Perclusive Alliances Digital 3-D, Museums, and the Reconciling of Culturally Diverse Knowledges

摘要

Although social mechanisms for the control of knowledge are widely studied, research into how intersecting groups and institutions reconcile culturally different approaches to knowledge has been limited. I explore this territory by looking at a collaborative project to create digital 3-D scans and replicas of objects of cultural patrimony that was developed between the National Museum of Natural History and the Tlingit tribe of Alaska in 2010. These 3-D reproductions highlight the social values ascribed to digital technology, including its perceived ability to disseminate knowledge and reveal to the public the inner workings of museums, such as the process of repatriation. The presumed and deceptively straightforward nature of copies, however, belies their powers of social transformation. As explored through these 3-D digital replica projects, I argue these are not only about the power to physically replicate something but also the potential to construct relationships and, therefore, to transform the current social order. I look at the problems of using the term "secrecy" in these cross-cultural contexts, opting instead to identify how responsibilities are assigned to knowledge and its use. By also identifying what I term "perclusive" alliances that traverse groups and public/private knowledge categories, I argue for an analytical approach that studies across institutional and cultural contexts, thereby identifying variations in how these responsibilities toward knowledge are assigned and according to which contexts as well as the means employed to negotiate difference.