»Haunted museums. Ethnography, coloniality and sore points« Glänta 2-3 2012 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Decolonising the Museum. New perspectives for the XXI century ethnographic collections
Thesis of the Master course in Public and Cultural Diplomacy, 2020
Museums are experiencing an era of profound transformations urging them to redefine their relationship with society. In a globalised word, crossed by migrations and multiculturalism, the museum becomes the arena where the conflicts and the challenges of contemporaneity take place: among these, the decolonisation of the museum surely holds a pivotal role as it is source of heated debates at the present time. Nonetheless, confusion and vagueness envelop the very meaning of the term, which is addressed in regard to issues of repatriations as well as to the subversion of the narratives within the museum. Therefore, this thesis aims to discern what does it really mean to decolonise a museum and how this can be accomplished, according to the contributions given by scholars and to the European museums’ practical responses to the issue’s growing relevance: the thesis' focus regards the decolonisation of European museums displaying items from Sub-Saharan Africa. To pursue this goal, the thesis divides the concept in two components, which highlight the duality of arenas in which the challenge of the museums’ decolonisation is played: outside the museum, and inside the museum. The former deals with the issue of the artefacts’ restitutions and relates with the broader problem of property. It has been called outside the museum because, although the contested objects are displayed in the collections, the final decisions over their destiny - and destination - belong to the Nation States. Therefore, while the former addresses property, the latter rather regards representation, and concerns the intervention on the old ethnographic narratives inside the museum space in favour of an inclusive approach toward the people and the cultures represented by the displayed objects. This part, that includes a historical-comparative analysis of ethnographic museums in Europe, is integrated by a case study conducted on the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren (Brussels) and its profound renovation concluded on December 2018. The case study will clearly exemplify which are the challenges of future European ethnographic museums in their path toward decolonisation.
Archaeology and Museology constantly balance their emancipatory potential against their legacies as colonial controlling processes. Do archaeology and museums occupy a key space in contemporary identity formation? Are they not just part of the modern state’s inventory of attributes rather than public ‘contact zones’? Museums’ attempt to re-invent themselves as socially engaged places of memory are hindered by an embedded desire to catalogue, conserve and display objects and we must ask “why conserve?” Many of the peoples whose objects are collected and displayed believe in an encultured world in which the decay and death of people, objects, places and time was and remains expected. We need to consider how objects work and what their rights might be. Objects, places and people have typically ‘messy’ biographies that offer points of attachment for a wide range of sensory engagement. Archaeology’s two strengths materiality and context can productively expose significant ruptures in master narratives through archaeologies of archive that ask how objects come to be collected and displayed (or not) and at what cost. This wider understanding of the archive as multi-temporal and multi-sensorial can show how decay and history intersect with personhood, place and politics, demonstrating the Beauty of letting go…
Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 2022
As institutions that arose during the European age of imperial expansion to glorify and display the achievements of empire, museums have historically been deeply implicated in the colonial enterprise. However if we understand coloniality not as a residue of the age of imperialism, but rather an ongoing structural feature of global dynamics, the challenge faced by museums in decolonising their practice must be viewed as ongoing. This is the case not just in former centres of empire, but in settler-colonial nations such as Australia, where "the colonisers did not go home" (Moreton-Robinson 2015: 10). As a white, Western institution, a number of arguably intrinsic features of the museum represent a significant challenge to decolonisation, including the traditional museum practices and values evinced by the universal museum. Using a number of case studies, this paper considers the extent to which mainstream museums in Australia, Britain and Europe have been able to change their practices to become more consultative and inclusive of Black and Indigenous peoples. Not only this, it discusses approaches that extend beyond a politics of inclusion to ask whether museums have been prepared to hand over representational power, by giving control of exhibitions to Black and Indigenous communities. Given the challenges posed by traditional museum values and practices, such as the strong preference of the universal museum to maintain intact collections, this paper asks whether community museums and cultural centres located within Indigenous communities may represent viable alternative models. The role of the Uluru Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre in Australia's Northern Territory is considered in this light, including whether Traditional Custodians are able to exert control over visitor interpretation offered by this jointly managed centre to ensure that contentious aspects of Australian history are included within the interpretation.
Decolonising the museum? Dilemmas, possibilities, alternatives
Culture Unbound, 2021
As institutions that arose during the European age of imperial expansion to glorify and display the achievements of empire, museums have historically been deeply implicated in the colonial enterprise. However if we understand coloniality not as a residue of the age of imperialism, but rather an ongoing structural feature of global dynamics, the challenge faced by museums in decolonising their practice must be viewed as ongoing. This is the case not just in former centres of empire, but in settler-colonial nations such as Australia, where "the colonisers did not go home" (Moreton-Robinson 2015: 10). As a white, Western institution, a number of arguably intrinsic features of the museum represent a significant challenge to decolonisation, including the traditional museum practices and values evinced by the universal museum. Using a number of case studies, this paper considers the extent to which mainstream museums in Australia, Britain and Europe have been able to change their practices to become more consultative and inclusive of Black and Indigenous peoples. Not only this, it discusses approaches that extend beyond a politics of inclusion to ask whether museums have been prepared to hand over representational power, by giving control of exhibitions to Black and Indigenous communities. Given the challenges posed by traditional museum values and practices, such as the strong preference of the universal museum to maintain intact collections, this paper asks whether community museums and cultural centres located within Indigenous communities may represent viable alternative models. The role of the Uluru Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre in Australia's Northern Territory is considered in this light, including whether Traditional Custodians are able to exert control over visitor interpretation offered by this jointly managed centre to ensure that contentious aspects of Australian history are included within the interpretation.
Things of the Past ? Museums and Ethnographic Objects
Journal des africanistes, 1999
La plupart des musées ethnographique européens ont été fondés dans un contexte colonial et les modes de collecte des objets étaient liés de près à ce contexte. La situation a fondamentalement changé. Cet article entend montrer que nous sommes mis au défi de trouver un intérêt nouveau à l'étude de la culture matérielle. Le monde moderne, où la distinction entre « nous » et « les autres » est loin de s'abolir, est à même de fournir le contexte de travaux à venir. Les musées ethnographiques ne sont plus seulement des institution du passé (colonial), ils sont aussi des institutions pour les temps futurs.
Across Anthropology. Troubling Colonial Legacies, Museums, and the Curatorial
2020
How can we rethink anthropology beyond itself? In this book, twenty-one artists, anthropologists, and curators grapple with how anthropology has been formulated, thought, and practised ‘elsewhere’ and ‘otherwise’. They do so by unfolding ethnographic case studies from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland – and through conversations that expand these geographies and genealogies of contemporary exhibition-making. This collection considers where and how anthropology is troubled, mobilised, and rendered meaningful. Across Anthropology charts new ground by analysing the convergences of museums, curatorial practice, and Europe’s reckoning with its colonial legacies. Situated amid resurgent debates on nationalism and identity politics, this book addresses scholars and practitioners in fields spanning the arts, social sciences, humanities, and curatorial studies. Preface by Arjun Appadurai. Afterword by Roger Sansi Contributors: Arjun Appadurai (New York University), Annette Bhagwati (Museum Rietberg, Zurich), Clémentine Deliss (Berlin), Sarah Demart (Saint-Louis University, Brussels), Natasha Ginwala (Gropius Bau, Berlin), Emmanuel Grimaud (CNRS, Paris), Aliocha Imhoff and Kantuta Quirós (Paris), Erica Lehrer (Concordia University, Montreal), Toma Muteba Luntumbue (Ecole de Recherche Graphique, Brussels), Sharon Macdonald (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Wayne Modest (Research Center for Material Culture, Leiden), Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin), Margareta von Oswald (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Roger Sansi (Barcelona University), Alexander Schellow (Ecole de Recherche Graphique, Brussels), Arnd Schneider (University of Oslo), Anna Seiderer (University Paris 8), Nanette Snoep (Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cologne), Nora Sternfeld (Kunsthochschule Kassel), Anne-Christine Taylor (Paris), Jonas Tinius (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) The book is funded by Sharon Macdonald's Alexander Von Humboldt-Stiftung Professorship, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and the Leuven University Open Access Fund.
Museum Hegemony, Postcolonial Collections and the Scars of the Colonial Process
Academia Letters, 2021
Museums have been considering their colonial histories and questions of how to shed oppressive legacies rooted in the structures and collections of most major institutions. This essay examines museum hegemony through a social justice lens by incorporating the writings of political theorist Frantz Fanon. Incorporating historic museum case studies provides evidence as to a lack of progress in the field, yet Fanon's theories regarding violence and decolonizing offer a metaphoric path to guide inclusive museums of the future. Attitudinal shifts in society over the last few decades have increasingly concentrated on glaring inequities, compelling museums to consider legacies rooted in colonialism through the lens of social justice-oriented and anti-racist educational programming and exhibitions. This paper examines how engaging in decolonizing work enables museums to incorporate multiple narratives challenging prevailing hegemonic historical accounts, thereby recognizing diverse voices while providing museums with a renewed sense of purpose. Pervasive colonial structures, firmly established within wealth, social and health inequities, have inflicted spiritual and psychological damage on the psyche of the colonized, and these scars are embodied in the culture of settler institutions. With the provenance of many major collections constituting treasures sourced from imperial European aristocracy (Reilly 2018, 23), the time has come for museums to present the counter-hegemonic voices that will deconstruct historic imperialist and elitist canons. In Wretched of the Earth, political theorist Frantz Fanon (1963, 51) argues that truth is key to dismantling the colonialist regime. Given that a narrow version of the truth has been historically relayed through colonial narratives, attaining authenticity requires the understanding
Four European museums of modern art have been selected for this study – Tate Modern, Centre Georges Pompidou, Stedelijk Museum and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia – precisely for their localization in former colonizer countries. They thus lend themselves perfectly to a survey on the ways postcoloniality interacts – or not – with their conception of the role of museums at the beginning of the 21st Century. Guiding lines for a hypothetical handbook of "Postcolonial Theories for Museums", that could be useful to dismantle the colonial foundations of museums of modern art, are sketched from the conclusions of this survey.