Review of Museum of Our Own: In Search of Local Museology for Asia

Since the publication of the seminal volume by MacDonald and Fyfe (1996) which calls for a theorization of museums in terms of their contexts, contests and contents, there have been many endeavours to rethink and reconceptualise the museum, to consider attempts to ‘decolonise’ the museum and to integrate more non-traditional museum spaces and practices into the fold of the Eurocentric literature on museology. The international conference on ‘Museum of Our Own: In Search of Local Museology for Asia’, organised jointly by the Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia) and National Museum of World Cultures (Netherlands) from 18 to 20 November 2014 in the city of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, is one of the first few attempts in Asia to respond to these debates, and particularly, explore the possible existence of a set of museological models and practices that is unique to Asia.