NEOCOLONIAL COLLABORATION: Museum as Contact Zone Revisited

Abstract

university of cambridge abstract Museums have increasingly been promoting their postcolonial status through inclusionist programs in exhibitions, shared curatorship, and use of collections. Where there are indigenous stakeholders, we have seen an unprecedented improvement in the empowerment of source communities in the management, use, and presentation of their patrimony in museums. Since James Clifford's 1997 essay, the phrase ''contact zone'' is now more or less synonymous with these inclusionist, collaborative programs. This paper, while being openly supportive of such collaborations in museums, is nevertheless critical of the use of the contact zone concept. Returning to Clifford's essay, as well as those of Pratt and others, this paper questions why museum scholars perpetuate only a partial portrait of the contact zone, despite clear warnings about its inherent asymmetry. The goal of this paper is not to undermine the ethically engaged work that has been done, but to expose the dark underbelly of the contact zone and, hence, the anatomy of the museum that seems to be persistently neocolonial. [neocolonialism, postcolonialism, museum studies, contact zones, local knowledge] museum anthropology

“What We’ve Said Can be Proven in the Ground”: Stó:lō Sovereignty and Historical Narratives at Xá:ytem, 1990–2006

“…As Robin Boast and Julia Harrison have shown can be the case in museums, this example of the management of an Indigenous heritage site represents a manifestation of neocolonialism, where the institutional expression of inclusivity serves to maintain a good public image, while simultaneously continuing to perpetuate colonial power imbalances. 137 Examining Xá:ytem enhances our understandings of the complexity of Indigenous expressions of sovereignty over heritage in the 1990s. For Stó:lō claims to hold any traction with the provincial and federal governments, they needed to work within Canadian political structures, and thus find alternative ways of fighting for their sovereignty over the site.…”

Examining Museum Visits as Literacy Events: The role of mediators

“…Politically, at least in the scholarly communities, questions about representation and cultural hegemony have arisen, especially in relation to historical and anthropological museums (Boast 2011, Clifford 1997 and to some extent in science museums (MacDonald 1996). Whose histories and cultures are being represented in museums, and through whose eyes?…”

Introduction

“…While this is undoubtedly often pursued with the best of intentions-especially that of introducing a wider range of voices into the museum-it has sometimes been challenged as being more about providing legitimation for institutions that deserve more thoroughgoing challenge and revision (Boast 2011;Landkammer 2017).…”