Sommer offers a new perspective on the musealization of immigration in settler societies, focusing not on institutions of national significance but instead on a small volunteer-based museum located in Puhoi, New Zealand. Employing multimodal analysis of the permanent exhibition—presenting the exploits of a group of Bohemian immigrants—and qualitative interviews with staff and visitors, he shows that dominant multicultural narratives on a national level are not readily embraced by smaller institutions; rather, the focus lies on creating hybrid identities and fostering of local ethnic narratives. Faced with representing an immigration story touched by expulsion and conflict with indigenous groups, the museum employs a nonalignment strategy and shows the potential and pitfalls of community representation in a nonprofessional environment.
CITATION STYLE
Sommer, C. (2018). Mapping museums in New Zealand: The representation of place identity in the permanent exhibition at the Puhoi Bohemian Museum. In Mapping Migration, Identity, and Space (pp. 85–115). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77956-0_4
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