The Museum Ethnographers Group (MEG) is a United Kingdom-based collective for those working with and researching ethnographic collections in museums. It is registered as a charity in England and Wales (no. 1023150) and is recognised in the UK museum sector as a subject specialist network. It is often known to its members by its acronym MEG. Its most obvious functions are the annual conference it organises and the journal it publishes.
History MEG was founded in 1975 at a meeting in Liverpool on Communicating Anthropology – the role of museums, when its first chair was Peter Gathercole.Museum Ethnographers Newsletter No. 1 (19 July 1976)Interview of Peter Gathercole by Alan Macfarlane and Ami Henare. Filmed by Alan Macfarlane at King's College, 8 May 2003.
MEG conference MEG holds an annual conference, normally hosted by a UK museum. MEG's 2018 conference at the Pitt Rivers Museum concerned the legacy of colonialism in British museums.
Journal of Museum Ethnography The MEG newsletter for many years functioned as a kind of journal, containing scholarly articles despite its photocopied pages. In 1989, MEG began to publish the Journal of Museum Ethnography (JME), and has done so every year since. In 2010, MEG reached an agreement with JSTOR to digitise all past issues of JME, as well as the early newsletters.
Issues and themes Volume Year Theme 1 1989 A Question of Image 2 1990 The Walrus Said 3 1991 African Anthropology in Scotland 4 1992 Baskets of the World 5 1993 What is Ethnography? 6 1994 Museum Ethnography and Communities 7 1995 Tourism, Anthropology and Museums & New Developments in Scotland 8 1996 Picturing Paradise 9 1997 MEG 21st Birthday: Past and future in museum ethnography 10 1998 Inter-Active: World Cultures and Museum Education 11 1999 'Arts Premiers'? Ethnography and Art in the late 20th Century 12 2000 Glimpses of Africa – Museums, scholarship and popular culture 13 2001 Developing Dialogues: Museums and their Communities 14 2002 Transformations 15 2003 Power and Collecting 16 2004 Developing Audiences – Developing Collections 17 2005 Pacific Ethnography, Politics and Museums 18 2006 Looking Backward, Looking Forward 19 2007 Feeling the Vibes: Dealing with Intangible Heritage 20 2008 Objects of Trade 21 2009 Encounters with Polynesia: Exhibiting the Past in the Present 22 2010 Museum Ethnography at Home
References
External links MEG website MEG blog on Blogspot