Twelfth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

Museums and Archives are knowledge repositories. It is a clear that these repositories are playing major roles in documentation, preservation, and dissemination of heritage of a society. But here comes the question, what is beyond that role? In other words, what could be the role of a museum or an archive beyond preservation of knowledge and being an arbitrator? This paper examines the roles of museums and audio-visual archives not as repositories but as institutions connecting, rather re-connecting communities with their heritage. Re-connecting knowledge or resources of various archives or museums, with the communities is an evolving phenomenon. They engage communities in preserving the heritage for continuity. But it might be considered as the opportunity to re-circulate the knowledge also. Therefore, engaging communities might not be limited to giving back the communities their objects or recordings. The process has to be re-circulated. It is the re-circulation of knowledge. This can be the social responsibility of these organisations instead of just being repositories and equally valid for museums, archives, or such alike institutions. I would like to draw example of an exhibition held in Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge in 2018. It states how various museums and audio visual archives of United Kingdom, in other words repositories also got connected in the process of development of the exhibition. It is an example which shows, how knowledge gets re-circulated, repositories get re-united, thereby enhancing the strengths and opportunities beyond the conventional roles of museums or archives