Liz Bonshek
Postdoctoral Fellow, Melanesia Project
Research on the Melanesia
Collections (the Oceanic countries of Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu,
Solomon Islands and New Caledonia)
Department: Africa, Oceania and the
Americas
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 8040
Email: lbonshek @ thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
Liz is an anthropologist attached to the
Melanesia Project which aims to investigate the contemporary
significance of the collections to the indigenous people of
Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia.
Her current research work is focused on the Collingwood Bay and
Milne Bay (Papua New Guinea) collections.
Liz carried out field work in a small, rural
community in Collingwood Bay. This research continued and extended
her interest in the power relationships between people in their
construction of social identity and how these were used when
tensions occurred through disparate claims to leadership.
Before joining the project Liz was the Pacific
Collection Manager at the Australian Museum, Sydney for ten years.
Here her research centered on collections’ research, and the
interaction of indigenous people with the collections. The dual
aspect of her museum work greatly influenced her interest in how
people integrate understandings of museum collections in their
expression of social identity and tradition.
Current British Museum projects
Previous British Museum projects
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External fellowships/ honorary positions/ membership of professional bodies
Member of the Royal Anthropological
Institute
Association for Social Anthropology in
Oceania
Publications
L. Bonshek, 'Ownership and a peripatetic collection: Raymond
Firth’s collection from Tikopia, Solomon Islands', in V. Attenbrow
and R. Fullagher (eds.), Records of the Australian Museum,
29 2004, pp. 37-45
L. Bonshek, 'Objects Mediating Relationships: The Raymond Firth
Collection from Tikopia, Solomon Islands, 1928', in A.Herle, N.
Stanley, K. Stevenson and R. Welsch (eds.), Pacific Art:
Persistence, Change and Meaning (Crawford House Publishing,
2002) pp. 208-18
L. Bonshek, 'Objects, People and Identity: the
interplay between past and present at the AustralianMuseum', in
Proceedings of the International Conference on Anthropology and
the Museum (Taiwan Museum, Teipei, 1995) pp. 261-82
L. Bonshek, 'Bark Cloth and Pottery from
OroProvince, PNG: An Historical Background to the P. J. Money
Collection', in Bulletin of the Conference of Museum
Anthropologists, 23 (January 1990)