Museum Transformations: Decolonization and Democratization

MUSEUM TRANSFORMATIONS DECOLONIZATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION

Edited By ANNIE E. COOMBES AND RUTH B. PHILLIPS

Museum Transformations: Decolonization and Democratization addresses contemporary approaches to decolonization, greater democratization, and revisionist narratives in museum exhibition and program development around the world. The text explores how museums of art, history, and ethnography responded to deconstructive critiques from activists and poststructuralist and postcolonial theorists, and provided models for change to other types of museums and heritage sites.

The volume's first set of essays discuss the role of the museum in the narration of difficult histories, and how altering the social attitudes and political structures that enable oppression requires the recognition of past histories of political and racial oppression and colonization in museums. Subsequent essays consider the museum's new roles in social action and discuss experimental projects that work to change power dynamics within institutions and leverage digital technology and new media.

ANNIE E. COOMBES is Professor of Material and Visual Culture at Birkbeck, University of London, UK, where she teaches museum studies and art and cultural history. She is Director of the Peltz Gallery and author of award-winning books on museums, memorialization, and the legacy of colonialism.

RUTH B. PHILLIPS is Canada Research Professor of Art History at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. She has served as director of the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology and teaches and publishes on Indigenous North American art and critical museology.