To cite this article: Brenda M. Trofanenko (2011) On difficult history displayed: the pedagogical challenges of interminable learning, Museum Management and Curatorship, 26:5, 481-495,The pedagogical purposes of public museums focus largely on the factual knowledge to be gained by attending an exhibit. What is often ignored are the affective and emotional responses prompted by the exhibit. The emotional response to difficult events may prompt youth to leave an exhibit with unintended, or interminable, knowing about the event itself. This article presents the results of a research study that examines a series of intergenerational interactions and conversations specific to war, which bears important educational consequences and implications for the learning of difficult historical events.
In this article, I describe how one group of student examines indigenous identity formation as dynamic and open to reinterpretation. Drawing on field observations and interviews with students in a 16-month ethnographic study, I examine how one group of students worked toward understanding how indigenous identity was determined by curatorial authority and historically defined museum practices. I argue that students can question the traditional pedagogical conceptions of indigenous culture that ought to be reconsidered within the public museum, and that working to historicize such conceptions makes more explicit student knowledge production of identity.
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