Project Overview
Art, Museums and Repatriation: An Attempt to Assess Public Opinion
Department(s)
Art and Art History
Abstract
Two students will read through the 10,000 online comments that were generated by five separate media segments concerning art, museums and repatriation. The media segments include a New York Times article, two Fox News articles, a segment from John Oliver's TV program, and a 3-minute youtube video of stand-up comedian James Acaster. The comments range from deeply sympathetic to repatriation to deeply hostile. Despite the enormous number of comments, the arguments they make can be distilled down to a finite list (righting the wrongs of colonialism, slippery slope, etc.). Student researchers will read through the comments and identify which of the arguments is being made in each. The goal is to quantify the arguments to get a handle on what "the public" feels about repatriation, since discussions of repatriation are usually monopolized by museum and cultural heritage experts. The outcome will be a scholarly article for a journal such as the International Journal of Cultural Property.
Student Qualifications
At least one course in Museum Studies or related fields (art history, anthropology, history). An understanding of and interest in questions of cultural heritage, colonialism, decolonization, and repatriation.
Number of Student Researchers
2 students
Project Length
8 weeks
APPLY