Dr. Robin Boast is the Deputy Director of the Museum and the Curator
for World Archaeology. He coordinates the MPhil Graduate Course on
Museums: History, Theory and Practice in the Department of Archaeology
and is the Lecturer for the History of Science in Archaeology. He
lectures on the history and sociology of scientific practice in the
Department of Geography and is a Senior Research Associate in the
Faculty of History and Philosophy of Scie...
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Dr. Robin Boast is the Deputy Director of the Museum and the Curator
for World Archaeology. He coordinates the MPhil Graduate Course on
Museums: History, Theory and Practice in the Department of Archaeology
and is the Lecturer for the History of Science in Archaeology. He
lectures on the history and sociology of scientific practice in the
Department of Geography and is a Senior Research Associate in the
Faculty of History and Philosophy of Science. He was the Director of
the innovative Virtual Teaching Collection Project in the 1990s, and
more recently a Visiting Professor at the European University Institute
in Florence Italy, Director of the Local Knowledge and Diversity
Research Group for Web 2.0 local knowledge systems, a member of the
Museum Documentation Association Standards Committee, and a member of
the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council (DCMS) Web Advisory Group.
He has 38 years of experience in computer (and later on-line) access to
museums and has been an expert advisor to the EU, British Government
and numerous museums and heritage organizations.
Personal Research Statement:
My research centres on the disciplinary gap between knowledge practices
and technologies (including but not limited to ICT), anthropology,
history and philosophy of knowledge and sociology of technology. I am
primarily interested in those institutions and their technologies which
maintain and collect knowledge, or at least claim to. I’m interested in
the ongoing and changing traditions of managing, sharing, transforming
and communicating knowledges. This is why my research has to bridge so
many disciplines, it’s not by choice, but traditional knowledge
practices, which includes the contemporary sciences and technologies,
are practices that have deep historical traditions and a dynamic
contemporary life.
My work is not simply about exploring and writing about these histories
and practices, but is deeply 'immersive', though I always just thought
of it as getting mucked in and having fun. I believe profoundly that it
is important to make things and be a part of the practices and
constructions that constitute and enable knowledge. So I also build
systems, all open source, that organize and enact knowledge sharing. My
most recent work has been with museums and heritage organizations in
Zuni, New Mexico (USA) and Nunavut (Canada). Between these sites and
the Museum in Cambridge we are exploring what could be called Web 2.0
systems that facilitate and sustain the collecting and sharing of
knowledges within the local communities, of which the Museum in
Cambridge is one, and the enabling of the performances and dialogues
that are necessary for the sharing of these knowledges between
institutions and communities.
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