Museums and Method Trade 14 May 2021 This is a term that recurs across museum exhibits describing historical relationships of economics, exchange and acquisition. However, the use of the term in museums to signal the commercial and…
Politics and history Structure 2 Apr 2021 Previously we’ve looked at the term “structure” as it relates to settler colonialism - following Patrick Wolfe’s call to be attentive to how settlement is a social, political, economic and…
Collections Source Communities 23 Mar 202123 Mar 2021 Popularised by Laura Peers and Alison Brown in their edited reader, Museums and Source Communities, the term “source community” directly illuminates the relationship between originating communities and museums. Whilst the…
Disciplines Science 13 Jan 202119 Jan 2021 At its core, science is a method of knowing and understanding based on empirical findings. When discussed in museums, science tends to be understood as a neutral enterprise, due to…
Museums and Method… Sacred/secret/sensitive 6 Jan 2021 These terms are increasingly being used by institutions to describe items in collections which hold particular resonance for source and descendant communities by virtue of their spiritual significance and/or importance…
repatriation Return 9 Dec 202019 Jan 2021 We’ve discussed the technicalities of terms like “repatriation” and “restitution”, but the urgent debates to address the colonial past (and its contemporary effects!) in museums point towards the need for…
critical race theory “Race” 18 Dec 201922 Mar 2020 Notoriously difficult to define, perhaps the best place to start is to state that “race” is a fiction, a constructed set of categories designed to consign and confine peoples into…
philosophy Progress 29 Oct 201919 Jan 2021 The notion of a march towards “progress” is perhaps most worth investigating in scientific narratives. Across the natural, medical, physical and techno-sciences, the message that the human species is inevitably…
Collections Community of origin 11 Jun 201919 Jan 2021 Used mostly in collections management and museums practice, this term refers to the original communities/community members from whom material artefacts were acquired, as well as their descendants living today (see…
postcolonial theory Authenticity 16 May 201919 Jan 2021 ‘Not false or copied, genuine, real’. In Eurowestern societies people of colour are continually called upon to enact a performance of how ‘real’ they are in order to justify their…
The Decolonial Dictionary 