
Bethany Rex is currently completing her doctorate in the Department of Media, Culture and Heritage at Newcastle University (UK) which examines the transfer of museums into ‘community’ ownership. These governance arrangements have been substantially energised under the austerity measures of the previous and current Conservative-led government administrations. Her work specifically investigates instances where the responsibility for the management and/or ownership of a public museum is transferred to a ‘community’ group, and the processes at work which lead to such outcomes (or don’t).
She is particularly interested in exploring the transition of people with ‘progressive’ social or political commitments into the world of the museum, and the extent to which they are able to enact new types of ‘museum work’ during the process. A focus on the otherwise often taken-for-granted materiality of museum and local government work is central to her research. This stems from her ethnographic work which has revealed moments at which material artefacts are far from passive tools or background to human work, intervening in activity, making certain worlds possible and limiting others.
She is particularly interested in exploring the transition of people with ‘progressive’ social or political commitments into the world of the museum, and the extent to which they are able to enact new types of ‘museum work’ during the process. A focus on the otherwise often taken-for-granted materiality of museum and local government work is central to her research. This stems from her ethnographic work which has revealed moments at which material artefacts are far from passive tools or background to human work, intervening in activity, making certain worlds possible and limiting others.
Sessions in which Bethany Rex participates
9:00
9:00
- Co-Production in Heritage: Towards New Imaginaries. Part II. Co-Production, Conservation and Memory; Co-Production and the Professional Imaginary Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB S1.401
- 9:00 - 15:00 | 6 hours
- Regular session
- 13.30 A Change in the “Who,” a Change in the “What”: On the Material Practices of Museums in Two Cases of Co-Management
- Participant Bethany Rex (Newcastle University, United Kingdom) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Co-Production in Heritage: Towards New Imaginaries. Part II. Co-Production, Conservation and Memory; Co-Production and the Professional Imaginary
- Paper
15:30
15:30
- Critical Heritage Studies in the UK: Future Directions Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB 5.215
- 15:30 - 17:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- Roundtable
Sessions in which Bethany Rex attends
12:30
12:30
- Research Development Seminar with Laurajane Smith and Gary Campbell: Heritage and Museum Studies, Sociology
- Signup required UQAM, pavillon du Faubourg (DC) - DC-2300
- 12:30 - 15:30 | 3 hours
- Workshop
17:00
17:00
- Opening Ceremony and Cocktail
- Signup required Concordia, Grey Nuns Motherhouse (GN) - Former Chapel
- 17:00 - 19:30 | 2 hours 30 minutes
- Cocktail
9:00
9:00
- Keynote : What does heritage change? Le patrimoine, ça change quoi? (Lucie K. Morisset)
- Signup required UQAM, pavillon Judith-Jasmin (J) - Salle Alfred-Laliberté
- 9:00 - 10:00 | 1 hour
- Keynote with simultaneous translation / Conférence avec traduction simultanée

11:00
11:00
- 15.50 Troubled Waters, Stormy Futures: Heritage in Times of Accelerated Climate Change
- Participant Dr Anna Woodham (King's College London) | Participant Dr Bryony Onciul (Univerisity of Exeter) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Heritage Futures / Utopian Currents I
- Paper
- 11.00 Introduction
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Changing Places, Changing People? Critical Heritage(s) of Diaspora, Migration and Belonging I
- 13.30 Perspectives on Past and Future in Present Tyneside
- Participant Leonie Wieser (Northumbria University) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Heritage Futures / Utopian Currents I
- Paper
- 13.50 Heritage Ontologies: Understanding Heritage as Future-Making Practices
- Participant Rodney Harrison (University College London) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Heritage Futures / Utopian Currents I
- Paper
- 11.40 They Who Debate the Past Debate the Future
- Participant Dr Helen Graham (University of Leeds) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Heritage Futures / Utopian Currents I
- Paper
- 11.00 Mixing Memory and Desire: Utopian Currents in Heritage
- Participant Ms Elizabeth Stainforth (University of Leeds, History of Art and Cultural Studies, United Kingdom ) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Heritage Futures / Utopian Currents I
- Paper
- 13.30 Landscape, Emotion and Contested Values: An Autoethnographical Case Study in Migration, Place Attachment and the Spirit of Place
- Participant Ms Claire Johnstone (Heriot-Watt University ) |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Changing Places, Changing People? Critical Heritage(s) of Diaspora, Migration and Belonging I
- Paper
- 12.00 "Home is Everywhere and Nowhere": The Critical Heritage of Migration and Belonging in Contemporary European Museums
- Participant Dr Susannah Eckersley (Media, Culture, Heritage, Newcastle University, UK) | Participant Prof. Rhiannon Mason |
- 11:00 - 11:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Changing Places, Changing People? Critical Heritage(s) of Diaspora, Migration and Belonging I
- Paper
9:00
9:00
- 11.20 The Rhetoric of Looking: The Case of the National Gallery in London after WWII
- Participant Ana Baeza-Ruiz (University of Leeds) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Reflection, Selection, Deflection: Rhetoric in the Global Pursuit of Heritage
- Paper
- 11.20 How to Be an Authorized Craftsman? Exploring the Contradictions of Heritage and the Sustainability of Craft Practices in a UNESCO-Designated Ceramic Centre
- Participant Dr Magdalena Buchczyk (University of Bristol) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Intersecting Discourses: Inflecting Craft and Heritage
- Paper
- 11.00 Experiencing Mixed Emotions in the Museum: Empathy and Memory in Visitors’ Responses to Histories of Migration
- Participant Prof. Rhiannon Mason |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Empathy and Indifference – Emotional/Affective Routes To and Away from Compassion I
- Paper
- 09.00 Reflecting the "Other": Digital Museum Installations as Sites of Dialogue
- Participant Prof. Rhiannon Mason | Participant Dr Areti Galani (Newcastle University, UK) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Envisioning the Dialogic Museum through Digital Interventions
- Paper
- 09.40 Archival Systems: From "Weapons of Affect" to Tools of Compassion
- Participant Joanne Evans (Monash University) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Empathy and Indifference – Emotional/Affective Routes To and Away from Compassion I
- Paper
14:00
14:00
- Keynote: Renaming, Removal, Recontextualization of Heritage: Purging History, Claiming the Present, Imagining the Future? (What Change-Role for Heritage Professionals?) (James Count Early)
- Signup required Musée des Beaux-Ars de Montréal - Cummings Auditorium
- 14:00 - 15:30 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- Keynote with simultaneous translation / Conférence avec traduction simultanée

9:00
9:00
- 13.30 Heritage and Hospitality: Activists as Uninvited Guests to the Heritage Table
- Participant Evren Uzer (Parsons School of Design & University of Gothenburg HDK) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Activism, Civil Society and Heritage
- Paper
- 11.40 Crowds, Events and "Acts" of Citizenship: Heritage-Making at the Chattri Indian Memorial
- Participant Dr Susan Ashley (Northumbria University) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Activism, Civil Society and Heritage
- Paper
15:30
15:30
- Keynote: Il n'est de patrimoine qu'au futur...| Only in the future will it be heritage... (Xavier Greffe)
- Signup required Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB 1.210
- 15:30 - 17:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- Keynote with simultaneous translation / Conférence avec traduction simultanée

15:30
15:30
- Critical Heritage Studies in the UK: Future Directions Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB 5.215
- 15:30 - 17:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- Roundtable