Navigating Crises

Concepts & Methods Unit 4

With our long-standing commitment to working on the ground with local communities worldwide, UWA has developed an acute awareness of local emergencies. The transmission of WAs frequently occurs in contexts of crises, as have become ever more obvious in the course of the projects managed by UWA’s Cultural Heritage Unit. Some recurring fundamental questions faced by these projects have laid the foundation of CMU 4: What course of action should be taken when research is affected by conflicting pressures from governments and civil societies? How should the differences between emic and etic collection care and management practices be negotiated? How do we reconcile our ethical principles about collection care and management with those of our partners?

CMU 4 will create a platform to address these issues in order to equip UWA II to navigate crises, both conceptually and practically. Three axes of inquiry will help us implement our task: 1) formulating a definition of crisis and a conceptual typology of dangers to WAs; 2) developing checklists for assessing the levels of endangerment and selecting appropriate methods of safeguarding; 3) developing low-cost and easy-to-handle techniques of preventive and remedial conservation, preferably using locally available materials and integrating local knowledge.