As we explored in the first section, racism is a structural issue affecting all areas of society. Many museums have a historic and ongoing relationship with racism due to the legacy of colonialism. As stated in the Museum Association’s Supporting Decolonisation in Museums:
“Many museums in the UK are part of the legacy of British colonialism through the collections they steward, their institutional histories, structures and wealth, and the stories they tell. Throughout history museums have helped to make the case for colonialism by collecting and cataloguing empire, and by advancing racist and prejudiced views of the world. Such views and attitudes still exist today – museums can and must play their part in righting past wrongs and creating a better world for all those affected by colonialism.”
Many museums have work to do in addressing racism created by the legacy of empire. But racism is not just about the past, it impacts the present and future of museums. As part of wider arts and culture, museums play an important role in shaping a sense of national identity. In his keynote and essay “Whose Heritage?”, cultural critic Stuart Hall notes that heritage “is one of the ways in which we construct a sort of collective social memory”. Hall states:
“The Heritage inevitably reflects the governing assumptions of its time and context. It is always inflected by the power and authority of those who have colonised the past, whose versions of history matter… But it takes only the passage of time, the shift of circumstances, or the reversals of history, to reveal those assumptions as time- and context-bound, historically specific, and thus open to contestation, re-negotiation, and revision.”
In the following exercises, we will continue to consider the issue of racism and museums. In the next lesson, we will think about what anti-racism can mean to museums.