Past Conferences

MEG’s Annual Conference serves as a platform for participants to exchange ideas and forge lasting connections, laying the groundwork for innovative approaches to the cultural heritage stewardship and knowledge dissemination. We provide the programmes and abstracts of some of our past conferences, along with links to conference papers published in our Journal, in hope that these materials can inspire further collaborations and research in the museum sector.
Filters
Institution
Year
Clear all
April 2024
Living Museums – Looking to the Future
At this conference, delegates explored the potential impact of ‘World Cultures’ museums on addressing major global challenges like climate change, migration, truth, war, and other significant issues.
Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia
April 2023
Un-Discipling the Museum? Changing Practices of Care, Knowledge, and Display
This conference reflected on the ways practices of care and knowledge production are evolving or require evolution. It addressed topics including documentation, knowledge, care, and well-being.
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge
April 2022
Rethinking Practice, Reimagining the Future: Climate, Colonial Collections, and Contemporary Collecting
This conference deliberated on the future world culture museums and their collections, asking: what role can or should museums assume in shaping the futures desired or aspired to by our communities?
National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh
April 2021
(ONLINE) Conversations
This conference provided a platform for practitioners, community members, and researchers to engage in discussions about re-envisioning the future of museums and global collections.
The Box Plymouth
April 2020
(CANCELLED) Creativity and Museum Ethnography
Cancelled due to COVID-19, this conference had aimed to explore creativity and museum ethnography from multiple perspectives such as museum audiences, risk, and institutional memory.
National Museums Liverpool
April 2019
Trust, Harm and Ethnographic Displays
This conference addressed the question: How can we create an environment of trust that embraces, accepts, and forgives the contradictions inherent in our displays of world cultures collections?
Horniman Museum
April 2018
Decolonising the Museum in Practice
This conference examined the impact of decolonisation on ethnographic museums, and using an interdisciplinary approach, addressed belonging and identity for contemporary audiences.
Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
April 2017
Cloth and Costume in Ethnographic Museums
Focusing on cloth and costume, this conference examined current research on these items in world cultures collections, along with their curation and reinterpretation.
University of Glasgow
April 2016
Faith and Community: Interpreting Beliefs in the Modern Museum
This conference provided Manchester Museum the opportunity to engage with colleagues and organisations working at the intersection of faith in South Asian, its diaspora, and museum collections.
Manchester Museum

Join MEG
We welcome new members – whether you are from an indigenous community, work as an educator, practitioner, or artist, or are involved in the research or care of world cultures collections in museums – MEG is the network for you.
Sign up today
Follow us on Instagram Follow us on X

About Us

Sector Engagement

Supporting the Sector

Legal

© Copyright Museums Ethnographers Group (MEG) 2024
Site by Primate