Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to investigate the documentality of human remains in museum and research collections. Second, to provide a rationale for a processual model of documentation, which can account for their repatriation and eventual burial. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a multidisciplinary approach to examine the repatriation issue. It considers an ethical argument developed to support claims for repatriation: the nominal identification of a body as a universal criterion for its burial. Based on Igor Kopytoff’s processual model of commoditisation, it looks to cultural anthropology to help explain how objects can move between a document and non-document state. Findings Human remains can be understood as examples of information-as-thing. However, while document theory can readily account for the expanding realm of documentation, it cannot adequately accommodate instances where documentality is revoked, and when something ceases to be a document. When a human biological specimen is returned, the process that made it serve as a document is effectively reversed. When remains are interred, they revert to their primary standing, as people. The process of becoming a document is therefore not unidirectional, and document status not permanent. Research limitations/implications The implications of a processual model of documentation are discussed. Such a model must be able to account for things as they move into and out of the document state, and where the characteristics of documentality change through time. Originality/value This paper explores problematic material not usually discussed in relation to document theory. The repatriation movement poses a challenge to a discourse predicated on documentation as a progressively expanding field.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to bring the work of Seth Siegelaub to the attention of document studies. Siegelaub was a pioneer of the conceptual art movement in New York in the 1960s, active as an art dealer, curator and publisher.He is remembered by art history for his exhibition catalogues, which provided a material base for intangible works of art. Design/methodology/approach:This paper uses a comparative approach to examine the documents of conceptual art, especially the exhibition catalogues produced by Siegelaub between 1968 and 1972. Drawing on literature from document theory and art history and criticism, it examines several of Siegelaub's key exhibition catalogues and books. Findings:Siegelaub's theories of information have much in common with the documentalist tradition. Siegelaub's work is important, not just for its potential to contribute to the literature of document theory. It also provides a point of dialogue between art history and information studies.Originality/value: To date, the common ground between art and documentation has been explored almost exclusively from the perspective of art history. This paper is among the first to examine conceptual art from the perspective of document theory. It demonstrates potential for cross-disciplinary collaboration.
This article examines the concept of civilisation in Australian public discourse, focussing on some recent political uses. Rhetoric defending Australia's traditional attachment to Western civilisation has focussed on three themes — the role of the British heritage in Australian public life, the moral foundations of Australia's “Judeo‐Christian” belief system, and the rational principles of the Enlightenment. Although the language of civilisation is not confined to centre‐right political discourse, it has been most vocal among conservative‐leaning commentators. This article highlights examples of civilisation and its uses in the contemporary Australian context and attempts to give meaning to civilisation in light of debates about Australian history and national identity. I argue in the course of this article that civilisation is differentiated from culture, and that the culture‐civilisation distinction correlates with left‐right political leanings.
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