11th Agent of Deterioration: Incorrect Cultural Care

We suggest that an eleventh agent is needed: cultural and traditional guidelines for care. We are an international and intercultural team that is working to establish an 11th Agent of Deterioration: Incorrect Cultural Care. 

We argue that all care is some form of cultural care and that the traditional mitigate as many risks (as defined by western understanding) as possible may not be the appropriate type of care for an item based on the origin culture’s teachings and beliefs. 

We are hoping to have this Agent established by 2027, feel free to fill out our survey(s) to help develop this agent. 

What is cultural care? Cultural care is the management and care (or preservation) of items based on traditional practices and knowledge of the origin culture.  

Through discussion with practitioners we have realized that all care is cultural care. Preventive conservation practice in most museums today, which aims to preserve objects for as long as possible by minimizing the effects of the ten agents of deterioration, as first defined by the Canadian Conservation Institute, is a form of Western cultural care.  

The established western approach to cultural care is valid for SOME things, such as Abraham Lincoln's top hat, local archival documents, or artworks from Western cultures. 

Indigenous and other communities are expressing dissatisfaction with how their cultural objects and belongings are cared for in Western museums and collections. These communities are demanding that their belongings be returned, or if not, that they be cared for in a manner that respects their cultural practices. This may include, for example, include storage methods that allow an item to breathe. It may include limiting who can view and handle certain objects. It may include allowing an item that holds the soul of an ancestor to degrade so that the soul is not trapped and unable to pass on to the afterlife. Not doing so would be considered incorrect cultural care. 

Implementing cultural care as an agent of deterioration does not require a total abandonment of traditional curation practices, including slowing deterioration as much as. Instead, it is one possible option of cultural care. Just like temperature and humidity have different parameters based on material type, cultural care has different parameters based on culture of origin.