Paddling Together: Navigating Community Engagement and Oceanic Collections

ID: WMA2026_542

Track:

This session highlights examples of successful collections engagement strategies that aspire to improve community relations and public relevance while building mutual trust between indigenous Pacific Islander communities and the collections/archives that house Oceanic ancestral belongings.

Session Information

Format: Regular session/panel (roundtable, single speaker, etc.)

Uniqueness: The discussion is generated by Pacific Islander community members, artisans, amateur researchers; not museum professionals

Objectives:

• Find ways to be more proactive in inviting community engagement with collections
• Improve internal processes for receiving, validating, and publicizing community feedback about belongings in collection (responsible “crowd sourcing” of information)

Engagement: Participants will come away with lessons learned from intentional outreach/engagement strategies that were/are successfully employed by museums to meaningfully engage Pacific Islander communities, and what was mutually learned/taught through projects hosted by UMFA/U of Utah, Peabody/Harvard, Burke/UW, Bishop Museum, Met MOA, and Field Museum.

Relationship to Theme:

Audience

Audiences: Curators/Scientists/Historians Marketing & Communications (Including Social Media) Registrars, Collections Managers 

Professional Level: All levels 

Scalability: The information presented is intended to be helpful for individual staff, professional teams, amateurs, community members, and organizations of all types and sizes

Participants