Translating Museums: A Counterhistory of South Asian Museology (UCL Institute of Archaeology Critical Cultural Heritage Series) (Volume 9)

Shaila Bhatti's immersive study of the Lahore Museum in Pakistan is one of the first books to offer an in-depth historical and ethnographic analysis of a South Asian museum. Bhatti thus presents an alternative example of visitor experience and museum practice to that of the West, which has been the dominant museological model to date. This examination of the Lahore Museum's objects, staff, and visitors (past and present) provides an informative case study that reveals local perceptions and uses of museums in non-Western societies to be fraught with social, political, and cultural implications and appropriations. Through Lahore, Bhatti examines the history of exchange between Britian and South Asia and advances our current understanding of what constitutes postcolonial museum interpretation and its public. Contents 6 List of Illustrations 12 Note on Translation and Transliteration 14 Abbreviations 16 Acknowledgments 18 Prologue 20 1. Museums in Translation: The Birth of the Museum in Colonial India 34 2. Colonial Mementos to Postcolonial Imaginings: The Transformation of the Lahore Museum 84 3. Museum Archons: The Habitual Discourse of the Lahore Museum 118 4. Visiting the Museum: Curiosity about the Ajaib Ghar 146 5. Nokta Nazar of the Lahore Museum’s ‘Audience’ 190 Epilogue 228 Glossary 234 Notes 240 References 280 Index 292 About the Author 302