Decolonizing Museum Education: The Voice of the Other in Tension with Cultures, Constructs, and Critical Museum Pedagogies

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday IV)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Investigating ideologies shaping citizenship education in formal curricula and non-formal educational spaces

Proposal

Moving past colonial relationships between Europeans, North Americans, and their "Others" requires that museum educators critique their own pedagogies and practices. Whether encountering previously colonized subjects as members of a diaspora and/or as fellow citizens, how can we work together to facilitate receptivity to authentic voices? This conceptual research critiques a range of critical museum pedagogies that deal head on with the tensions inherent in juxtaposing different cultures and constructs of otherness. I show how “Indigenous” identities have been constructed, commodified, and (re-/ex-)pressed to serve colonial projects. Based on fieldwork with curators pushing the spaces and frames for such encounters, I share a multimedia, anthropological study that engages roundtable audiences in lively discussion and analysis. This multi-year conceptual project pioneers a more inclusive and actionable theoretical framework for “decolonizing museums.” My redefinition of “tensions” in such a global project showcases, literally, how multiple views and voices can interact in non-binary modes and through juxtaposed media. How can we make visible the voices of those who were previously objectified rather than approached as authors of their own stories? It is one thing to teach global citizenship orientations to schoolchildren in an assessment-driven classroom. It is quite another to engage them voluntarily in museums. More significantly, these are the very institutions where parents and kids, teachers and students, locals and newcomers interact in more relaxed ways that are potentially transformative. If we are to promote and sustain peaceful coexistence and intercultural education, then we need to ally with museums as part of community-driven initiatives to transform learning. We need to design theoretical frameworks that reveal effective zones of overlap between formal and non-formal education. Much is at stake. Sustainable co-existence, much less decolonization of minds and spaces, cannot succeed without dovetailed efforts. I will present detailed ethnographic evidence from an array of Belgian, German, Mexican, Ethiopian, and Hawaiian institutions whose leaders are engaged in a transnational dialogue on decolonizing the museum experience. My research, including with diaspora communities in Europe, shows that there are notable convergences. How can we imbed culturally nuanced messages about the complex modern contexts that sustain meaning and relevance, while still remaining comprehensible to the novice museum-goer? How can we invoke visitors to speak their own truths? Multi-directional exhibits, innovative contrastive pairings, creative retellings, intentional and stereotype-busting displays, anti-racism visitor activities, displays that play with and against expectations about gendered bodies on which to project messages, and more illustrate some creative best practices. They also lead to a new, expanded set of criteria for decolonizing museums as places of critical pedagogy. They celebrate the human potential, even craving, for expressing passion and pain in modes that have intercultural resonance. How can we make these visible and compelling? This is an auspicious time, as several high profile museums are reopening after a radical rethinking (and remodeling) of their mission, modus operandi, and museology. An interdisciplinary conceptual framework for building culturally responsive, respectful spaces for decolonizing museums is important for sustaining transformative praxis.

Author

• Maureen K Porter, University of Pittsburgh