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All Outputs (39)

Urban Development and Fishing Livelihoods in the Museum: Nostalgia and Discontent in Central Vietnam (2022)
Journal Article
Were, G. (2022). Urban Development and Fishing Livelihoods in the Museum: Nostalgia and Discontent in Central Vietnam. Museum & Society, 20(2), 221-235. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v20i2.4027

This article explores how the topics of fishing and urban development are addressed in a Vietnamese social history museum. Drawing on a project taking place in the Museum of Danang, it describes the way the museum represented the voices of a displace... Read More about Urban Development and Fishing Livelihoods in the Museum: Nostalgia and Discontent in Central Vietnam.

Museums, Collections and Social Repair in Vietnam (2022)
Book
Were, G. (2022). Museums, Collections and Social Repair in Vietnam. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003256250

Museums, Collections and Social Repair in Vietnam analyses the relationship between museums, collections and social repair in contemporary Vietnam. Drawing on fieldwork in a range of museums in the country, alongside interviews with museum workers an... Read More about Museums, Collections and Social Repair in Vietnam.

Imagining maritime conflict landscapes: Reactive exhibitions, sovereignty, and representation in Vietnam (2021)
Book Chapter
Were, G. (2021). Imagining maritime conflict landscapes: Reactive exhibitions, sovereignty, and representation in Vietnam. In N. J. Saunders, & P. Cornish (Eds.), Conflict Landscapes: Materiality and Meaning in Contested Place (311-324). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003149552-21

During the summer of 2014, a wave of reactive exhibitions was launched across Vietnam that responded to the political crisis in Bien Dong or the South China Sea. This chapter provides a means to be able to understand how conflict landscapes are imagi... Read More about Imagining maritime conflict landscapes: Reactive exhibitions, sovereignty, and representation in Vietnam.

Returned not Remade: Visuality, Authority and Potentiality of Digital Objects in a Melanesian Society (2021)
Book Chapter
Were, G. (2021). Returned not Remade: Visuality, Authority and Potentiality of Digital Objects in a Melanesian Society. In P. Fortis, & S. Küchler (Eds.), Time and Its Object: A Perspective from Amerindian and Melanesian Societies on the Temporality of Images. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003158806-3-8

This chapter explores the politics of visuality in the context of the lives of the Nalik people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea that is sympathetic to the ‘complexity and reality of people’s lives and thoughts’. It investigates how ubiquito... Read More about Returned not Remade: Visuality, Authority and Potentiality of Digital Objects in a Melanesian Society.

Exploring Urban Equality and Heritage Livelihoods in the Museum of Da Nang, Vietnam (2020)
Preprint / Working Paper
Were, G. Exploring Urban Equality and Heritage Livelihoods in the Museum of Da Nang, Vietnam. London

This working paper presents research funded by the KNOW Small Grants Fund. The Fund awards grants that enable UK-based scholars at UK universities, policy research institutions, and NGOs with a research portfolio to conduct research relating to the... Read More about Exploring Urban Equality and Heritage Livelihoods in the Museum of Da Nang, Vietnam.

On the Substance of Surfaces: the Calculated Nature of Materials and Design in Melanesia (2020)
Book Chapter
Were, G. (2020). On the Substance of Surfaces: the Calculated Nature of Materials and Design in Melanesia. In M. Anusas, & C. Simonetti (Eds.), Surfaces: Transformations of Body, Materials and Earth (139-151). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315646947-9

Imagine a shiny worktop surface made of the plastic laminate Formica; for many people born in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s, it will rekindle fond memories of their parents’ kitchen. Then imagine learning how these worktop surfaces had undergone a co... Read More about On the Substance of Surfaces: the Calculated Nature of Materials and Design in Melanesia.

Thirty years of Doi Moi in the museum: Changing representations of development in late-socialist Vietnam (2019)
Journal Article
Were, G. (2019). Thirty years of Doi Moi in the museum: Changing representations of development in late-socialist Vietnam. Asian Education and Development Studies, 8(4), 463-473. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEDS-02-2018-0051

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe an exhibition that celebrated 30 years of reform in the Vietnamese National Museum of History, which opened in 2016. It contributes to anthropological understandings of the way exhibitions create new... Read More about Thirty years of Doi Moi in the museum: Changing representations of development in late-socialist Vietnam.

How Materials Matter: Design, Innovation and Materiality in the Pacific (2019)
Book
Were, G. (2019). How Materials Matter: Design, Innovation and Materiality in the Pacific. Berghahn. https://doi.org/10.3167/9781789202014

How does design and innovation shape people's lives in the Pacific? Focusing on plant materials from the region, How Materials Matter reveals ways in which a variety of people - from craftswomen and scientists to architects and politicians - work wit... Read More about How Materials Matter: Design, Innovation and Materiality in the Pacific.

Medical materialities: A response (2019)
Book Chapter
Were, G. (2019). Medical materialities: A response. In A. Parkhurst, & T. Carroll (Eds.), Medical Materialities: Toward a Material Culture of Medical Anthropology. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429457081-15

This response is a reflection on this volume and its possible implications, staged in three parts. The first part outlines the importance of the volume and the work being done by its editors and contributors to place the ‘thing’ as a central point of... Read More about Medical materialities: A response.

Texture (2018)
Book Chapter
Were, G. (2018). Texture. In H. Callan, & S. Coleman (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1569

Texture is the feel, appearance, or consistency of a surface or substance. This property of objects, landscapes, bodies, and architectures is located in many diverse forms: from the grain of wood, the soft touch of silk, wind-pitted stone, or the vis... Read More about Texture.

Representing Doi Moi: history, memory and shifting national narratives in late-socialist Vietnam (2017)
Journal Article
Were, G. (2018). Representing Doi Moi: history, memory and shifting national narratives in late-socialist Vietnam. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 24(6), 6872-686. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2017.1413677

In late-socialist states, what are the drivers of shifts in national narratives and how can a focus on the museum method reveal the way state institutions construct national myths and nationalist ideologies? This paper addresses these questions by fo... Read More about Representing Doi Moi: history, memory and shifting national narratives in late-socialist Vietnam.

What's in a plant leaf? a case study of materials innovation in New Zealand (2015)
Book Chapter
Were, G. (2015). What's in a plant leaf? a case study of materials innovation in New Zealand. In A. Drazin, & S. Küchler (Eds.), The Social Life of Materials: Studies in Materials and Society (31-47). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003087175-4

Materials are ubiquitous. They help shape - through their experiential and agentive capacity - human thought and action. Through their innovation and use in society and industry, materials play a significant role in social change. The innovation of m... Read More about What's in a plant leaf? a case study of materials innovation in New Zealand.

Remembering the Queensland Floods: Community Collecting in the Wake of Natural Disaster (2014)
Book Chapter
Were, G., & Besley, J. (2014). Remembering the Queensland Floods: Community Collecting in the Wake of Natural Disaster. In I. Convery, G. Corsane, & P. Davis (Eds.), Displaced Heritage: Responses to Disaster, Trauma, and Loss (41-50). Boydell and Brewer. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781782044109-009

In January 2011, three-quarters of the Australian state of Queensland was declared a disaster zone, including Brisbane, its capital city, after a series of devastating floods caused widespread destruction. The floodwaters caused over two billion Aust... Read More about Remembering the Queensland Floods: Community Collecting in the Wake of Natural Disaster.

Digital Heritage, Knowledge Networks, and Source Communities: Understanding Digital Objects in a Melanesian Society (2014)
Journal Article
Were, G. (2014). Digital Heritage, Knowledge Networks, and Source Communities: Understanding Digital Objects in a Melanesian Society. Museum Anthropology, 37(2), 133-143. https://doi.org/10.1111/muan.12058

This article investigates digital heritage technologies from a Melanesian perspective. It explores—in the context of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea—the types of values placed on digital surrogates as a means to engage critically with recent debates on... Read More about Digital Heritage, Knowledge Networks, and Source Communities: Understanding Digital Objects in a Melanesian Society.

Digital heritage in a Melanesian context: Authenticity, integrity and ancestrality from the other side of the digital divide (2014)
Journal Article
Were, G. (2015). Digital heritage in a Melanesian context: Authenticity, integrity and ancestrality from the other side of the digital divide. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 21(2), 153-165. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2013.842607

This article examines how digital heritage, in the form of 3D digital objects, fits into particular discourses around identity, ancestrality and cultural transmission in Melanesia. Through an ethnographic analysis of digital heritage use amongst the... Read More about Digital heritage in a Melanesian context: Authenticity, integrity and ancestrality from the other side of the digital divide.

On the materials of mats: thinking through design in a Melanesian society: On the materials of mats (2013)
Journal Article
Were, G. On the materials of mats: thinking through design in a Melanesian society: On the materials of mats. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 19(3), 581-599. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12051

This article examines the selective use of plant materials in design in Melanesia. It explores – through an analysis of pandanus leaf mats in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea – how makers select fibres on the basis of their capacity to express social re... Read More about On the materials of mats: thinking through design in a Melanesian society: On the materials of mats.