sites. The essays in this volume address the displacement of natural and cultural heritage caused by disasters, whether they be dramatic natural impacts or terrible events unleashed by humankind, including holocaust and genocide. Disasters can be natural or human-made, rapid or slow, great or small, yet the impact is effectively the same; nature, people and cultural heritage are displaced or lost. Yet while heritage and place are at risk from disasters, in time,sites of suffering are sometimes reframed as sites of memory; through this different lens these "difficult" places become heritage sites that attract tourists. Ranging widely chronologically and geographically, the contributors explore the impact of disasters, trauma and suffering on heritage and sense of place, in both theory and practice. Contributors: Kai Erikson, Catherine Roberts, Philip R. Stone, Stephen Miles, Susannah Eckersley, Gerard Corsane, Graeme Were, Jo Besley, Tim Padley, Chia-Li Chen, Jonathan Skinner, Diana Walters, Shalini Sharma, Ellie Land, Rob Morley, Ian Convery, John Welshman, Aron Mazel, Andrew Law, Bryony Onciul, Sarah Elliott, Rebecca Whittle,Will Medd, Maggie Mort, Hugh Deeming, Marion Walker, Clare Twigger-Ross, Gordon Walker, Nigel Watson, Richard Johnson, Esther Edwards, James Gardner, Brij Mohan, Josephine Baxter, Takashi Harada, Arthur McIvor, Rupert Ashmore, Peter Lurz, Marc Ancrenaz, Isabelle Lackman, OEzgun Emre Can, Bryndis Snaebjoernsdottir, Mark Wilson, Pat Caplan, Billy Sinclar, Phil O'Keefe

Considerations of the effect of trauma on heritage sites. The essays in this volume address the displacement of natural and cultural heritage caused by disasters, whether they be dramatic natural impacts or terrible events unleashed by humankind, including holocaust and genocide. Disasters can be natural or human-made, rapid or slow, great or small, yet the impact is effectively the same; nature, people and cultural heritage are displaced or lost. Yet while heritage and place are at risk from disasters, in time,sites of suffering are sometimes reframed as sites of memory; through this different lens these "difficult" places become heritage sites that attract tourists. Ranging widely chronologically and geographically, the contributors explore the impact of disasters, trauma and suffering on heritage and sense of place, in both theory and practice. Contributors: Kai Erikson, Catherine Roberts, Philip R. Stone, Stephen Miles, Susannah Eckersley, Gerard Corsane, Graeme Were, Jo Besley, Tim Padley, Chia-Li Chen, Jonathan Skinner, Diana Walters, Shalini Sharma, Ellie Land, Rob Morley, Ian Convery, John Welshman, Aron Mazel, Andrew Law, Bryony Onciul, Sarah Elliott, Rebecca Whittle,Will Medd, Maggie Mort, Hugh Deeming, Marion Walker, Clare Twigger-Ross, Gordon Walker, Nigel Watson, Richard Johnson, Esther Edwards, James Gardner, Brij Mohan, Josephine Baxter, Takashi Harada, Arthur McIvor, Rupert Ashmore, Peter Lurz, Marc Ancrenaz, Isabelle Lackman, Özgün Emre Can, Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson, Pat Caplan, Billy Sinclar, Phil O'Keefe

Current discourse on Indigenous engagement in museum studies is often dominated by curatorial and academic perspectives, in which community voice, viewpoints, and reflections on their collaborations can be under-represented. This book provides a unique look at Indigenous perspectives on museum community engagement and the process of self-representation, specifically how the First Nations Elders of the Blackfoot Confederacy have worked with museums and heritage sites in Alberta, Canada, to represent their own culture and history. Situated in a post-colonial context, the case-study sites are places of contention, a politicized environment that highlights commonly hidden issues and naturalized inequalities built into current approaches to community engagement. Data from participant observation, archives, and in-depth interviewing with participants brings Blackfoot community voice into the text and provides an alternative understanding of self and cross-cultural representation. Focusing on the experiences of museum professionals and Blackfoot Elders who have worked with a number of museums and heritage sites, Indigenous Voices in Cultural Institutions unpicks the power and politics of engagement on a micro level and how it can be applied more broadly, by exposing the limits and challenges of cross-cultural engagement and community self-representation. The result is a volume that provides readers with an in-depth understanding of the nuances of self-representation and decolonization.