Ethics of Contemporary Collecting

Jen Kavanagh is a freelance curator and oral historian based in London. Dr Ellie Miles is a curator and researcher based in London. Rosamund Lily West is a lecturer in Architectural Studies at the University of Manchester, UK. Susanna Cordner is a Senior Research Fellow at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK.

Introduction; About the Editors; List of Images and Tables; Section I: Collecting a moment: 1.0 Collecting a Moment: Introduction; 1.1 Making the Future: Contemporary Collecting at National Museums Northern Ireland; 1.2 How Did We Get Here? A Reflection on Collaborative Research in Action; 1.3 Decapitated Monuments to Colonial Administrators of India at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai; 1.4 Antisemitism and Racism: Collections in Transformation; 1.5 Challenges, Risks and Rewards: Contemporary Conflict Collecting at Imperial War Museums; 1.6 The Ethics of Response-ability in Collecting Spontaneous Memorials; 1.7 Mass Observing COVID-19; Section II: Responsible futures: 2.0 Responsible Futures: Introduction; 2.1 Climate Action and Ethics at the Horniman; 2.2 Problem Plastics at the People’s History Museum; 2.3 Minting New Collection Challenges: A Reflective Analysis of the Ethical Dilemmas Around Collecting NFTs; 2.4 New and Emerging Ethical Considerations for Digital Collecting in Museums; 2.5 Collecting as Emergency Response in the Earth Crisis; 2.6 Experience of Non-custodial Collecting through the Contemporary Ecomuseum Model: A Case Study of Taoyuan City Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum in Taiwan; Section III: Centring communities: 3.0 Centring Communities: Introduction; 3.1 Echoes of Holloway Prison: Collecting Complex Stories; 3.2 Punk Polyvagal in a Polycrisis: Remaking Museums in a Time of Social and Ecological Collapse; 3.3 Collecting Victorian COVID-19 Experiences: Mine, Yours or Ours?; 3.4 What to Take and What to Leave Behind: Contemporary Ethical Collecting for a Museum in Oxford; 3.5 The Power of Patient Perspectives: Exploring Participatory Collecting with Patient Groups in a Medical Museum; 3.6 Critical Reflection on ‘Telling Stories: Experiences of Bereavement During the COVID-19 Pandemic; 3.7 Centring the Donor at the Royal College of Nursing; 3.8 Ethics and Problems of Museumization in the Current Montane Environment Using Examples from the Slovak Republic; Conclusion; Activations and Further Reading; Biographies of the Authors; Index.