Locating cross-cultural fieldwork in the discipline of conservation

Abstract

Interfacing with different cultural practices is a defining feature of working in the conservation field. However, do conservation students learn to value practices operating outside the pillars of the museum and university sector? This article examines a cross-cultural fieldwork subject and the knowledge exchange process. Research is based on the author’s experience of designing and teaching a field-based subject in an Indigenous owned and operated museum located in Northeast Arnhem Land, an Aboriginal reserve in the Northern Territory, Australia. The aim of the article is to foreground how disciplinary formation is both a physical and a cultural process shaped by learning environments. Arguably, cultural material conservation as an academic programme is determined by where learning takes place, and by moving it off-campus and into the field, students can recognise and negotiate a more diverse ecology of conservation practices.