DrVirginie Rey

I am an anthropologist of museums and heritage who takes a keen interest in
non-western museologies, unofficial forms of heritage, diasporic heritage and
Islamic art.

I received an BA and MA in Arabic Studies and History of Religions from the
University of Geneva and completed a PhD in Anthropology at the University of
Melbourne (2016). I have worked as a Research Affiliate at the University of
California, Irvine, UCLA and Stanford University.

My work takes an anthropological approach to museum analysis, focusing on both
the political and historical contexts of museum production and their social
milieu (museographic cultures, curatorial practice, etc.). I am especially
interested in the debates and negotiations involved in the making of
exhibitions, as well as the role played by museums in mediating the tensions
and anxieties between different social realities. I pursue this type of
analysis in my book, Mediating Museums: Exhibiting Material Culture in Tunisia
(1881-2016) (Brill 2019) in which I document and investigate the shifting
contours of ethnographic museums in Tunisia from the period of French colonial
rule (1881-1956) through to the immediate aftermath of the revolution of 2011.

Expanding on questions of subjectivities and subject positions in museums, I
have conceived and edited the volume The Art of Minorites: Cultural
Representation in Museums of the Middle East and North Africa (Edinburgh
University Press, 2020). This interdisciplinary study examines the question of
cultural representation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with
a specific attention given to museums dedicated to and/or created by social,
ethnic and religious minorities.