Frankenstein, The Time Machine, Star Trek, Dune, 1984, Blade Runner--science fiction has been explained as a combination of romance, science, and prophecy; as a genre based on an imagined alternative to the reader's environment; and as a form of fantastic fiction and historical literature. It has also been argued that science fiction narratives are the most engaged, socially relevant, and respo…
The debate between science and religion is never out of the news: emotions run high, fuelled by polemical bestsellers like The God Delusion and, at the other end of the spectrum, high-profile campaigns to teach "Intelligent Design" in schools. Yet there is much more to the debate than the clash of these extremes. As Thomas Dixon shows in this balanced and thought-provoking introduction, a whole…
Psychotherapy and counselling are now widely available to help people overcome emotional and psychological difficulties in their lives. They involve spending time with a professional in an emotionally safe and structured relationship to explore and express the issues that cause distress and difficulty, such as long term self-doubts, relationship problems, or the impact of a trauma or crisis. As…
Is museology a theory or a set of practices? Is it a science or just museum work? Is it the same as museum theory? Or is it autonomous from the museum? Is it a philosophy or is it based on social experimentation? Are we evolving towards the path of a metamuseology? If so, what are the boundaries of this ‘museology’ that has shown to have no boundaries in the past decades of theoretical rese…
What is a museum? How do we defi ne a collection? What is an institution? What does the term ‘heritage’ encompass? Museum professionals have inevitably developed answers to questions such as these, which are fundamental to their work, compiled according to their knowledge and experience. Do we need to reconsider these? We believe so. Museum work shifts back and forth between practice and th…
his research was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation as part of the research award for Sharon Macdonald’s Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, and was carried out at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) at the Department for European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. I also received financial support from the Ge…
Fragile states expose their societies to the risk of meltdown or collapse, endangering the lives of their citizens and leaving them unable to sustain ordinary life. When this happens, famine, violent disorder and economic distress can displace many millions of people, with consequent impacts on surrounding regions. State fragility can also threate…
The way in which these six problems interact has far-reaching consequences for the day-to-day conduct of public affairs, the rights and freedoms of citizens and the legitimacy of the democratic system. The assessment points to the economic vulnerability of the lower middle class, due to the fragmentation of the labor market (formalityinformality, low-high productivity) and the segmentation of …
Central to the practice of the modern museum sector are the principles of access, inclusion, diversity, sustainability, and community participation (ICOM, 2022). As the curators of our cultural and social histories, the heritage sector is morally and legally required to provide reasonable adjustments to ensure equitable access or all people. The dictionary definition of access is the me…
It has been seven years since the so-called refugee crisis in Europe, andwarfarecontinuestoforcepeopletoleavetheirhomelandstosettleelsewhere.AsIamwritingthis,inAprilof2022,RussiantroopsaretearingapartUkraineand the lives of its people, forcing many people to flee their homes. Forcedmigration is not temporary phenomenon, and historical, ethnographic andcity museums will –one wayor another –c…