“Seeking Information from the Lips of People”: oral history in the archives of Qatar and the Gulf region

The turn to oral history in Qatar and the Arabian (also known as Persian) Gulf is not a rejection of traditional archival authority as has been the case in other parts of the world. In the Gulf, oral history has been embraced out of a desire to fill the silences of the largely unwritten record attributable to previous low levels of literacy and strong oral traditions in the region. Today, oral history is seen as the best method to capture details about traditional ways of life during the pre-oil era. After discussing archival concerns about the evidentiary nature of oral histories, this paper explores how it has come to be a crucial documentation tool in the Gulf, adapted to the specific nation building and cultural heritage priorities of the region.     

A Geohistorical Study of ‘The Rise of Modern Science’: Mapping Scientific Practice Through Urban Networks, 1500–1900

Using data on the ‘career’ paths of one thousand ‘leading scientists’ from 1450 to 1900, what is conventionally called the ‘rise of modern science’ is mapped as a changing geography of scientific practice in urban networks. Four distinctive networks of scientific practice are identified. A primate network centred on Padua and central and northern Italy in the sixteenth century expands across the Alps to become a polycentric network in the seventeenth century, which in turn dissipates into a weak polycentric network in the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century marks a huge change of scale as a primate network centred on Berlin and dominated by German-speaking universities. These geographies are interpreted as core-producing processes in Wallerstein’s modern world-system; the rise of modern scientific practice is central to the development of structures of knowledge that relate to, but do not mirror, material changes in the system.

Dialogue in conservation decision-making

An analysis of the impact of stakeholder consultation during the conservation decision-making processes is presented. Defining and finding opportunities for stakeholder communication within conservation work is an ethical necessity when working with cultural heritage, but the limits and practice of this necessity are less clear. Case studies are used to explore which aspects of the conservation process stakeholders are most likely to be consulted about, and reviews the impact of their views. It asks whether conservators have a preference in which decisions they are prepared to share with stakeholders across three aspects of conservation: the initial appraisal, treatment and the display or storage. Where consultation relates to treatment, conservators are more likely to fall back on their own technical authority except when those consulted are regarded as fellow professionals. Other categories of stakeholder such as artists, originating communities, and religious groups were found to be more constructively consulted on the understanding of the object and on care related to display and storage. Conservators should be offered more explicit guidance on the ethics of consultation, the aspects of consultation that they should engage with and on the ethical ways to deal with conflict arising from consultation.