As various critics (Arens 1979, Hulme 1998, Conklin 2001, Guest 2001) have pointed out, during colonial times, the practice of cannibalism represented a. Kristen Guest. Albany: SUNY, 2001. Conklin, Beth. Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society. Austin: U of Texas P, 2001. Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society James R. Welch Tulane University. Beth Conklin turns the traditional academic debate regarding.

THE REWORKED CONTACT ZONE In the last years, collaborating with representatives of indigenous communities became an ever more important practice in European ethnographic museums ( ). This was part of the reactions to the crisis of identity and legitimacy ethnographic museums have suffered from post-colonial critique. In order to “rework” ( ) relations between museums and source communities, attempts have been made to establish museums as “contact zones”, where curators and representatives of source communities meet (again) ( ). Introduced by, the term “[.] contact zone [.]” generally meant “[.] social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today.” (, p. 34, author´s italics) The dynamics within this zone should be recognized while theorizing sociological models.

Applied the concept “contact zone” to ethnographic museums, where it could make an effect in two ways. For one, the context of asymmetric power relations immediately relates to most colonial and imperial collecting situations. “When museums are seen as contact zones, their organizing structure as a collection becomes an ongoing historical, political, moral relationship – a power-charged set of exchanges, of push and pull.” (, p. On the other hand, this moral heritage gives reason to the museums to “rework” these relationships (, p.

194) by turning their storage rooms into meeting places (“contact zones”) of curators and source communities. Here, American (along with Australian and New Zealand) museums have done pioneering work, not in the least because geographic proximity of collections and their source communities allowed to overcome logistic obstacles more easily (;;; ). Nevertheless, meetings in the storage rooms transcend a fundamental boundary established by colonialism. At the time, collected objects migrated from the periphery, the place of discovery and appropriation, to the center, the metropolises, where museums are located still today, while the creators of the cultural testimonials, cared for there, stayed at the periphery or have been pushed further there. The contact-zone created by a “New Museology” ( ) now offered an opportunity to the marginalized to raise their voice in the center and break through its monopoly of representation. Accordingly, the possibilities of collaboration between ethnographic museums and source communities have been reviewed and theorized very optimistically (;;;;; ). Already considered the opening of the debate by integrating contact perspectives a reaction to the actual concerns and requirements of representation within a complex civil society.

Aams Mastering Software Keygens. To Ruth Phillips the collaboration changes the power structures within the “contact zone” and gives room to new forms of agency to the museums ( ). The Weltmuseum Wien (former Museum of Ethnology Vienna) dedicates itself to this form of sharing cultural heritage under the slogan “Not about them without them”.

Its Brazilian collection – based on the Austrian Mission to Brazil in 1817– contains almost 6.000 objects and more than 20.000 photography and offers rich opportunities to support Amazonian cultures in their struggle for cultural survival. In the last ten years visits from and cooperation with representatives of indigenous societies increased at the South America department at the Weltmuseum Wien even if they are still comparatively low in numbers due to the obvious logistic challenges and budget problems. This shift is motivated by the concern to uncover the continuities (and discontinuities) between historical collections and the contemporary life of indigenous societies. In this article we would like to highlight some of these experiences and present a short history of our collaborative work and how it was undergirded by various theoretical impulses. CONCLUDING REMARKS It could be shown that the South America collection was able to carry out collaborations with indigenous source communities in a variety of contexts both within as well as outside the museum, although these cooperations are still far from being an established practice at the Weltmuseum Wien.