Decolonizing the Amsterdam Museum: A Work-in-Progress to Becoming a More Inclusive City Museum (original) (raw)
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Visiting the Amsterdam Museum: Studying Visitors' Responses to Decolonial Practices
ECHOES: European Colonial Modalities in Entangled Cities, 2021
This report was developed within the Horizon2020 project ECHOES: European Colonial Heritage Modalities in Entangled Cities as part of its work package 3 on ‘City Museums and Multiple Colonial Pasts.’ This work package conducts in-depth, qualitative, comparative analyses of three city museums, each representing distinct positions within colonial history. The Amsterdam Museum forms one of these three case studies. The aim of this third report on the Amsterdam Museum is to assess visitors’ responses to a selection of the museum’s decolonial practices. In part, practicing decoloniality is dealing with direct colonial heritages and objects. However, decoloniality as a whole is “a process and a mode of through that goes deeper into untangling the current-day colonial hooks from the museum” (Ariese & Wróblewska Forthcoming: 1). Thus, as the core of this report will show, there are many ways in which the Amsterdam Museum can practice decoloniality, not always necessarily directly related to ‘colonial’ objects.
Amsterdam Museum(s): In Search of a History, an Identity, and a Future
ECHOES, 2019
This report was developed within the Horizon2020 project ECHOES: European Colonial Heritage Modalities in Entangled Cities as part of its work package 3 on ‘City Museums and Multiple Colonial Pasts.’ This work package conducts in-depth, qualitative, comparative analyses of three city museums, each representing distinct positions within colonial history. The Amsterdam Museum forms one of these three case studies. The aim of this first report on the Amsterdam Museum is to reconstruct the evolution of the museum and illustrate the current state and positionality of the museum. This analysis is placed within the context of the history of the city of Amsterdam and consists of research into the museum’s position, priorities, policies, problems, and opportunities, which are shaped by both external influences (e.g. relationships to city authorities, national or local politics, developments within the national museum sector, or the particular features of the city) as well as internal processes and values. Thus, this report provides a preliminary case study of the Amsterdam Museum from a post-colonial perspective in order to understand how the museum is positioned within the colonial pasts of Amsterdam and how, in turn, these pasts are represented in the museum.
Engaging and Disengaging with Colonial Pasts in City Museums
2019
This paper aims to discuss the preliminary results of the research conducted within the Horizon2020 ECHOES Project by the members of work package 3 on the topic of ‘City Museums and Multiple Colonial Pasts.’ Beyond presenting preliminary results, the paper also describes the approaches of each of the researchers and analyzes some of the challenges encountered collectively while working on the three case studies at the basis of this work package. Work package 3 (WP3) focuses on how city museums around the globe represent and engage with the colonial pasts of cities which experienced colonialism or even ‘multiple colonialisms,’ one of the key concepts of the ECHOES project. Do these museum institutions act as cultural brokers able to tackle the problem of representing entangled global histories, identities, and emotions, or conversely do they support more traditional national perspectives? How do city museums in different countries collect, exhibit, study, and engage with urban colonial heritage? Our aim is to answer these questions through qualitative comparative analyses of three city museums, focusing on all aspects such as their histories, development, collections, leading narratives, political-cultural contexts, organizational policies, outreach activities, and the reception of museum products and activities by the public. The three city museums each represent distinct colonial destinies and positions within colonial history. The research of WP3 centers on three recently reopened or refurbished city museums situated in markedly different geopolitical and epistemic zones: Western Europe (Amsterdam Museum), Central and Eastern Europe (Museum of Warsaw) and East Asia (Shanghai History Museum/Shanghai Revolution Museum: Shanghai lishi bowuguan/ Shanghai geming lishi bowuguan, 上海历史博物馆/上海革命历史博物馆). These institutions were selected for the fact that, while they share several features, they present different alternatives to the representation of colonial pasts. Although to some extent the function and practices of these museums are comparable, each case study presents specific challenges which the individual researchers must tackle.
Decolonizing Colonial Heritage: New Agendas, Actors and Practices in and beyond Europe, 2021
Following the first wave of decolonization as part of the discourse of the New Museology2 movement (Karp and Lavine 1991), the late 2010s have given momentum to the global debate on decolonization in museums. This momentum has been influenced by multiple factors: the ever-more active and social role of museums thanks to the increased participation of diverse (non-) staff (Ariese-Vandemeulebroucke 2018; Golding and Modest 2013; Simon 2010); the debate on object repatriation reignited in 2018 by the Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy report (Sarr and Savoy 2018); and the increasingly vocal demands to deal with racism and violence as colonial legacies during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Not only heritage practitioners but also governments, communities, activists, and artists are grappling with contested heritage in museums (Message 2015). While much critical heritage discourse concentrates on the very institution of the museum with both its colonial roots3 and its future as a site of decolonial contestation, this chapter argues that it is necessary to look comparatively at the development of decolonial narratives in various parts of the world to better understand the dynamics of present changes. It is oft-stated that decolonization is denormalization. Thus, decolonization involves the destabilization of reigning perceptions and established narratives of colonial pasts and legacies. Regardless of the degree of decolonization, it also means shifting authority. In the process of destabilizing the existing status quo, both support for and resistance to decolonizing processes is to be expected. However, it is not the same canon that is destabilized everywhere. Our overarching question therefore explores how the global decolonization movement, influenced by historical and cultural particularities, results in divergent discourses and practices on the city level. How is destabilization through decolonization encouraged, supported, or resisted in urban centres and, specifically, their museums? By focusing on three cities in three very different cultural and geographical regions—Amsterdam, Warsaw, and Shanghai—this chapter explores the specificities of narratives and agents of decolonization in their museum spaces.4 Amsterdam provides an example of Western European situatedness as a former global colonial power and as somewhat of a ‘trendsetter’ in terms of contemporary critical heritage discourse. Warsaw represents the inbetween situation of an East-Central European city that was implicated in overseas colonization but without any direct involvement in the conquest of land. Shanghai, meanwhile, exemplifies remnants and representations of European colonialism in Asia as well as Chinese ambiguities of dealing with this legacy today. Both Warsaw and Shanghai add a complexity to what colonization can mean beyond ‘overseas colonization’. Warsaw was at once a victim of the imperial ambitions of Prussia and Russia as well as home to an elite that aspired to the colonization of what is today Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania. Shanghai, in turn, was controlled by European colonizers who settled in several enclaves, yet China has also worked to influence and annex areas outside of its borders. These differences notwithstanding, each city abounds in museums, Amsterdam over the longer term and Shanghai and Warsaw thanks to recent museum booms. Our analysis shows how museums influence decolonization processes in these cities, taking city, ethnographic, and art museums as examples. Differences include, for instance, the degree of agency of (ethnographic) museums, the extent to which racism is related to colonization, and how selfreflective the process of decolonization is able to be. Moreover, the case of Shanghai shows that ‘decolonization’ does not necessarily equal ‘critical’ discourse. Ultimately, the comparative focus adopted here helps to identify factors that escape analysis of single cases.
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.
Practicing Decoloniality in Museums: A Guide with Global Examples
2021
The cry for decolonization has echoed throughout the museum world. Although perhaps most audibly heard in the case of ethnographic museums, many different types of museums have felt the need to engage in decolonial practices. Amidst those who have argued that an institution as deeply colonial as the museum cannot truly be decolonized, museum staff and museologists have been approaching the issue from different angles to practice decoloniality in any way they can. Practicing Decoloniality in Museums: A Guide with Global Examples collects a wide range of practices from museums whose audiences, often highly diverse, come together in sometimes contentious conversations about pasts and futures. Although there are no easy or uniform answers as to how best to deal with colonial pasts, this collection of practices functions as an accessible toolkit from which museum staff can choose in order to experiment with and implement methods according to their own needs and situations. The practices are divided thematically and include, among others, methods for decentering, improving transparency, and increasing inclusivity.
Zbiór Wiadomości do Antropologii Muzealnej, 2024
The paper presents in an essayistic form three Amsterdam’s museums: Rijksuseum, Tropenmuseum and Museum Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder not in terms of a presentation of their history and collections, but in terms of the idea of heritage commodification and planning, which is embodied in museum shops combined with cafés and restaurants. Amsterdam’s museums are overshadowed by high-profile stereotypes about the city. They are not among the world’s most popular museums as the Netherlands itself is not a top tourist destination. Therefore, the relaxed atmosphere of Amsterdam’s museums – distinguished by its own style between heritage conservation, pragmatism, Protestant ethics, and the existential concept of gezelligheid – needs to be operationalised as an implementation model in other museums around the world. Furthermore, the very subject of museum shops – in terms of their role in heritage commodification and planning – has not been a crucial subject of reflection in the humanities or social sciences. This essay contributes to the study of museum shops as places where the exhibits “exit” the museum room, while the museum “enters” the market. The author points out that the concept of “museum shop” in the context of Amsterdam has a double meaning, emphasising that in this city the division between the sacred museum and the profane street is fluid.
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.
To be or not to be colonial: Museums facing their exhibitions
redalyc.uaemex.mx
This article first gives an insight at what the idea of museum meant before the modern era, to set the global, historical and political context in which modern museums emerged. It then analyzes the conditions that paved the way for institutional change as the weakening of the national setting has allowed other layers of histories -local, regional, community, indigenous, minority- to be expressed. Finally, it explains why handling colonial heritage in contemporary exhibitions -through the historical contextualization of the collections on display- is of paramount importance to museums small and big, and look at the extent to which they succeed in adapting to change, through various examples taken from Europe and Australia.