This document summarizes a conference presentation about a museum exhibition on Tibetan art in Zurich, Switzerland. It discusses the challenges of cultural transmission for Tibetan communities in exile and how they negotiated their cultural identity at the exhibition. Visitor studies identified different itineraries, including intellectual, emotionally connected, Buddhist, and Tibetan. While proud to see their art displayed, Tibetan visitors felt outsiders knew more and were reluctant to criticize. The presentation concludes that museums are key sites for diaspora communities to negotiate conflicts and construct identity.

1. ‘Westerners know more than us’
Conflict and negotiation in museum display of Tibetan art
Shelley Mannion
University of Lugano
4 September 2007
Glasgow, Scotland
8th Annual Conference of the European Sociological Association

2. Tibetans in exile
• 140,000 living outside Tibet
Switzerland 3rd largest exile community
• Challenges of cultural survival
Preservation of heritage
Transmission to next generation
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

3. Museums as sites of negotiation
• Shared heritage
Western museums as inheritors
Increase in Western Buddhist practitioners
• Museums as contact zones (Clifford 1997)
Collection becomes ongoing relationship
Reciprocity
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

4. The 14 Dalai Lamas Exhibition, Zurich
http://www.diedalailamas.ch
• August 2005 – April 2006
• 17,000 visitors
• Ethnographic visitor study (36 interviewees)
• Institution of Dalai Lamas through art
Conceived as means to advance scholarship
Didactic aims: Political-historical
• Explain the entire system
• Highlight individual characteristics
• Debunk myths and stereotypes
• Convey atmosphere
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

5. Visual and spatial languages: Exterior entrance
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

6. Visual and spatial languages: Chronological
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

7. Visual and spatial languages: Allotment of gallery space
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

8. Visual and spatial languages: Symmetric arrangement
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

9. Visual and spatial languages: Monastery-like design
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

10. Interpretive media: print catalogue and audio guide
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

11. Itineraries of identity
• MacDonald (1995)
• Five visitor itineraries:
General interest
Emotionally connected
Buddhists
Intellectual
Tibetan
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

12. Decoding visitor itineraries
• Hall (1980) triad of television news reception
Dominant-hegemonic
Negotiated
Oppositional
Non-consumption
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

13. Four Western itineraries
Itinerary Way identity expressed Type of reading
1) Intellectuals Proud of being Dominant-
experts hegemonic
2) General interest Lifestyle connection Non-consumption
Negotiated
3) Emotionally connected Imagined citizenship Non-consumption
through travel Negotiated
4) Buddhist Articulation of Non-consumption
Buddhist faith
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

14. Tibetan itineraries
• Preservation of heritage • Cultural transmission
Some oppositional response Practiced by families
Authenticity Not supported by environment
Translation competence Objects as reminders of lack of
knowledge
Complex negotiation with
exhibit and within family
• Both accepted audio commentary without question
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

15. Conflicts and negotiations
• Attitudes
• Interpretive messages
• Media
• Museum environment
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

16. Tibetan attitudes
• Embarrassment about lack of knowledge
• Outsiders: ‘Westerners know more than us’
• Reluctance to question or criticize
• Proud to see art in Western museums
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

17. Interpretive messages
• Not connected with the Tibetan ‘people’
• Intellectual focus problematic for novices
• Political emphasis perceived as attack
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

18. Media
• Audio guide suppressed Tibetan narratives
• Photographs “irrepressible” (Edwards 2001)
E. Edwards, (2001) Raw Histories: Photographs, Anthropology and Museums
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

19. Museum environment
• Silence obstructs cultural transmission
• Sacred objects in secular settings
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art

20. Conclusions
• Museum key site of negotiation for diaspora
conflicts
• Identity construction at ethnographic exhibitions
Tibetans filter through cultural identity
• Potential solutions to challenges
Acknowledge diversity
Be sensitive to self-deprecating attitudes
Support social itineraries
Open texts (photographs)
'Westerners know more than us': Conflict and negotation in museum display of Tibetan art