oceania-pacific: heritage research

Jeanette Atkinson

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Jeanette is a doctoral researcher, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and a Distance Learning Associate Tutor in the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, UK. She undertook her field research in Aotearoa New Zealand (2005-2006), and was a Resident Scholar at the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies at Victoria University of Wellington.

Prior to undertaking doctoral research, Jeanette worked as a paper conservator in national institutions and private conservation studios in both the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Whilst at the National Library of New Zealand, she made a successful application for funding to The Getty Grant Program to develop and supervise two one-year paper conservation internships. She also served as the secretary and newsletter editor (1999 - 2001) of the New Zealand Professional Conservators Group (NZPCG), organising the Wellington NZPCG Conference 2000 and setting up a meeting between the Prime Minister and NZPCG representatives to discuss the role and future of conservation and the need for conservation training in New Zealand.

Research

Jeanette is undertaking research into cultural values in educational programmes available to heritage professionals in Aotearoa New Zealand. Previous research has shown that inter-cultural collaboration is now taking place between museum curators and conservators and indigenous peoples in relation to the display, storage and preservation of indigenous artefacts. Jeanette's current research is investigating how heritage professionals working in New Zealand learnt, or acquired, respect for differing cultural values in the exhibition and preservation of heritage artefacts.

Formal and informal educational programmes in New Zealand are providing the context for exploring these issues of value acquisition. The aim is to determine how heritage specialists responsible for the display and conservation of material culture were trained, and to what extent their educational programmes included an awareness of differing cultural values. The research will then investigate whether it is possible to write educational programmes that incorporate cultural values.

 

Teaching

Jeanette is a Distance Learning Associate Tutor in the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, UK. She is responsible for the pastoral welfare of masters level students and for academic tutoring on the 'Material Culture', 'Care of Collections' and 'Preventive Conservation' modules. During the Distance Learning Summer School in May 2005, she presented a lecture on cultural heritage and co-presented a forum on repatriation.

Jeanette is involved in the ongoing revisions of the distance learning materials to support these modules.