Founded 1975 | ||
The Museum Ethnographers Group (MEG) is a United Kingdom-based collective for those working with and researching ethnographic collections in museums. It is registered as a charity in England and Wales (no. 1023150) and is recognised in the UK museum sector as a subject specialist network. It is often known to its members by its acronym MEG. Its most obvious functions are the annual conference it organises and the journal it publishes.
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History
MEG was founded in 1975 at a meeting in Liverpool on Communicating Anthropology — the role of museums, when its first Chair was Peter Gathercole.
MEG conference
MEG holds an annual conference, normally hosted by a UK museum. Recent conferences have been at the Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading (2010), Bristol Museum/University (2009), St John's College, University of Oxford (2008), National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (2007), Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (2006), Manchester Museum (2005), Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge (2004), University of Leicester (2003).
Journal of Museum Ethnography
The MEG newsletter for many years functioned as a kind of journal, containing scholarly articles despite its photocopied pages. In 1989, MEG began to publish the Journal of Museum Ethnography (JME), and has done so every year since. In 2010, MEG reached an agreement with JSTOR to digitise all past issues of JME, as well as the early newsletters.