Sense of the Past: Historic House Museums in Toronto, Canada, As Forms of an Urban Heterotopia
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SENSE OF THE PAST: HISTORIC HOUSE MUSEUMS IN TORONTO, CANADA, AS FORMS OF AN URBAN HETEROTOPIA by Alevtina Naumova Master of Arts in Communication, Grand Forks, University of North Dakota, USA, 2005 Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, American University – Central Asia, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 2003 A dissertation presented to Ryerson University and York University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the joint program in Communication and Culture Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2017 © Alevtina Naumova 2017 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this dissertation. This is a true copy of the dissertation, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I authorize Ryerson University to lend this dissertation to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. I further authorize Ryerson University to reproduce this dissertation by photocopying means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the scholarly research. I understand that my dissertation may be made electronically available to the public. ii ABSTRACT Sense of the Past: Historic House Museums in Toronto, Canada, as Forms of an Urban Heterotopia Alevtina Naumova Doctor of Philosophy in Communication and Culture Ryerson University and York University, 2017 Historic house museums allow for reconceptualization of the meaning of tangible objects around us. We establish this new relationship with materiality through our sensory bodies. We conceive of ourselves differently and allow ourselves to move and behave in ways that are not acceptable in the world outside of the museum. We perform our new selves with permission granted by the sense of place that cannot be understood other than through embodied experience–of things, of selves, of the environment that brings it all together. In the coming together of all these elements in the immediate, intimate present, the notion of the past is defined as cultural heritage as mediated through the historic house museum curatorial work and space. I approach historic house museums as socially created and lived kinds of spatiality and sites of social practices and focus on the experiences of people that spend considerable amounts of time there–the museum staff. As a researcher, I have inserted myself within the environment of a historic house museum and attempted to open it to social inquiry through various ways of being within it–observing, writing, interviewing, interacting, sensing, entering it and leaving it. I have carried out a form of phenomenological ethnography, which included a two-year autoethnographic study at the Mackenzie House Museum, in Toronto, Canada, where I volunteered in the position of an interpreter and a historic cook; 24 participant observation visits to other historic house museums in Toronto; and 13 in-depth unstructured interviews with museum staff from various historic house museum sites in the city. The three methods addressed the key conceptual clusters–emplacement, materiality, and performance, which form three analytical chapters of the dissertation. The dissertation positions historic house museums as forms of heterotopia that function as contestations of the accepted spatial, social, and temporal norms within an urban environment. These museums come forth as attempted reconstructions of anthropological places, in the form of domestic sites that assert significance of material manifestations of familial relations and historical heritage. These sites are immersive environments bridge the gap in the current experience of body, time, and space. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank my supervisor, Professor Paul S. Moore. In the first year of my PhD programme, Paul got me excited about cultural theory–through his teaching, thinking, and writing. This excitement has not subsided in my five years in the program. I have come to understand that Paul has always had more faith in me than I did. He got me to accomplish more than I thought I was capable of at every turn of this journey. All this makes him more than a supervisor, but a true mentor. I would also like to thank my committee members, Professors Alison Matthews David and Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof. Alison has been a kind and caring source of support. She was able to point me towards ideas and literature that deepened my understanding of the body in costume. Izabella’s class “The Body as Medium” formed my method in this work. Her further guidance helped me develop my thinking. Izabella’s relationship with theory and her own analytical processes have been an inspiration to me as an academic thinker and always reminded me that thinking is a joy. My two external reviewers, Professors Heather Rollwagen and Alan Gordon, provided insights that are essential to me developing my thesis research further. I am deeply grateful for their time and expertise. Completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without support of Mansur Mamatkulov, who has absolute faith in my abilities and is behind me always. I thank Lorna Joy Vallings, who never doubts my absolute brilliance and has consistently supported my work in ways both big and small. My brother, Konstantin Naumov, has stepped in at two crucial moments in the stages of writing and editing to provide the much-needed momentum to finish both. Thank you, brother. I also want to thank my mother, Natalya Naumova, for her love and for iv having set an example of a relationship with academic work, when I was little. Your influence on my life goes beyond what I consciously understand. I thank my daughter, Maya Mamatkulov, for understanding and levels of empathy that are beyond an ability of an average 7-year-old; and for genuine fascination with all things old. Finally, I want to thank my close friends Han Zhang, Bruce Beaton, Stacey Nordlund, and Ekaterina Pak for their never wavering support. Our friendship is such, that my work on this PhD has somehow strengthened it, instead of ruining it. Further, I would like to thank administration and staff of historic house museums in Toronto that were included in this study, specifically those working at the Mackenzie House Museum, the Colborne Lodge, and the Spadina House Museum. It was my fascination with your work that inspired my research. Thank you for allowing me to pursue it. The Student Learning Support services at Ryerson University have made a big difference in my work. I want to specifically thank Natalya Androsova, the Writing Programs Specialist. Natalya’s guidance and expertise helped me develop a healthier and a more understanding relationship with my writing. v DEDICATION To my mother and my daughter Without both of you, this work would not have been possible vi TABLE OF CONTENTS AUTHOR’S DECLARATION ....................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iv DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF APPENDICES ................................................................................................................ ix INTRODUCTION: Places, where History Is Always Still Happening Again. Historic house museums as a recourse from our time ............................................................................................. 1 Thesis Statement and the Outline of the Dissertation ................................................................. 5 Location within the Field .......................................................................................................... 12 Heritage in Practice: A methodology for the study of the site-specific performance of the past ................................................................................................................................................... 21 Research Questions and General Notes on the Research Methodology ................................... 24 Methodological Concerns Specific to the Study and the Choice of Methods ........................... 28 Selection of the Sites ................................................................................................................. 29 Autoethnography ....................................................................................................................... 32 Participant Observation ............................................................................................................ 37 In-depth Interviews ................................................................................................................... 39 Concluding Remarks on Methodology: Understanding the logic of the kaleidoscope ............. 41 CHAPTER I: Heterotopia of a Historic House Museum: Alternative spaces within an urban environment .................................................................................................................................. 50 Literature Review: Historic House Museums – “a landscape that is greater than the sum of its parts” (Mills, 2003, p. 83). ....................................................................................................... 54 Defining a Historic House Museum ...................................................................................... 54 Historic House Museums and Theories “in” Heritage: HHMs from the Operational Point of View