Making Sense through Touch

Abstract

This article explores the role of touch in the creation of meaning for ethnographic museum collections. It presents a collaborative study conducted at the McCord Museum in which groups of Inuit elders were invited to share their knowledge and memories about objects of everyday life collected in the Canadian Arctic during the first half of the twentieth century. The aim of this research was to gather the elders' interpretations of ancient hunting equipment, sewing paraphernalia, household utensils, and personal ornaments in order to inform archaeological analyses of analogous artifacts from Nunavut. The article focuses on the methodology of the group discussions, in which participants were invited to handle the objects without constraint. These interactions generated various meanings for the objects: their fabrication and uses in the past, their contemporary value for the preservation and promotion of Inuit traditions, and their role in supporting the well-being of Inuit visitors at the museum.

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