[Bilimsel Haber] Book review: Women's Voices in Middle Eastern Museums

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

Carol Malt. Women's Voices in Middle Eastern Museums: Case Studies in
Jordan. Gender, Culture, and Politics in the Middle East Series.
Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2005. xxxvii + 138 pp. Map,
appendices, bibliography, index. $24.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8156-3078-6.
*Reviewed by:* Nada Shabout, School of Visual Arts, University of North
Texas.
*Published by:* H-Gender-MidEast <http://www.h-net.msu.edu/%7Egend-mid/>
(October, 2006)
Women and the Politics of Presentation

Carol Malt's study is certainly a welcome and sorely needed addition to
the dearth of literature on Middle Eastern cultures. It is a publication
that covers three timely topics at once: visual culture and its related
issues of cultural patronage and exhibition, the preservation of
heritage, and women's role in society, albeit of a certain class and
level of education. At this point in time of heightened turbulence in
the Middle East, when cultural expression in the age of globalization as
well as women's status in particular have been in the forefront of
discussion while plans for a "new Middle East" are drawn by the powers
of the world, Malt renders the remarkable strength of Jordanian women
and their efforts to preserve, document, and promote history and
culture. The strength of her study, however, is as its title states:
beyond merely describing women involved in museums, it presents their
voices and their issues as they engage in dialogues.

The book provides a comprehensive study of museums as cultural
institutions in Jordan. The choice of Jordan is a particularly relevant
and interesting one for a multiplicity of reasons. In the last two
decades, Jordan has been transformed into a vital and lively cultural
center in the Arab region. Its expatriate population, a large percentage
of which is comprised of Palestinians who resided and worked in the Arab
Gulf region or the West, started investing in real estate and other
business in Jordan as an alternative space of existence, particularly
following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the displacement of resident
Palestinians that ensued, and in view of the intensified instability of
the Arab/Muslim presence in the West as a consequence of the ideology of
the war on terror. The political instability of the region has
specifically contributed to Jordan's cultural growth, as the country
provided one of the few safe havens in a very chaotic part of the world.
While Amman, Jordan's capital, was mostly unsuccessful in its attempt to
replace Beirut as the cultural capital of the Middle East in the 1980s,
it blossomed in the 1990s in the aftermath of the Iraqi situation. With
both Beirut and Baghdad unavailable, and given Cairo's perceived
stagnation at the time, Amman offered fertile ground for various
cultural activities, but particularly for providing exhibition space. In
chapter 2, "Women in Jordan," Malt examines the effects of the political
and economical shifts on the status of women in the workforce within an
overview of Jordanian women's organizations.

Through personal interviews Malt provides information that was
previously unavailable, inaccessible in English, or presented in a
scholarly manner. The book provides an important detailed survey of
twelve different cultural institutions in Jordan, discussing their
formation, development, and collections, as well as providing
biographies of their founders. The appendences provide important
practical data about the museums, their missions, and contact
information. Appendix B offers statistical details of the specific
Jordanian women involved in these institutions, their positions, and
their responses to the questionnaire utilized by Malt in her interviews.
She ends her study by providing a list of museums and art centers in
major cities of the Levant. While most of the information provided is
still valid, many changes have occurred since Malt collected her data in
the 1990s and the subsequent publication of her book. This is of course
an inevitable consequence of contemporary studies and a particular
factor in a region of rapid developments and drastic changes. Iraq is a
case in point. Malt's list in fact provides a much-needed historical
record of Iraq's cultural institutions, many of which were completely
destroyed after 2003.

Further, Malt investigates the transformation of the "museum" in its
modern sense as a "Western idea" in the Middle East. In the process she
refutes the notion that collecting and exhibiting is a Western activity.
In the introduction, Malt sketches a brief history of collecting in the
Middle East region from the ancient times, highlighting its development
from private expressions of power to public and educational
institutions. Malt states that "The museum as a public institution
appeared in Europe in the eighteenth century" (p. xv). Missing from her
discussion, however, is the political context of its emergence,
particularly in relation to Europe's colonial history. Colonialism was
in fact a vital factor in the promotion of museums both in the West and
the Middle East. It is particularly interesting that Malt notes that the
exception among most museums in the Middle East, which were founded by
men, is Iraq's National Museum of Baghdad, which served as a precursor
to women's museum involvement in the Middle East. This museum, however,
was founded by Gertrude Bell, an Englishwoman who was part of the
British colonial presence in Iraq, and who thus hardly serves as a good
example for Jordanian women. Of added interest is the tragic fate of the
Iraqi museum following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the
looting that ensued. Looting throughout the colonial age was, as we are
often reminded today, the main source of the collections of most Western
museums.

Moreover, a direct consequence of museum ideology (and museums are
always ideologically constructed) is the colonial indoctrination it
transmitted to the national construction of the collective Arab self
following the creation of the modern nation-states that became known as
the Arab world, including the country of Jordan. On several occasions,
Malt raises questions concerning relationships between national
identity, colonial heritage, and antiquity in Jordan. She does not,
however, question the colonial agenda of promoting ancient heritage or
the role of museums of ancient heritage in the self-orientalization of
the modern nation.

The particular strength of the book is its mapping out of the formation
and development of a national civic consciousness in Jordan as
manifested in the development of the twelve museums studied and the
prominent role of the specific women in achieving such goal. Malt's
examination reaches beyond the construction of museums into the various
relevant education programs, as well as the specific class of women's
goals, attitudes, aptitudes, and aspirations. Malt justifiably
highlights the achievements of two specific women, Wijdan Ali and Suha
Shoman, who are credited with realizing "the challenge of founding a
museum, of creating a private institution where none yet existed--and
making it work" (p. 43). Ali's vision of the Jordan National Gallery and
Shoman's of The Darat al Funun, surpassed the notion of preserving the
past as practiced by archeological and heritage museums, to that of art
centers that function as links between the past, the present, and the
different parts of the world. Their visions included revitalizing old
parts of the city and establishing community outreach programs that
promote art appreciation, as well as internships, art residencies, and
workshops. Their efforts are instrumental in constructing Jordan's
contemporary identities and memories.

Malt's work raises a number of important questions that need much
probing and paves the ground for further investigations. The
anthropological and contextual approach of the book makes it a useful
text for Middle Eastern and women's studies.


Citation: Nada Shabout. "Review of Carol Malt, Women's Voices in Middle
Eastern Museums: Case Studies in Jordan," H-Gender-MidEast, H-Net
Reviews, October, 2006. URL:
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=287231165947021.