Contact Zones, Third Spaces, and the Act of Interpretation

摘要

The conceptual understanding of museums as 'contact zones' has been widelyappropriated in the museum literature and beyond. But the discussion lacksempirical insights into actual experiences: What does 'contact' mean for theperson experiencing it. How is it lived, negotiated and contested. Drawing ona long-term narrative study of global visitors to the Museum of New Zealand TePapa Tongarewa (Te Papa), this paper offers an empirical interrogation andtheoretical refinement of the 'contact zone'. It moves beyond the more usualfocus on museological production by shedding light on the meanings made bymuseum visitors. This paper augments current normative and theoreticalapproaches with an ethnographic study of processes of intercultural mediationduring cross-cultural encounters, translation and dialogue. This is done througha hermeneutic analysis of visitors' acts of interpretation that facilitates anunderstanding of 'cultural action' in 'contact zones' as an interpretive ontologicalendeavour of the shifting Self within a pluralist cosmopolitan space