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Dr Sarah Byrne

 

Dr Sarah Byrne

As a UCL Mellon Fellow, Sarah’s project engaged with the issues of translation and transposition by focusing on the concepts of practice as translation and place as transposition in terms of how museums and source communities collaborate. Most ethnographic objects have been split up, pulled apart and given new identities according to the trajectories of Western museum practice. The project assessed how reassembling ethnographic collections in relation to the social practices and places of which they were once a part can set in motion more worthwhile collaboration and at the same time more explicitly draw attention to the phases of translation these objects underwent when moving from producers and users to traders, dealers, missionaries, auctioneers, curators, and museum administrators. 

Degrees

  • 2008: PhD in Pacific Archaeology, University College London Thesis: Practice-centred approach to Uneapa Island’s archaeology in a long term context.
  • 2003: MA in Artefact Studies Thesis title: Animate Objects: A.C. Haddon's acquisitions from the Torres Straits and Papua New Guinea at the Horniman Museum, 1902-1915.
  • 1999: BA in Archaeology & English. Thesis title: Understanding Bronze Age Hoards from British and Irish rivers within a social context.

Scholarships and Awards

  • 2011: Leo Fleischmann Visiting Fellowship in Pacific Islands Arts and Material Culture, Australian Museum, Sydney.
  • 2008: School of Advanced Research Award for Anthropological Archaeology, Santa Fe
  • 2004-6: Visiting Research Fellowship at the Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies (Australian National University).
  • 2004: Emslie Horniman Scholarship (Royal Anthropological Institute).
  • Institute of Archaeology Fieldwork Grant (UCL).
  • Graduate School Fieldwork Grant (UCL).
  • Central Research Fund Fieldwork Grant (University of London).
  • Endeavour Scholarship, Department of Science and Education, (Australian Government).
  • 2003: Graduate School Scholarship (UCL).Fees and maintenance for PhD.
  • 2002: English Heritage Bursary for MA. Fees and maintenance grant.

Publications

  • Byrne, S. 'Rock Art as Material Culture: A Case Study on Uneapa Island, West New Britain, Papua New Guinea'. Archaeology of Oceania.
  • Byrne, S. 'Voicing the Museum Artefact'. Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies.
  • Byrne, S. 'Community Archaeology as Knowledge Management: Reflections from Uneapa Island, Papua New Guinea'. Public Archaeology, 11 (1).
  • Byrne, S., 2005. 'Recent Survey and Excavation of the Monumental Complexes on Uneapa Island, West New Britain, Papua New Guinea'. Papers of the Institute of Archaeology, 16:95-102.
  • Byrne, S. 2012 'Exposing the ‘heart’ of the museum- the archaeological sensibility in the storeroom'. In: Harrison, R., Byrne, S., Clarke, A., (eds.) Reassembling the Collection: Indigenous Agency and Ethnographic Collections. SAR Press, New Mexico.
  • Byrne, S. 2011. 'Trials and Traces: A. C. Haddon’s Agency as Museum Curator'. In: Byrne, S., Clarke, A., Harrison, R. and Torrence, R. (eds.) Unpacking the collection: museums, identity and agency, One World Archaeology Series, Springer.
  • Byrne, S. 2011, Clarke, A., Harrison, R. and Torrence, R. (eds.) Unpacking the collection: museums, identity and agency, One World Archaeology Series, Springer.
  • Harrison, R., Byrne, S., Clarke, A., (eds.) 2012, Reassembling the Collection: Indigenous Agency and Ethnographic Collections. SAR Press, New Mexico