Conferences
 

Following the advice of my graduate supervisor, Professor Rodney Needham, I have always been an active contributor to international organizations and conferences in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

 

In London, between 1987-1990, I established an annual thematic conference series at the Horniman Museum to encourage interdisciplinary research in ethnography, ethnomusicology and natural history (reflecting the focus of its three major collections).

 

In 2015, concerned with the hegemony of anglophone-museology, Dr. Gwyneira Isaac, Dr. Diana Marsh and I drew up plans to organize biannual international workshops on museological themes that would bring together theorists and practitioners from different intellectual traditions to create new networks for discussion and knowledge exchange. The first workshop, on museums and migration, Borders: Museums in the Age of Mobility, was held in Mexico City, at the Universidade de las Americas in 2017.  This was followed by the second workshop, Interruptions, at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka in 2019. Planning for the third workshop, Museums and Extinctions, began in 2019 but was disrupted by the pandemic. We are now working to stage the third workshop in 2022 in San Augustine Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico. The workshops became formally known as the World Museologies Workshops during the fundraising and organization of the Osaka meeting.   

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