
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
- Involving communities, visitors or the public is frequently presented as one of the major tasks of museums and heritage sites in current global mov...
- 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
- In recent years in the UK, faced with continuing cuts to their budgets, a number of local authorities have been considering new approaches to th...
- 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
- What is the future of the UK and what is the role of heritage in this shifting political landscape? How have debates on heritage in the UK chang...
- 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
- The Research Development Seminars gathers young scholars who will informally present and discuss their research with one of the conference's keynot...
- 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
- Welcome addresses and cocktail, followed by the Concordia Signature Event "The Garden of the Grey Nuns". As the opening ceremony and cocktail...
- 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
- What if we changed our views on heritage? And if heritage has already changed? While, on the global scene, s...
- 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
- In response to the guiding theme of the conference “What does heritage change?” this paper will explore how changes to the way we traditionally ...
- 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
- This paper will explore the outlook on the present and future provided by contemporary community heritage projects in Tyneside, UK. It will ask ...
- 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
- While it is customary to think about heritage as a series of practical fields oriented toward the past, it is perhaps less often the case that w...
- 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
- The history of York includes many documented instances of activist resistance to the kinds of developments which remove parts of the medieval ci...
- 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
- There is a well-established precedent for utopian thinking around cultural heritage, particularly in the institutional context. For example, a n...
- 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
- When put into the context of cultural heritage, the idea of the emotional value of a landscape can be defined in ICOMOS’s concept of “Spirit of ...
- 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
- This paper will analyze presentations of and identifications with scales of “home” and belonging in European museums, which address (hi)stories ...
- 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
- The discursive turn in the field of heritage studies has made a major contribution to our understanding of heritage as a set of processual pract...
- 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
- This paper will explore the case of Horezu pottery in relationship with craft continuity, history, and heritage. Through an ethnographic study o...
- 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
- Research involving display analysis and interviews with staff and visitors has shown empathy to be an important feature of interpretative strate...
- 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
- Liz Ševčenko in “The Dialogic Museum Revisited” (2011) concludes that digital media may become the platforms for dialogue around sensitive/diffi...
- 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
- At recent Australian Society of Archivists (ASA) and Archives and Records Association of New Zealand (ARANZ) conferences, powerful presentations...
- 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
- "What does heritage change?" is a multifaceted question to which the answer(s) are in primary respects related to real-life negotiations among dif...
- 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
- Hospitality and hostility stems from the root word “hostis,” which could mean guest or host, friend or enemy. Hostis, according to French lingui...
- 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
- Movements such as Occupy Wall Street, embracing the immanent possibilities of the “here and now,” assert the affective presence and radical pote...
- 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
- Le patrimoine fait aujourd’hui l’objet d’attentions autant que d’agressions et de destructions. Cela peut s’expliquer par les difficultés de son id...
- 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
- What is the future of the UK and what is the role of heritage in this shifting political landscape? How have debates on heritage in the UK chang...
- Roundtable