Aboriginal Possessions In The Virtual Museum

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Critical Response Essay
Museums collect and display various materials to show the way of life of particular communities. The Aboriginal housing possessions within virtual museums educate people about their culture, and explain how decolonization assimilated them into modern society. This forms the basis of Julia Emberley’s article entitled “(un)Housing Aboriginal Possessions in the Virtual Museum: Cultural Practices and Decolonization in civilization.ca and Reservation X.” Emberley examined an analysis of houses and housing practices based on two virtual museum displays related to Aboriginal culture. Emberley’s article sheds light on how museums use artifacts to depict different communities. In reality, museum

artifacts are not a true representation of the culture and practices of the actual communities that the organizers want to showcase.
To begin with, exhibits of this type represent a legacy associated with colonial dispossession as well as a contemporary manifestation of the appropriation of indigenous people’s cultures.

As opposed to unearthing the truths about the skills possessed by the native communities, organizations that put on these shows tend to commercialize these civilizations for their own ends. According to the author, most museums tell teleological stories that progress from periods of barbarity to the modern era (Emberley 388). In addition, museum exhibits tend to approach these subjects with a colonial mindset, bringing along the notions of hierarchical politics and practices associated with mainstream Western society. In the case presented in the article, the analyst of the artifacts depicted the indigenous kinship families in a way that reflected the views and beliefs of non-indigenous people rather than those of the Aboriginals. For example, Aboriginals have kinship societies with a division of labor based on gender lines. For the colonialists, on the other hand, the father is always head of the family and serves as a model of proper governance. Ultimately, such exhibits subtly imply that primitivism—a primary characteristic of the Aboriginal—is a threat to civility that the colonist should

supress.
Mallowan’s autobiographical travel narrative about her husband’s position in Syria highlights the difference between the lived experiences of indigenous people and the experience of learning about cultures through a museum collection (Emberley 391). Her description of her time there shows that people can make utterly incorrect interpretations based on museum materials. Mallowan depicted Syria as a place lacking hygiene and being full of conflicts, irrational behavior, and chaos. Her husband’s archeological work formed the basis of Mallowan’s description, which clearly shows that one cannot rely on museum artifacts to describe the civilization of a place. Besides, the text shows that the English perspective of domesticity was transferred to the colonies and used as a benchmark to interpret the natives’ supposed way of life (Emberley 405). Therefore, Mallowan’s account clearly illustrates that the usage of the collections to describe the Aboriginal way of life and civilization required additional sources to support the conclusions made.
Moreover, the way museums present information colors the way people perceive indigenous cultures.

One description of an Aboriginal house from the museum website mentioned in the article presents a structure with big windows overlooking the parliament building (Emberley 393). This portrayal is not factual, and the parliament building just symbolizes the colonial administration. However, animals, humans, and supernatural beings created in primordial times imbue the native literature, art songs, and other cultural materials, but exhibits often fail to include these beliefs in their displays. At best, the exhibit mentioned in the article presents the actual state Aboriginal culture after it was destroyed by colonists for being viewed as

primitive.
In conclusion, the artifacts collected and stored in museums inform people’s views of different communities. In some cases, the materials in virtual museums have been well analyzed and can provide insights about a particular community. Nevertheless, Emberley’s work indicates that curators often let bias and inaccuracies slip into their exhibits. Before making inferences about the indignous societies based on museum collections, people should take the initiative and learn about these people from different sources so they can approach exhibits like this with a critical and analytical eye.

Work Cited
Emberley, Julia. "(un)Housing Aboriginal Possessions in the Virtual Museum: Cultural Practices and Decolonization in Civilization.ca and Reservation X." Journal of Visual Culture, vol. 5, no. 3, 2006, pp. 387–410.