From Colonial Past to Cosmopolitan Future: Extreme Makeovers in European Ethnology Museums

Changes are afoot in European museums housing the remains of the colonial past. The Musée du Quai Branly was the first to be explicitly built for a new, post-colonial age (2006). Others, including the Vienna World Museum, the Royal Africa Museum in Tervuren/Belgium, and the London Museum of Mankind, underwent extensive reconstruction. Exhibiting techniques, floor plans, and informational labels no longer evidence the familiar narratives of racial order, evolution, and the civilizing mission. Most museums adapted styles of display to sever any unsavory connections with now-discredited scientific disciplines supporting the colonial project. Through such changes, ethnology museums in former imperial metropoles respond to shifting international power relations and to indigenous groups’ assertion of cultural property rights. But they also respond to visions of European diversity championed by such professional organizations as the Network of European Museum Associations. Last but not least, they respond to the demands of communities that have positioned themselves as stakeholders in museum representations.  The presentation compares and contrasts museums’ recent attempts to generate more culturally inclusive exhibitions. The analyses are based on my own site visits, and draw on the analytical tools of performance studies and museum studies, to ask whether exhibitions accommodate multiple and critical perspectives on the colonial past, and produce more ethically responsible and justice-oriented accounts. What relationships with minority communities have museums forged in the process, and how have collaborations with museums advanced the political goals of these communities?