1 March 2018
The aim of this symposium is to understand the important role that diasporic objects play in connecting human groups and individuals. This one-day event will bring together experts from diverse regions and academic fields with the goal of discussing how diasporic objects mediate relations between human groups across different times, territories and cultures.
The program will combine community scale perspectives, which include discussions on the role that diasporic objects play in museum practices (e.g., connecting communities across the world), as well as individual perspectives that explore how diasporic objects help migrants build a sense of home and belonging in a foreign context. Those speaking on museum practices will discuss how diasporic (colonial) objects help to create, reconfigure and sometimes obstruct communication and collaboration between museums and the ‘source’ communities of their collections. Those examining the relationships between diasporic objects and home-making, will look at the more intimate scenarios in which people engage with diasporic objects in daily practices and personal histories, and how they help mediate complex experiences and constructions of home in the context of migration and displacement.
Finally, bringing these two scales together, closing discussions will explore the kinds of relations and affective states that various engagements with diasporic objects afford. In turn, how do certain objects and affects challenge or complicate conventional understandings of the museum, of home, of the intimate and communal?