Toggle Main Menu Toggle Search

Open Access padlockePrints

The Newcastle University research output collection, currently available on ePrints, will shortly be moving to a new open repository platform, Figshare. To prepare for the data migration we have paused adding new content to ePrints, and will resume once the new repository is launched. During this time you will continue to have access to ePrints (but no new content will appear). We will share updates here when available.

Nation Building at the Museum of Welsh Life

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Rhiannon MasonORCiD

Downloads

Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.

Abstract

This article explores the representational problems inherent in one museum’s attempt to tell a ‘national story’. The museum in question started life as the‘Welsh Folk Museum’ but in 1995 became the much broader ‘Museum of Welsh Life’. This article examines how and why this change occurred and the challenges produced by this shift in remit. The article also illustrates the processes of selection and revision which occur within museum representations and considers how these relate to competing versions of ‘the national story’ present within Wales. I argue that such revisions are inevitable in national museums which, by their very nature, aim to tell a universal story and that, as a consequence, these museums function both as a catalyst for discussion anda public forum within which debates over the accepted nature of national identity and history will occur.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Mason R

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Museum & Society

Year: 2005

Volume: 3

Issue: 1

Pages: 18-34

Print publication date: 01/03/2005

ISSN (print): 1479-8360

Publisher: Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester

URL: http://www.le.ac.uk/museumstudies/m&s/Issue%207/mason.pdf

Share