Appropriate Museology and the “New Museum Ethics” Honoring Diversity

Nordisk Museologi 2015 • 2, s. 4–16

4 Appropriate museology and the “new museum ethics” Honoring diversity

Christina Kreps

Abstract: This article focuses on what I see as two key movements in the museum world today: the emergence and adoption of a “new museum ethics,” and appropriate museology. I describe how these movements inform one another in both theory and practice; and how they manifest a growing respect for diversity – diversity in the ways different communities make sense of the museum as well as the objects that end up in museums, and diversity in actual practice.

Keywords: Appropriate museology, museum ethics, indigenous and alternative museologies, inclusion, shared guardianship, source and indigenous communities, Native American museums, Indonesia, Canada.

Over the past few decades, relationships between practice” in one context may not be in another. ethnographic museums and indigenous Changing relationships have also given rise peoples have changed dramatically as these to a “new museum ethics” that recognizes this communities have demanded greater voice in diversity and reflects greater respect for people’s how their cultural heritage, in both tangible and cultural and human rights. intangible forms, is curated and represented While much has been written on collaboration in museums. These changes have led to and the changes taking place between museums increased collaboration between museums and indigenous communities, for example in and indigenous, “source”, “originating”, or Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United “descendant” communities, as well as the States,1 much less is known about the current development of more mutually beneficial and status of relationships between indigenous culturally appropriate approaches to practice. populations in Europe, such as the Sámi and Collaborative work, among other things, has the Nordic museums. Similarly, the literature revealed diversity in the ways people experience on indigenous peoples’ museums and cultural and understand their cultural heritage, showing centers has expanded greatly in recent years us how what is seen as appropriate or “best but includes limited contributions about Sámi Appropriate museology and the “new museum ethics”

museums. This dearth in the literature makes increasingly practicing “appropriate museology” 5 conferences on which papers in this issue are (Kreps 2008). This trend is especially evident based especially important, and raises many in museums working in collaboration with questions. For instance: What is unique about indigenous “source,” “originating,” and the situation in the Nordic countries, but also “descendant” communities. how is it similar to changes occurring in other The emergence of appropriate museology parts of the world? What influences are Sámi can be attributed to several developments that voices having on mainstream ethnographic have been taking place in the museum world museums? What new insights can be gained over the past few decades. on both theoretical and practical levels from looking at how the Sámi are using museums to 1. The post-colonial critique of museums protect and represent their cultural heritage? that emerged in the 1980s on the part of What forms does collaboration take in the the scholarly community as well as those Nordic context? And relevant to my concerns whose cultural heritage has been collected in this article: How is Nordic museology and represented in museums, namely non- reflecting what I see as two key movements in Western, indigenous peoples, and ethnic the museum world today, the “new museum minorities. This critique has not only lead ethics,” and “appropriate museology”? to a rethinking of the museum idea, but has In this introductory article, I describe also dramatically transformed practice. how the new museum ethics and appropriate 2. The growth in the scholarship on museums, museology inform current museological and particularly, cross-cultural and theory and practice, and in general, represent comparative studies, has increased our growing respect for diversity – diversity in the knowledge of the different forms museums ways different communities make sense of the and museological behavior take in different museum idea as well as the objects that end up national and cultural settings. Studies have in museums. Although my examples are taken also revealed how many societies have had from my research and work in Indonesia and their own means of caring for things that the United States and reference developments they value, long before the introduction that have been taking place in these countries of the museum idea. In other words, they vis-à-vis museums and indigenous or local have had their own indigenous or local communities, I believe they speak to issues museologies. of diversity and ethics of relevance to Nordic 3. Greater collaboration and cooperation museums of ethnography/cultural history between mainstream museums and and Sámi museums for a cross-cultural, originating communities has cast light on international comparison. the problematic aspects of many mainstream Museums have now long been concerned curatorial practices in respect to cultural with the need to more adequately represent protocol and ethics. cultural diversity in their exhibitions, in addition 4. And finally, indigenous and ethnically to broadening their audiences. However, specific community-based museums have today many museums are also changing become sources of new and alternative curatorial practices to be more inclusive of museological paradigms for theorizing and diverse perspectives and approaches, and are advancing museum practice. Christina Kreps

6 Taken together these developments constitute on the part of government agencies and a shift from a field dominated by universalist, international museum consultants, museum Eurocentric, and hegemonic museology, to one workers remained poorly trained and collections that is recognizing a world full of museologies. poorly cared for and managed. But more I first describe the evolution of my thinking importantly, I also observed how the direct about appropriate museology, and how it has transfer and imposition of the Western museum come to be informed by the tenets of the “new model and practices was paradoxically erasing museum ethics” outlined by Janet Marstine or undermining local curatorial traditions in her introductory essay to the edited rather than preserving them as part of peoples’ volume, The Routledge Companion to Museum cultural heritage. It was within this context that Ethics. Redefining Ethics for the Twenty-first I began to formulate my ideas about appropriate Century Museum (Marstine 2011). I then museology, which were first published in the provide examples of appropriate museology article “Appropriate museology in theory as practiced in Native American museums and practice,” in the Journal of Museum and cultural centers as well as in mainstream Management and Curatorship in 2008 (Kreps museums housing ethnographic collections. 2008). In this article I suggested that approaches My aim is to show how diverse perspectives and to museum development and heritage work approaches to the curation of cultural heritage, should be adapted to local cultural contexts in both tangible and intangible forms, can be and socioeconomic conditions. Ideally, it is a reconciled through the practice of appropriate bottom-up, community-based approach that museology and the new museum ethics. combines local knowledge and resources with those of professional practices to better meet the needs and interests of a particular museum Appropriate museology and its community. Appropriate museology, My approach to appropriate museology grew furthermore, involves the integration of out of a concern for what I saw as a need to indigenous or local museological traditions create alternative approaches to museum into museum and heritage work where suitable. development and training in Indonesia, where In general, I envisioned appropriate I have conducted research and been involved museology as a method for making the in heritage work since the early 1990s (Kreps museum idea more compatible with local 1998, 2003). Up until relatively recently, cultural contexts, and for making museums museum and heritage work in Indonesia could more meaningful to local communities and be characterized as “colonial” in the sense that thus sustainable in the long run. Over the museums tended to be modeled after Western- years, I have also come to see how appropriate style museums, and were set-up and managed museology is congruent with the new museum in a “top-down” fashion with little involvement ethics that at its core is informed by a social of local community members. Museum justice and human rights agenda, and is part of development in Indonesia as a whole has the movement to make museums more socially mostly been under the control of government inclusive and responsible. officials, elites, and international experts. According to Janet Marstine (2011), the new I observed, over the years, that despite museum ethics is not defined by professional investments in numerous training programs codes, which have been the mainstay of Appropriate museology and the “new museum ethics”

museum ethics discourse. Ethics codes and new museum ethics, and rests on the premise 7 guidelines have historically defined appropriate that museums should participate in creating a behavior, established responsibilities to the more just and equitable society. The principles profession and to the public, and offered means of diversity, equity, shared authority, and for self-assessment. They have been aimed at social justice are all integral to contemporary professionalizing individual practitioners and museum work and together they define the the museum profession in general through socially responsible museum. the promotion of standards and normative Marstine defines three major strands of behavior. museum theory and practice through which But as Marstine and other authors have museums assert their moral agency: social pointed out, ethics codes are culturally defined inclusion, radical transparency, and shared and in the Western context have been based guardianship. Social inclusivity is dependent on Enlightenment ideals of virtue. Marstine on developing new modes of democratic contends, however, that museum ethics should participation in the museum that invite not be seen as a universal set of values to be “divergent or transgressive voices” (Marstine applied indiscriminately, rather: 2011:11). The socially inclusive and responsible museum also embraces the idea of shared […] it is important to differentiate between ethical authority and power in decision-making, principles – those ideals and values a society holds curatorial work, and programming. It is also dear – and applied ethics – the practice of employing concerned with forwarding social justice and those principles to specific arenas of activity (Marstine human rights, central to rethinking the terms 2011:6). of social inclusion. The twenty-first century museum ethics is This applies also to museum work. While also built upon a new theory and practice of ethical principles such as individualism have transparency in museums. Marstine asserts shaped applied ethics in Western culture, other that social responsibility will not flourish in principles such as collectivism are operative in museum culture unless museums disclose other parts of the world. Thus, it is important to what issues they are facing, the “how” and acknowledge the relative and contingent nature “whys” of their decision-making processes of ethics. To Marstine, contemporary museum and the possible impact of choices made. She ethics, in contrast to the “old” museum ethics, describes radical transparency as a mode of is not a canon of ideas based on consensus and communication whereby accountability means conformity. Instead, today’s museum ethics acknowledging and assuming responsibility is marked by strong differences of opinion, for actions. Radical transparency is thus contestation, and debate. She asserts that in declarative and self-reflexive rather than twenty-first century multicultural societies authoritative (Marstine 2011:15). It is also about that purportedly respect difference, consensus being open with information and making it and conformity have come to signal exclusivity, accessible to all who lay claims on the museum. like-mindedness, and a fixity of thought that However, Marstine stresses that radical inhibits change, risk taking, and moreover, transparency does not mean that museums the moral agency of museums. The idea that share all information equally because there is museums have moral agency is pivotal to the some information that needs to be held private Christina Kreps

8 to honor the wishes of certain stakeholders. other prized possessions since ancient times. Instead, radical transparency is defined by clear They have been crucial to Kwakwaka’wakw guidelines for what can and cannot be shared, emphasis on ranking and the accumulation of developed in partnership with community wealth, and are both a container and a symbol stakeholders. of a family’s wealth. (Fig. 1.) The idea of shared guardianship is Marstine’s In their originating communities, boxes such third strand of museum theory and practice as these have multiple functions, meanings, through which museums can assert their and values, and are perceived and experienced moral agency and enact the new ethics. through multiple senses – smell, touch, Shared guardianship is especially relevant to sound, emotion, in addition to being visually appropriate museology because it requires stunning. As part of rituals and ceremonies, museums to relinquish control over the care their intangible meanings and functions can and use of collections, as well as the special be as or more important than their tangible or kinds of relationships people can have to physical attributes. They embody and activate objects in their collections: songs, chants, stories, and dances that bring people together, solidify family and communal In contemporary museum ethics discourse the ties, and commemorate important life passages. concept of guardianship is a means toward respecting They are, in material form, representative of the dynamic, experiential and contingent quality Kwakwaka’wakw ways of knowing and being of heritage and towards sharing in new ways the in the world, and a means of communicating rights and responsibilities to this heritage (Marstine social, spiritual, and emotional connections. 2011:17). Treasure boxes of different forms and from different Northwest Coast indigenous groups In general, Marstine views the new muse- have long been of interest to anthropologists, um ethics as ever changing, adaptive, art historians, and collectors, and can be found improvisational, and deeply engaged with the in museum collections throughout the world. wider world, but above all, a social practice. Her Because they have been regarded as repositories proposal for a new museum ethics and concepts for inherited artifacts, and symbolic containers of social inclusion, radical transparency, for the transmission of ancestral privileges and and shared guardianship provide a wider the preservation of customs, treasure boxes lens through which to examine appropriate are an appropriate Kwakwaka’wakw idiom for museology. I now turn to my examples to the museum. As a case in point, the U’mista demonstrate how appropriate museology and Culture Centre in British Columbia, Canada, is the new museum ethics are applied in practice. colloquially referred to as “a Box of Treasures”. I selected the treasure box because it is likened to a museum, in an indigenous form. Native American perspectives But I could have chosen a number of indigenous The Kwakwaka’wakw people of the Northwest artifacts to illustrate some of the differences Coast of the US and southwestern Canada between how objects are perceived and used have historically used finely crafted boxes in their source communities in contrast to how made from steamed cedar planks to store they are generally viewed in Western museums tribal treasures such as ceremonial regalia and where they are stripped of their multisensory Appropriate museology and the “new museum ethics”

Fig. 1. Kwakwaka’wakw treasure box, the U’mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada. Photo: Courtesy of the U’mista Cultural Centre. and intangible dimensions and reduced to symbol system of the museum (Classen & Howes “objects for the eyes.” As anthropologists 2006:200). Constance Classen and David Howes assert in the article “The museum as sensescape. Much scholarship has been devoted to the Western sensibilities and indigenous artifacts”: critical analysis of how anthropologists, art historians, and curators have attempted [I]n Western museum settings, artifacts are to re-contextualize objects that had been preeminently objects for the eye. [...] Within their removed from their originating contexts. cultures of origin, however, visual appearance forms Such scholarship has shed light on objects’ only one part – and often not the most important part iconography, ritual functions, and symbolism – of an artifact’s sensory significance. The sensory in museum displays, catalogs, and texts. And values of an artifact, furthermore, do not reside in the for some time, scholars and members of source artifact alone, but in its social use and environmental communities have critically commented on context. This dynamic web of sensuous and social how the meanings, values, and functions of meaning is broken when an object is removed from objects shift when they are reconfigured within its cultural setting and inserted within the visual the context of Western museological paradigms Christina Kreps

10 (Clifford 1988, 1991, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett sensory and multidimensional qualities of 1991, Marcus & Meyers 1995, Vogel 1988). objects – “the very materiality of the material.” It is now widely recognized that Western She contends it is time to see beyond the narrow museology has rested almost exclusively on (but still important) focus on aesthetics and one knowledge system, or epistemology, formal qualities of artworks or the technical which has dictated why and how non-Western analyses of artifacts and natural history cultural materials have been collected, as well specimens, and enrich an existing preoccupation as the ways in which they have been perceived, with the symbolic, representational, and curated, and represented in museums. Within communicative dimensions of objects with this knowledge system, objects have been emotion and physical sensation. systematically organized and reconfigured to fit Objects in Native American museums into Western constructs of science, culture, art, and cultural centers can be family heirlooms, history, and heritage. In museums, they become symbols of rank and status, sacred materials art objects, admired for their aesthetic qualities, necessary for the perpetuation of religious beliefs craftsmanship, technological ingenuity; and and practices; documents of a community’s ethnographic objects or “data” valued for what history, works of art, and mnemonic devices they can tell us about a people’s culture. In short, for evoking memories, biographies, songs, and they have been de-sensualized, and diminished stories. Objects stand for significant traditions, to visual metaphors. ideas, customs, social relations, and it is the As visual symbols, objects in museums are stories they tell, the performances they are a not only predominantly for the eyes, but are part of, and the relationships among people and also primarily understood through the lens between people and places that are as important of object-based epistemology, or the view as the objects themselves. that objects embody and convey knowledge But in addition to standing for or representing and information. Thus, museums are not only some aspect of culture, as they often do in visual symbol systems but also information ethnographic museums, it also can be true that systems in which things become part of objects simply are what they are. A figure or “object-information packages.” In the words of image does not represent a spirit or ancestor, but anthropologist Sandra Dudley: it is that spirit or ancestor. Its sheer materiality, presence, and singularity as an individual are There is a current, indeed dominant, view within what matters and what give it meaning and museum studies and practice, that the museum value. To many Native Americans, and other is about information and that the object is just a indigenous and non-Western peoples, objects part – and indeed not always an essential part – of are alive, imbued with a life force and spirit, that informational culture […] objects have value and in fact, Karen Coody Cooper (member of and import only because of the cultural meanings the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and former which immediately overlie them [...]. The material staff member of the Smithsonian National object thus becomes part of an object-information Museum of the American Indian) states that package… (Dudley 2009:3). the term “object” is “patently offensive to many Native Americans because it refutes the Seeing objects as merely part of information idea of animism, or life within the materials” packages, Dudley suggests, ignores the multi- (2008:65). Appropriate museology and the “new museum ethics”

Many other scholars have critically American museums and communities, we 11 commented on how Native American views of can see how the emphasis on the visual, Native-made things in museums are distinct or ocular-centrism, in museums as well as from the views of most museum professionals object-based epistemology is one of the main and scientists. Kelley Hays-Gilpin of the differences between indigenous and Western Museum of Northern Arizona and Ramson or mainstream museums. In such settings we Lomatewama (Hopi artist and scholar), have can also see how aspects of local culture and drawn attention to the problematic nature of indigenous curatorial practices are mixed museum terminology and the perceptions it with Western, professional museum methods reflects. They write: to create appropriate museology. The Makah Cultural and Research Center in Neah Bay, ... we use the term ‘artifact’ to refer to something Washington State (USA), is one example of made or modified by humans, because this term where indigenous and non-indigenous staff implies relationships in ways that ‘object’ does not… have worked together to develop culturally What Hopi speakers would do is call it what it is – appropriate approaches to collections a rain sash, a katsina doll, a water jar – not invent management and exhibitions. superordinate terms like ‘textiles,’ ‘carvings,’ ‘pottery,’ The Makah Cultural and Research Center or ‘objects’ (Hays-Gilpin & Lomatewama 2013:261). opened in 1979 to house artifacts taken from the Ozette archaeological site where some Artifact is still an imperfect term they concede, 55,000 pre-contact artifacts and 15,000 pieces but a more suitable term does not exist in of structural remains of four houses were English. When it comes to how Native-made uncovered. Patricia Pierce Erikson (2005), things are perceived in museums, the principal an anthropologist who collaborated with the concern is that “we are not talking about Makah Cultural and Research Center for many passive, inanimate objects whose primary use years, writes that when staff members were is to serve as evidence or data for past lifeways” developing a collections management system (Hays-Gilpin & Lomatewama 2013:260–261). for the Center they used the traditional Makah Instead, they state, so-called artifacts are system of property ownership that still existed enmeshed in social networks and are as living in the community. Artifacts were separated and members of communities, even if they are stored according to the household to which they now members of museum communities Hays- would have belonged rather than according to Gilpin and Lomatewama point out that Hopi conventional methods of classification, such as, and other Native people generally perceive the material, function, time period, culture area museum as privileging rational thought over and so on. Artifacts were labeled not only in emotion and secular over spiritual concerns. both Makah and English, but they were also While these hierarchical dichotomies were physically grouped and stored according to constructed by science for science, Hopi their Makah language roots and/or suffixes and other Native Americans see this as “how and the material and immaterial relationships science is, but not how the world is” (Hays- these linguistic elements reflected. According Gilpin & Lomatewama 2013: 261–262). to Erikson, this method provided insight into By looking at how objects are curated in the connections between Makah language and non-Western contexts, for example in Native thought. Christina Kreps

12 Makah conceptual categories were used not contact with, and those objects that are part of only for organizing the collection but also for everyday life. Consequently, many museums stimulating reflection on Makah worldviews now separate objects identified as sacred into codified in their language. This adaptation separate storage areas. They might also classify of the museum – to expand the preservation objects based on native classifications, such goals beyond artifacts to the preservation of as male or female objects, those associated living culture – is an essential component of with death and those with life, and so on. the indigenization of a mainstream museum Some objects might be aligned with the model (Erikson 2005:184). Exhibitions also cardinal points, or exposed to sunlight and reflected Makah conceptua-lizations of their the elements during certain times of the year world and what is important to them. For such as the summer and winter equinoxes. In example, exhibitions were organized around most cases, strict protocols exist regarding who the seasons and what kinds of activities take can or cannot handle or be in the presence of place during different seasons when the particular objects at particular times. museum first opened. Traditional care is concerned with looking Indigenous perspectives and approaches after the spiritual integrity and life of an object to the care and treatment of cultural heritage as much as it is with maintaining its physical objects are also being integrated into integrity, reflecting the importance of the mainstream museums, in the form of what invisible, the immaterial, and the many ways in many Native American communities call which objects can be sensed and make sense. “traditional care” methods. This practice has As noted earlier, for many Native Americans, not only been generating more appropriate artifacts are living entities or contain living museology, but it also has been challenging spirits. These spirits are believed to be conscious many of the basic assumptions behind beings with emotions, which in some instances Western, scientifically based museology. The require feeding and human interaction to integration of “traditional care” methods and remain healthy (Hays-Gilpin & Lomatewama other forms of indigenous museology into 2013:267). Some artifacts, especially those collections management has revealed how made for ceremonial uses, need to be ritually what is seen as appropriate in one cultural fed or smudged and purified with offerings context may not be in another. In consultations of sacred plants like cedar, sage, tobacco, and with Native American curators, scholars, and cornmeal. spiritual advisors, we are not only being asked At the University of Denver Museum of to repatriate or remove “culturally sensitive” Anthropology, which I directed, artifacts that objects from displays in museums, but we are are perceived as animate, imbued with a life also being instructed in how to store and care force, and possessing spirits, have been removed for objects in keeping with traditional cultural from sealed containers or plastic coverings so protocol, or ethics. they can breathe. The Museum also practices For example, one of the criticisms that restricted access, which in this case means Native Americans often have is that in the care removing human remains and sacred and and organization of objects in conventional ceremonial objects from the main collections museums, distinctions are not made between and placing them in special rooms that can sacred objects that people rarely come into only be entered by tribal representatives and Appropriate museology and the “new museum ethics”

museum staff. It also means that research on be mutual respect. As many Native Americans 13 these individuals is not allowed. Information have told me, they do not expect museum about these individuals in databases and staff and researchers to feel the way they do catalogs is also restricted, as are photographs about objects in collections or have the same on websites or other information. connections to them. What they do expect and Restricted access, in general, is another demand is respect for their cultures and their important aspect of indigenous curation that ways. reflects tribal cultural protocol or specific rights Museums, as social institutions and like the and responsibilities related to particular kinds societies in which they exist, are constantly of objects. For many Native American groups, undergoing change, reflecting changing social only certain individuals in the community values, needs, interests, morals, and ethics. or in a family or clan have the right to use, Indeed, for Janet Marstine (2011:5), significant have knowledge about, and handle particular change in museum policy and practice requires objects. Specialized and sacred knowledge a “museum ethics of change.” She states that: is not for public consumption, and in fact, the public nature of museum collections and Museums seeking change foster collaborative information about them is unsettling to many relationships on equal footing with diverse stake- Native American communities since open holders and willingly assume the risks entailed by access can be inconsistent with tribal traditions. entertaining novel positions (Marstine 2011:7). Although indigenous curatorial practices have been adopted in many museums, and Entertaining novel positions can be read respect for indigenous perspectives and as challenging standard norms of practice approaches has increased, there are some who and embracing new approaches that include think that accommodating these beliefs and “divergent and transgressive voices.” Many practices runs counter to the idea of museums as of the changes that have been taking place quintessentially scientific, secular institutions. in American museums vis-à-vis indigenous Restricting access to collections, for research communities reflect the principles of social and educational purposes, furthermore, goes inclusion, radical transparency, and shared against the idea of museums as democratic, guardianship of Marstine’s new museum public institutions. Indeed, although many ethics. But it should be noted that many of see respecting restricted access and other these changes did not come about voluntarily. indigenous ethics as culturally sensitive and Rather, they are some of the many outcomes appropriate practice, to others it is nothing less of the Native American Graves Protection than unethical and unprofessional. and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) passed These divergent concerns challenge us to in 1990 by the US Congress. The Act, in reflect on the fundamental meanings and addition to protecting burial sites, provides purposes of museums in democratic societies, a process for museums and Federal agencies and what we mean by the socially inclusive and to repatriate human remains, sacred objects, responsible museum. Moreover, they force us and other items of cultural patrimony to to explore ways to reconcile what to some seem lineal descendants and culturally affiliated like irreconcilable differences. Under these tribes. NAGPRA requires museums to make circumstances, the basis of reconciliation can inventories of Native American human remains Christina Kreps

14 and cultural materials in their collections, and objects in their collections. It means respecting in consultation with tribal representatives to the dynamic, experiential and contingent determine their “cultural affiliation.” Under the quality of heritage and sharing in new ways law, museums are then required to make these the rights and responsibilities to this heritage. inventories and pertinent information available Furthermore, shared guardianship signifies to tribes who, in turn, can make requests for respect for the ways different communities repatriation. make sense of the museum and the objects The passage of NAGPRA was the culmination that end up in museums, as well as diversity in of decades of struggle on the part of Native museological practice. American tribal governments, activists, lawyers and their supporters, to protect graves against Conclusion desecration, repatriate thousands of ancestral human remains and return stolen or improperly In this article I have tried to demonstrate how acquired property to Native Americans. appropriate museology and ethics are brought NAGPRA has been considered landmark into sharper focus through the comparison of legislation because it represented changes in how objects of cultural heritage are perceived the attitudes toward Native peoples on the part and curated in mainstream museums and of the museum and scientific communities indigenous contexts. As Ivan Karp and Steven as well as the general public. Although some Lavine suggested back in 1991 in their seminal see NAGPRA primarily as cultural property work Exhibiting Cultures, we begin to see the law, others see it as human rights legislation artifice of our own practices when we look designed to redress the flagrant violation of the at them in comparison with those in other human and civil rights of America’s indigenous contexts. peoples. The insights gained through comparison NAGPRA represents a profound shift encourage us to question ideas like “best in power relations between museums and practices” that have become orthodox in the source communities, and has led to a radical museum profession. Best practice not only rethinking of museological practice and ethics. runs counter to appropriate museology, but The law is an example of how a professional also to the cultural diversity it is intended to body’s code of ethics can be inadequate in respect. Such diversity might be better served addressing moral issues, and how a law, in turn by a discourse of appropriate practice rather can stimulate new ethical agendas. As Tristram than standard or best. Besterman (2006:431) has eloquently stated Increased knowledge of Sámi museology “ethics defines the relationship of the museum and how the Sámi people are using the museum with people, not with things.” concept to meet their own socioeconomic NAGPRA and its many outcomes, including needs and political interests has much to the emergence of more culturally sensitive contribute to the growing body of literature and appropriate museology, exemplifies the in comparative museology, as does the past concept of shared guardianship in that it and present nature of relationships between requires museums to relinquish control over the Sámi people and Nordic ethnographic and the care and use of collections as well as the cultural history museums. Taken together, special kinds of relationships people can have to these two interconnected lines of inquiry Appropriate museology and the “new museum ethics”

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