postcolonial theory Post-colonial 10 Oct 201910 Oct 2019 This is the first in a mini-series unpacking the various ways in which we might employ the term “postcolonial”. How the term is written changes its meaning, leading to different…
Collections Ownership 9 Oct 201919 Jan 2021 A ubiquitous, but nonetheless uncomfortable term in museum management, the idea that museums are the “owners” of items in their collection is interpreted variously. Whilst museums claim legal ownership, this…
postcolonial theory Other 4 Oct 201919 Jan 2021 Philosophically, the concept of “the Other” is used to delineate another and to distinguish them from the self. Consequently, the Other has elements that are recognisably like the self, but…
postcolonial theory Orientalism 24 Sep 2019 Edward Said’s term, outlined in the eponymous 1978 book, is one of the most widely-quoted in cultural theory. Describing the representational system through which the Euro-American West imagines and defines…
Museums and Method Neutrality 17 Sep 20193 Mar 2021 This is often invoked as a way of positioning museums as neutral storehouses of knowledge, that sit outside of cultural, social, political and economic debates. However, culture does not exist…
philosophy Modernity 12 Sep 201919 Jan 2021 When talking about history, museums often fall into the trap of pitting “tradition” against “modernity”. By thinking about history and the present as a binary, these narratives miss the subtleties…
Museums and Method… Lived experience 11 Sep 2019 Curators, cataloguers and content developers in museums rely heavily on outside expertise to inform how they present exhibitions and interpret collections. Historically, the promotion of Eurocentric forms of knowledge and…
postcolonial theory… Invasion 9 Sep 2019 Often, exhibitions and displays that attempt to tell the story of colonial contact use words like “encounter”, “exchange” and crucially, “arrival”, to describe the historical moment at which cultures met…
critical race theory Intersectionality 6 Sep 20196 Sep 2019 Developed by lawyer, scholar and critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to consider the ways in which legal frameworks are developed to consider issues of gender or racial discrimination…
critical race theory… Indigenous peoples 29 Aug 2019 According to the UN, Indigenous peoples are the ‘inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment’ and are distinguished from later settled populations…
The Decolonial Dictionary 