A Jedi Knight at the Museum: Cult Fandom, Collecting and Curation at Steve Sansweet’s Rancho Obi-Wan

This chapter seeks to analyze Stephen J. Sansweet’s position as cult collector turned curator at Rancho Obi-Wan as well as the museum’s status as heritage site for all things Star Wars. For Tomislav Sola “there are three basic functions of a museum: collecting, research and communication” (2004: 260) and in each case Rancho Obi-Wan performs its role as collectible museum. Sansweet as collector/curator has the knowledge and this is communicated through numerous interviews, videos and press releases designed to promote the museum and its mission. However, there is also a board of directors and a group of volunteers who operate as researchers, communicators and managers of the membership club, helping to fundraise and run on-site tours. Thus, Rancho Obi-Wan has evolved from being a private collection to a public asset, part funded by membership and charitable status, shifting from “old-style” museum to “new museum” (Message, 2006). As such, Sansweet’s life-long mission to collect and preserve physical objects connected to the franchise destabilizes established hierarchies of the historical and modern, high and low culture, artifacts and commodities, objects worthy of keeping or throwing-away.