Laura Peers – författare

Object Lives and Global Histories in Northern North America explores how close, collaborative looking can discern the traces of contact, exchange, and movement of objects and give them a life and political power in complex cross-cultural histories. Red River coats, prints of colonial places and peoples, Indigenous-made dolls, and an Englishwoman's collection provide case studies of art and material culture that correct and give nuance to global and imperial histories. The result of a collaborative research process involving Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors, this book looks closely at the circumstances of making, use, and circulation of these objects: things that supported and defined both Indigenous resistance and colonial and imperial purposes. Contributors re-envision the histories of northern North America by focusing on the lives of things flowing to and from this vast region between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries, showing how material culture is a critical link that tied this diverse landscape to the wider world. An original perspective on the history of northern North American peoples grounded in things, Object Lives and Global Histories in Northern North America provides a key analytical and methodological lens that exposes the complexity of cultural encounters and connections between local and global communities.

This volume combines some of the most influential published research in this emerging field with newly commissioned essays on the issues, problems and lessons involved in collaborating museums and source communities.Focusing on museums in the UK, North America and the Pacific, the book highlights three areas which demonstrate the new developments most clearly:the museum as field site or 'contact zone' - a place which source community members enter for purposes of consultation and collaborationvisual repatriation - the use of photography to return images of ancestors, historical moments and material heritage to source communitiesexhibition case studies - these are discussed to reveal the implications of cross-cultural and collaborative research for museums, and how such projects have challenged established attitudes and practices.As the first overview of its kind, this collection will be essential reading for museum staff working with source communities, for community members involved with museum programmes, and for students and academics in museum studies and social anthropology.

This volume combines some of the most influential published research in this emerging field with newly commissioned essays on the issues, problems and lessons involved in collaborating museums and source communities.Focusing on museums in the UK, North America and the Pacific, the book highlights three areas which demonstrate the new developments most clearly:the museum as field site or 'contact zone' - a place which source community members enter for purposes of consultation and collaborationvisual repatriation - the use of photography to return images of ancestors, historical moments and material heritage to source communitiesexhibition case studies - these are discussed to reveal the implications of cross-cultural and collaborative research for museums, and how such projects have challenged established attitudes and practices.As the first overview of its kind, this collection will be essential reading for museum staff working with source communities, for community members involved with museum programmes, and for students and academics in museum studies and social anthropology.

Across North America, hundreds of reconstructed “living history” sites, which traditionally presented history from a primarily European perspective, have hired Native staff in an attempt to communicate a broader view of the past. Playing Ourselves explores this major shift in representation, using detailed observations of five historic sites in the U.S. and Canada to both discuss the theoretical aspects of Native cultural performance and advise interpreters and their managers on how to more effectively present an inclusive history.Drawing on anthropology, history, cultural performance, cross-cultural encounters, material culture theory, and public history, author Laura Peers examines “living history” sites as locations of cultural performance where core beliefs about society, cross-cultural relationships, and history are performed. In the process, she emphasizes how choices made in the communication of history can both challenge these core beliefs about the past and improve cross-cultural relations in the present.

In September 2009, twenty-one members of the Haida Nation went to Oxford and London to work with several hundred heritage treasures at the Pitt Rivers Museum and the British Museum. The encounter set a new course for the relationships between the custodians of these cultural artifacts and the Indigenous people for whom the objects are a direct link to their past. Emotional and illuminating, tense and challenging, it was a transformative visit that none would soon forget.Featuring contributions from Haida and museum participants and a rich selection of illustrations, This Is Our Life details the remarkable story of the Haida Project. A fascinating look at the meaning behind objects, the value of repatriation, and the impact of historical trajectories like colonialism, this is also a tender story of the understanding that grew between the Haida visitors and museum staff.Beautifully written and illustrated, This Is Our Life offers a compelling view of the transformative potential of a conversation hundreds of years in the making.

The story of a transformative visit by members of the Haida Nation to British museums housing their cultural artifacts.

In 1925, Beatrice Blackwood of the University of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum took thirty-three photographs of Kainai people on the Blood Indian Reserve in Alberta as part of an anthropological project. In 2001, staff from the museum took copies of these photographs back to the Kainai and worked with community members to try to gain a better understanding of Kainai perspectives on the images. 'Pictures Bring Us Messages' is about that process, about why museum professionals and archivists must work with such communities, and about some of the considerations that need to be addressed when doing so.Exploring the meanings that historic photographs have for source communities, Alison K. Brown, Laura Peers, and members of the Kainai Nation develop and demonstrate culturally appropriate ways of researching, curating, archiving, accessing, and otherwise using museum and archival collections. They describe the process of relationship building that has been crucial to the research and the current and future benefits of this new relationship. While based in Canada, the dynamics of the 'Pictures Bring Us Messages' project is relevant to indigenous peoples and heritage institutions around the world.