Dear Susan, Are you particularly looking for studies of lunatic asylums? Or would just any work "alive to cultural dimensions, active voices and anthropological approaches" do? A lot of the work coming out of Annapolis would fit - Martin Hall's work in South Africa - papers in The Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating cross-cultural engagements in Oceania. But I can't recollect anything on lunatic asylums (the material culture of disability is something that I try and keep up with). Do you want me to ask across on H-Dis (the history of disability list)? Working with survivors of the mental health system might be a possibility for you (depending on how long ago the hospital closed). In Britain the mental health charity mencap has been doing some oral history recording with people with learning disabilities - I'd be surprised if museums in Australia were not doing something similar. Working in partnership with ex-patients to produce an interpretation of the archaeology would be challenging, but might With best wishes, Pat (who wears hats as a research student at the University of York, as museums development officer for Surrey, and as a consumer of the material culture of disability) -- Pat Reynolds [log in to unmask] "It might look a bit messy now, but just you come back in 500 years time" (T. Pratchett)