Object Diasporas: Museums Circulation and Identity Politics

Paul Basu’s article looked at the historical and current transnational flows of Sierra Leonean material culture and knowledge. In particularly, he focused on three collections: (1) the Alldridge collection held at British Museum and Brighton museum and Art Gallery (2) the Friedrich Ryff and Walter Volz collections at the Historieches Museum and Bern and (3) the Massie Taylor collection at Glasgow Museums. The purpose of the article is to explore the historical formation and distribution of this “object diaspora” and acknowledges its entanglement in the networks, flows, and power disparities of colonialism. In other words, the idea is to recognize the value of those collections in Sierra Leonean diasporic locations as a resource for contemporary community. According to Basu, there are two sets of images of Sierra Leone in which he refers to: (1) the most dominant view, the images of child solders, corrupt politicians, limbless victims of war and (2) This second view can be found in the ethnographic galleries of public museums throughout Europe and North America. For instance, the image of tribes and fetishes signify cultural symbols. However, opponents to this view argued that such collections are seen as “colonial loots” rather than cultural uniqueness. Basu discussed about the language of diaspora that is beyond the point of exile and return. He argued that the central of diaspora is that it is a web of social, spatial and temporal relationships with which diasporic populations can connect and disconnect, remember and forget. In this regard, the language of diaspora is associated with the objects and its relations to human experience of displacements. He also reminded us that most often, the African diaspora took place because of violence or forced movements. Therefore, the relationship between people, places and cultural histories can be connected with the sense of difficulty and pain. However, Basu emphasized that diaspora is not just about painful or loss past. Rather, it is about the future possibility. In a large part of his article, Basu discussed about the three mentioned collections. He told stories about each one of them in historical and ethnographical views. For instance, he said “during the 34 years that Alltridge traded and served in Sierra Leone, he assembled a lager personal collection, much of which was sold to Brighton Museum and the British Museum in various lots between 1899 and 1904” (pp.8) or “The diaspora of Sierra Leonean objecs that may be found in Bern and elsewhere in Switzerland is thus the legacy of quite different colonial contexts than those embodied in the Aldridge collection.” (pp.13) or “a significant part of the Massie-Taylor collection was, for many years, loaned to Newcastle University, where the museum ethnographer, Heiner Meinhard, used to teach anthropology class.”

Basu’s work is very interesting in terms of historical sources. I like the way how he puts different definition to clear his views. For instance, he discussed about the concept “migrant materialities” in which it refers to material culture that flourishes in exile within the recontextualizing territories of global museumscape, while their original homelands remain impoverished of a potentially vital cultural resource. Another concept was “remittance corridors” referring to the channels through which economic capital can be encouraged to flow (pp.3). One thing that I also found very interesting was Basu’s discussion of the issue of remittances and the contemporary role of Sierra Leone’s object diaspora. He found that dispersed collections create relationships between communities and generate networks of exchange that entail obligations and responsibilities. Despite strengths, I found that Basu’s article heavily discussed about historical matters. Perhaps, he should tell the readers more about the cultural and material objects in terms of human experience of pain or conflicts. Furthermore, the last part of his essay seems to be very interesting but he has talk very brief about it. Perhaps, he should elaborate more on his points.


Question: Very often, when we go to the museum, we see objects representing country’s history and at the same time, telling stories of those objects alone. This is a way of how we remembering the past. But do you think that your personal objects would have the same value as those staying in the museum? For instance, with the same design of a national dress or some kind of traditional musical instrument; one is yours and the other belongs to the museum. Are they having the same value or they are different because of the ownership is different?

In her article “Telling ‘another’ story: western museums and the creation of non-western identities”’ Catalani suggested that museums become remarkable sources for local communities to strengthen their sense of belonging to places, shared histories and identities. In particularly, she argued that the role of museum is to capture and reflect group identity through collective memories and the objects associated with those memories. In other words, the Western museum is a place where both memory and history contribute to the process of remembering and identity formation through objects. At the beginning of her article, she discussed about the differences of the two concepts “history” and “memory” which she found “history” is constructed by historians and written as evidence of chronological description whereas “memory” is based on oral accounts or sources and presents a more personal and direct connection between the individual, events and objects. However, the main difference between the two is that history is written under academic sources whereas memory is often accounted by personal experience or events. I found that such distinctions are very interesting because sometimes I personally mixed up with the two concepts.

Somewhere in her article, Catalani saw the similarities that “history” and “memory” hold were that both of them were socially constructed and the purpose was to gain people awareness. On page 3, Catalani discussed about how ‘history’ and ‘memory’ might appear in opposition, in which she found “memory us life, borne by living societies’, while history is constructed of what is past. I understand her point; however, I have to disagree with this because to me, memory is what makes history. Isn’t that history is constructed by historians and written about facts. But how do we know what facts are accountable and accurate? Facts derived from what people remember of it. In other words, history exists in the form narrative or story telling. For instance, same event, but different history occurs because history is written and judged in the eyes of the holders. How do we explain in that case?

Both of the article raised good points about how museum has been useful in shaping and preserving ethnic identities. However, as a reader, I would like to see more supporting evidences to both of their reasons.