The exhibition : neutral or instrumental? : ethnological discourse and the representation of Maori in museum exhibitions

![CDATA[In recent years the role of the museum and the exhibition as a medium for representation has been challenged. Many of these challenges have focused on the representation of indigenous peoples within exhibitions and have been contested on the basis of the methods and processes of interpretation. Of particular concern is the question on authority in interpretation, the use of a singular narrative such as the discipline of anthropology for the representation of histories and the construction of identify, cultural values and meanings. A central issue in this debate is the question of the control and ownership of cultural knowledge and meanings. Debate surrounding these constructions have also originated from within academic institutions and more recently from within the museum fraternity itself. Previously representations within exhibitions have been seen as neutral, reflecting an objective truth of the world and of ‘other’s’. The assumption has been broadly based on two premises. On a philosophical level, museums as institutions have been seen as authoritative, a vehicle for the dissemination of knowledge. This institutional role being a legacy of the museum’s nineteen century foundations in which knowledge was seen as a commodity which museums were deemed to offer. The other premise is based on the tools of interpretation and representation, particularly the discipline of anthropology. Knowledge presented has been defined and acquired status within the framework of the western empirical imperative.]]