This week we return to the presentation of objects which are viewed within a specific frame. This is to say, to me, museums are similar to the picture frame we have previously discussed as determining the “gaze” of individuals and communities. Museums portray objects to convey a particular mode of seeing the objects, and this is executed within a specific (albeit fluid) structure of power dichotomies.
Catalani, in “Telling ‘Another’ Story: Western Museums and the Creation of Non-Western Identities,” bases her argument upon a foundation of “Western” (which means what, exactly, please?) museums, “non-Western” collections and the formation of local identity. She argues that “Western” museums are places where the (re)construction of history, the politics of memory and the links of these to (collective?) identity construction are processed in a “public and accessible way” (1). A considerable short-coming in Catalani’s article is the failure to explicate terms. While she indiscriminately throws around the terms “Western,” “non-Western,” “African,” “host society,” “hosted group” at no point does she detail what, exactly, these terms mean in her analysis. While some may argue that a general consensus exists, particularly for the former, on what these mean, I find inclusion in an academic article without explication, without any mention of hesitancy, or quotation marks, to be an egregious omission. The effect undermines the analysis on the construction of identity and the supposed flow of elements informing this construction. It places her piece within a clear us/them dichotomy, which is both simplistic and detrimental to attempts at understanding the complexity of identity within an historico-political environment where object biography and the presentation of this greatly contribute to engagement with the past and the corresponding effects in the present.
Elaine Heumann Gurian in her “What is the Object of this Exercise? A Meandering Exploration of the Many Meanings of Objects in Museums” argus that there is a profound link between “spirit” and museums (and such places of cultural/historic memory). I particularly liked her assertion that it is not objects per se which are the “essence” of museums, but rather the museums itself as a place which “presents and organizes” meaning (165). Indeed, I find her examples of the bowl and the role of labeling this as attached to the Holocaust and its presence in Auschwitz (171) as illustrative of this role of a ‘frame of viewing’ as it were, to encode meaning onto objects.
A second aspect of interest is the question: “who selects the objects and by what criteria” (172). I think that this question is, or should be, central in our experience and analysis of the AGO’s exhibit. Power structures, both ‘inter- and intra-community,’ in determining the presentation of self and community identity to O/others. Indeed, I find this is were the two articles overlap quite interestingly. Catalani identifies the dynamics between presentation of a specific culture within a context of a hegemonic culture and the links to identity construction. Yet she fails to identify the power structure within which this takes place, e.g. identifying the “Western” hegemony through funding and directing museums and the framing of objects and history within these (in “Western” locales). Furthermore, the same power structure dichotomy may be placed upon the notion of museums as “public and accessible” - for whom? As such, I thus find Gurian’s piece to more conscious of dynamics inherent in constructions of identity, yet this is still insufficiently articulated.
Questions:
1) To what extent and why do you dis/agree with the assessment of power dichotomies as an integral part in negotiations of identity construction and presentation within museums?
2) Although I do not directly touch upon this, in which ways do you think the engagement with indigenous communities and museums is informed by historical, poltico-economic power structures? And if this is a different answer than in 1), why?
Hi Laurel,
ReplyDeleteRegarding your question number 1, as Catalini points out people with the most power still play an integral role in negotiations of identity construction and presentation for people with less power. Example from the reading: it is the curators job to pick and choose what to present in the museum and assuming this person isn't Sierra Leonean we see how power dichotomies continue to present themselves in the museum context of identity construction and presentation. So yes, I agree that power dichotomies play an important role in identity.
Yes, I too felt dichotomized by the Catalani's use of "western" and "non-western" though I can't say that I have an issue with it. There is in fact a rigid dichotomy placed on bodies of colour in the west-- the view is that we are non-western and thus are from someplace else, the view validating the recurrent question in many of our lives, "where are you from? no really, where are you from? Really."
ReplyDeleteI feel that placing these terms, who's realities have material consequences in the lives of people of colour, is similar to placing the words white, and racialized, in quotations. It undermines the validity of the material reality the widespread acceptance these terms have on bodies of colour. Dislike the quotation marks.
For your second question, museums encase a state history. The state history in colonized states as in Canada, is based on the subjugation, displacement, exploitation and dispossession of the indigenous nations already existing on the land. The colonial state can only legitimize its authority and ownership over the land if it continues to deny the rights and full existence of the indigenous nations. For instance, Canada would have no capital, and be in debt more severe than any nation in the global south if it was held accountable for all the material, cultural, and intellectual resources its stolen and profited off of from indigenous nations.
This legitimization is done through many was including the continued indoctrination of the colonial citizens and the world to this end. Museums, just as universities, as a site also of education about the state then have the implicit priority to support this legitimization. Thus there exist no large state-funded museums whose collections directly challenge the legitimacy of the state. How then can the relationship between indigenous communities and museums not be informed by historical, politico-economic power structures?