ía Camila Marín Montes
Master thesis is Archaeology
Landscape and heritage program
University of Amsterdam
2019
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Figure 1. Inauguration of Colonial Museum by Queen Wilhelmina of the
Netherlands ... 19
Figure 2. Display of objects that recreate the museum in Harleem ... 20
Figure 3. Display of material culture ... 22
Figure 4. Display of the contribution of materials from New Guinea to the
Netherlands ... 23
Figure 5. European character recreated in the Indonesian environment .... 24
Figure 6. Material culture from Southeast-Asia ... 24
Figure 7. Recreation of racist images from the present ... 25
Figure 8. Caps from Mali, they were found during and archaeological
excavation of graves ... 26
Figure 9. Gerti Noorter, Dutch explorer in the Artic ... 27
Figure 10. Element that don’t identify or represent the African culture .... 30
Figure 11. Fashion in Africa ... 31
Figure 12. Figurine altar, Benin ... 32
Dutch culture is diverse because the population present in this territory has always witnessed racial mixtures, traditions, and religions. Migration and exchange have been vital pieces in the cultural construction of this country as it is clear from the influence of the Romans, the Spanish domination, Jewish migration, the Flemish influence, the European Union, and economic openness (Vels Heijn, 1998). However, some people still believe in the image of a Dutch culture “conceived as vicissitudes of a biologically homogeneous society, or a society in which immigration did not play a major part” (Lucassen, 1998, p. 9).
Museums are essential spaces for the recognition, understanding, reflection, and projection of the plurality that conforms the current Dutch society (Vels Heijn, 1998). But they are also arenas to remember and demonstrate the colonial dynamics that this country had until the last century. Museums offer a way to consider the past, domination, oppression, and looting of other nations (Thomas, 2010). The colonialist discrimination, which is still present in the modern world (Michalik, 2018) and the history of the Netherlands leads us to double-read history that is being taught through these institutions.
Colonialism as a notion implies "the occupation of a territory, by a colonial kingdom (or state), of lands that did not belong to it and that once conquered are administered economically and politically" (Hernández Ramírez, 2007, p. 150). This notion is exemplified by the relationship of the Spanish kingdom in Latin America, the presence of the British Empire in India and a large part of the globe, of France in Africa and Asia, or the Netherlands in the South Pacific, the Caribbean Antilles and South America. Colonial administrations tended to evolve after the emancipation of the territories that had been colonized, reaching independence and the formation of a new state (Hernández Ramírez, 2007; Young, 2016).
With colonialism, there is also the process of decolonization, which means the freedom of the colony from the dominant nation (Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary, 2019). There are two possible ways of decolonization, one consist on the armed-based process in which the colony arises to a conflict to achieve its sovereignty, the other consists of a negotiation between the parts to settle an agreement of not possession from one country towards other (Oostindie & Klinkers, 2003).
The postcolonial concept marks the broad historical facts of decolonization and the determined accomplishment of independence of a nation but also the realities of nations and peoples emerging into a new context of economic and sometimes political domination (Young, 2016). Postcolonial studies analyze, among other things, the system of
representation, that is, how and what images (social, cultural, political) imperial colonizing states and colonized countries in the contemporary world produce (Gandhi, 1998; Young, 2016; Michalik, 2018). These images are presented symbolically by addressing elements like the shared past, identity, repression, and memory amid discourses of people or institutions develop on a daily basis. A museum can be a stage for the representation and discussion of these elements.
In this way, Dutch museums face the challenge of being “cultural pacificators,” which lead to conquest the barrier between the history of “others” and its own (van den Berg, 1998). For this reason, the collections in museums (especially in archaeological and ethnographical museums) must consider the postcolonial aspect during the arrangement of exhibitions. In particular, museums must consider the ways others are represented. The Museum of National Ethnology (Volkenkunde), the Tropic Museum (Tropenmuseum), the Africa Museum (Afrikamuseum), and the World Museum (Wereldmuseum) are some of the institutions that practice the multiculturalism and have tried to tell the stories of the others and the own population in many possible ways (van den Berg, 1998).
To understand better the implications of colonialism, decolonialism, and postcolonialism in the Netherlands’ museums, this thesis aims to answer the question: how are postcolonial discourses being developed in Dutch ethnographical museums through the display of material remains? For this, I will also address sub-questions such as: What are the postcolonial discourses? How the postcolonial discourses relate with the European perspective? And: What is the relationship between postcolonialism and objects?
Hence, the main objective of this study will be identifying and analyzing the postcolonial discourses of museums display through the material remains of colonized countries. In particular, there are three specific objectives:
1. Understand the relevance of the archaeological collections in ethnographical museums.
2. Analyze the representation of the “other” in the exhibitions of the museums. 3. Analyze the discourses the museums have among the material culture from other
countries.
To answer the research question, this thesis is divided into five chapters. The first part is about the postcolonial theory and the relation to the concept of the “other” as a subject in the museums. The second chapter serves to explain the historical approach of the colonial museums and their development in the contemporary society. Here is also mentioned the emerging policies and global regulations that supported the change in the museum discourse around other people’s history. The third chapter deals with the selected museums in the Netherlands: how are the exhibitions structured and what is the position of the “other” in the narrative? It is worth to mention that for the purpose of this research I will focus on three Dutch ethnographical museums: The Museum of National Ethnology in Leiden, the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, and the Africa Museum in Berg en Dal.
The World Museum in Rotterdam is not part of this analysis because it was under renovations and closed to the public in the time this research was conducted. The fourth part discusses the double-read of the museum scenarios in the Netherlands from the perspective of postcolonial theory with the analysis of some objects of the exhibitions. The fifth and last chapter is the conclusion of this study.
During the 1970s of the 20th century, the decolonizing movement in Africa, Asia, and Oceania was consolidated, and a new current of thought that tries to subvert colonizing and stereotypes of Westerners perspective arose (Machuca, 2014). In this way, a process of analysis and review began, especially in the knowledge produced about the colonies and in the interpretations of the colonial relationship, named postcolonialism (Machuca, 2014).The theories about postcolonialism emerge in United States during the 1970s and 1980s, and they were marked by a tension between Marxism and poststructuralism or postmodernism (Gandhi, 1998). Poststructuralist critique of Western epistemology and theorization of cultural difference is indispensable to postcolonial theory, and materialist philosophies supply the most convincing basis for postcolonial politics (Gandhi, 1998).
Moreover, the postcolonial critic has to work toward a synthesis of, or negotiation between, both the poststructuralism and Marxism (Gandhi, 1998). One of the pioneers of this process of analysis was G.C. Spivak (1985, 1987, 1988), who examined the position of the investigator and the subject of study. She drew attention to the complicated relationship between the knowing investigator and the (un)knowing subject of subaltern histories, by questioning what voice-consciousness can the subaltern speak?’ (Spivak, 1988 [1985], p. 285). Through these question Spivak places within the troublesome field of ‘representation’ and ‘representability’ (Gandhi, 1998), and so the power relation within them and the theory of the differences.
Another critical scholar of postcolonial studies is Edward Said (1986, 1989, 1993) who developed a better understanding of the racial "otherness" from the point of view of the white western people. In his work Orientalism (1986), he carried out a study of the discourse around Oriental identity far from old forged prejudices. Said intended to dismantle the mechanisms of the other that had been forged in colonial thought (Machuca, 2014). This by exposing that the East-West division is an invention of the Westerners themselves, who thus engendered the difference between the familiar (Europe, the West," we ") and the strange (East, “they ")" (Said, 1986) . Therefore, European culture gained strength and self-identity by exalting itself to the detriment of the East, which was considered a lower cultural form, so that its conquest and domination were legitimate (Machuca, 2014). The so-called colonial discourse, which had appeared innocuous, began to be interpreted later as a set of false images about the East that Europeans used to control their colonies militarily, politically and culturally (Machuca, 2014).
Authors like Spivak and Said, are examples of the different approaches by which postcolonialists tried to study the “other” and its “representation.” In this way, it became clear that postcolonialisms main objects assumed new postcolonial identities. “Anthropologists (...) began to perceive that the scientific and objective image of their research needed to be seriously rethought in order for new perspectives to be taken into consideration" (Price, 2014, p. 145).
In addition, Young (2016) states, postcolonialism designates the perspective of theories which analyze the “material and epistemological conditions of postcoloniality and seek to combat the continuing, often covert, operation of an imperialist system of economic, political and cultural domination. The global situation of social injustice demands postcolonial critique – from the position of its victims, not its perpetrators” (Young, 2016, p. 58)
Around 1960 in the United Kingdom, Cultural Studies arose as a discipline (Price, 2014). This new and notoriously interdisciplinary amalgam shared the interest of anthropology in social and cultural affairs, but placed them in a new environment, “by attracting experts from a wide variety of ethnic and national origins, focused on global power relations, literary theory, film studies, ethnic studies, popular culture, political economy and much more” (Price, 2014, p.145). Cultural Studies serve as a theoretical reference to understand the role of the other in the discourse but also exemplify the increase work of different academics outside of the “western” point of view. Thus, Cultural Studies also introduce as a field to question the postcolonialism and westerns perspective.
Postcolonialism, as a field of analysis, faces the problematic issue of Eurocentrism (Hernández Ramírez, 2007), that has been the way of referring the history and the social relations according to Europe. The speeches on the modernity of Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, and Habermas indicate that modernity is an intra-European phenomenon (Dussel, 1993). In Habermas, it is clear that modernity occurs in Europe through a process whose milestones are the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Habermas points out that in the whole process of modernity, there is a spiritual unity, an evolution in which contact with others outside Europe are irrelevant (Hernández Ramírez, 2007)
It is not possible to measure the historical perspective globally based exclusively on the most outstanding European landmarks, such as the Renaissance, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, or the processes of modernity (Dussel, 1993). These historical facts are relevant and essential for the West, but insufficient as a reference point worldwide (Hernández Ramírez, 2007). In this way, Dussel (1993) warns about the limited nature and closed perspective of Eurocentric thinking. Reflect on how this point of view is inadequate to operate as a single or primary model and reference globally, given that the European had become the "default" model of society.
As we could see, postcolonial studies emerge as a need to represent the silent voices of the others or the subaltern. They are necessary to understand the representation of people or identities outside of the western conception or the eurocentrism. In this way, “postcolonialism is both contestatory and committed towards political ideals of a transnational social justice” (Young, 2016, p. 58).
It is clear that all those places that enter into a process of colonization are not usually considered within the Western and Eurocentric paradigm "The colonized areas, and marginalized of the optimal paradigms of modernity, permanently present the discursive deficiencies of their representations, for these are delimited within the enunciations and representations of the imperial power and knowledge of the colonizer. These shortcomings have also been criticized in different areas of the current postmodernity" (Marín Hernández, 2005, p. 300)
Colonized areas had been considered cultural peripheries, far from the cultural focus that the West has maintained on itself during centuries of colonial domination. The colonized countries remained in a state of secondary civilizations orbiting the colonizing country, convinced that it operated as a paternalistic and kind "cultural center" with its subordinates (Catelli, 2017). Europe considers that colonized countries had a sociocultural system reviled, and that was taken by an inferior, as remote and alien manifestation, poorly represented from the anthropological point of view (Fanon, 2009). The colonized subject is shown in the museum of the nineteenth-twentieth centuries still in a very limited and insufficient way. Moreover, in most cases this representation was disrespectful and not relevant to these subjects themselves.
Sevilla Pérez (2011) emphasizes in his thesis on imperial Europe and post-colonial Ecuador, and how this affects the representation of the peripheral subject in European museums: "The idea of the superiority of European man, who dominates nature through the Science, inherent in these ideologies, allows a double subalternation of America versus Europe and the indigenous in relation to Ecuadorian elites. In addition, European scientific expeditions play a crucial role in the symbolic appropriation of nature and aboriginal peoples through the collections that are then exhibited in European museums as a universal extension of imperial power" (Sevilla Pérez, 2011, p. 9).
These forms of knowledge construction about the Center/Periphery, do not indicate the processes and relationships in which both are immersed and where the silence of the script does not pacify or appease anything, the script does not it erases the memory - as Jaques Derrida writes (Marín Hernández, 2005). On the contrary it is a place of discussion and analysis for theoretical spaces, which express through the rereading of modernity and its past, the need for a political and discursive decolonization of the peripheries, and
where the colonial legacies are interrogated permanently, from the malaise that has originated in the culture the modern processes of rationalization and narration (Marín Hernández, 2005).
Thus, Cesáire and Campaña (2005) explains with respect to the problem of Eurocentrism and its social consequences in the field of cultural representation: The fact is that the European or Western civilization, as it has been shaped by two centuries of bourgeois regime, is unable to solve some main problems that its existence has caused such as the colonial problem. With this problem, Europe cannot be justified (Césaire & Campaña, 2005).
To represent themselves, the colonized only have the possibility of using the tools of the colonizers, since they do not have a place of enunciation from which to speak or respond. Their speech has no discursive status (Machuca, 2014). Spivak's thesis is that the voice of the subaltern does not appear in the texts anywhere, being only a sporadic object of colonial fantasy. If his voice cannot be recovered, it must be the historian who “represents” the subordinate, then losing his original condition (Gandhi, 1998). Here the central discourse of the European museum takes an essential part because is the materiality of the history that is presented on them. “Objects come to stand in for subjects not merely in the form of commodity fetish, but as part of a larger system of material and image culture that circulates as a prosthesis of race discourse through practices of collections exchange and exhibition” (González, 2008, p. 5).
To conclude, postcolonial studies show us that in historical studies, the realities of others in the reading of history is essential. Moreover, it is also a reflection about what others have to say. Also, the problem of discourse in the representation of the other shows us that Eurocentrism has marked the reading of the other, but the new look in which a voice is given to subordinates must be recognized. The relevance for European museums, and in this case Dutch Museums is clear: they are not exempt from an analysis under this view.
It was seen in the previous chapter that the reading of history had been marked by the European landmarks and this has generated a Eurocentrism in the conception of history, and in the relationship of Europe or "the West" and the rest of the world. However, new social concepts and analysis theories had led to questioning and even rethinking this situation. Among the scenarios in which postcolonialism are reflected as a tool for representing the colonized, are museums. Thus, it is necessary to understand the trajectory or the changes that the colonial museums have had until the present time.
The same way as colonialism left scars in colonized countries, the historical juncture also left its marks on the European continent. Through the cities of Europe are remains of colonial exhibitions such as commemorative plaques, statues of the great military leaders, monuments to battles, and of course, potent among these legacies of the empire, is the colonial museums (Aldrich, 2010). The evolution of the cabinets of curiosities and antiquities, towards the museums, implied moving from showing a classification system to some stages that demonstrated, from the objects, the superiority of some cultures over the others (Tomàs, 2012). This superiority can be seen, for example, in the British museum with treasures ranging from the Indian diamonds to the bronzes of Benin, and also in the 1800s when Napoleon created Egyptian galleries in the Louvre (Aldrich, 2010).
The construction of colonial museums in Europe between the 1880s and 1930s represented an image of the power of the empire because in them you could see the vast territories and the great victories over the primitive people (Aldrich, 2010). For the museums, special constructions were built with large halls in which those “others” - far from Europe - could be seen. “Each museum, tough laying out objects of‘ traditional ’and‘ primitive ’societies in its showcases, hoped to be modern: to show off the achievements of colonial powers and the arrival of ‘civilization’” (Aldrich, 2010, p. 14). It ends up with the exhibition of the pieces they had obtained as “hunting trophies” (González-Ruibal, 2014). These museums were intended to show exotic objects that had been obtained by explorers and scientists in their dangerous and remote expeditions. When representing otherness, the colonized individual was shown as a peripheral subject, little civilized, and on many occasions, dehumanized (van Greet, et al., 2016).
One the other side, the tendency of the “human zoo” where the native was represent animalized, with his exaggerated features monstrously or comically, in cages like some
sort of exotic animal to see (van Greet, et al., 2016), had an influence on the belittling of the other. It appeared vaguely and inaccurately in the form of notes, sketches, and various pictorial representations, always contrasting sharply with the outfit and the "civilized" ways of the conqueror who came to meet him. On the other hand, there was a preconceived idea of "the good savage," a being pure and kind, innocent in his almost nakedness and contact with nature.
As if that were not enough, the people from the colonies lived in lands rich in natural resources, and the colonizers hoped they would be collaborative with them so that they could benefit their empire. However, due to the abuses of the settlers, many of these natives became elusive over time or tried to protect themselves. It represented the "wild evil," the aggressive, the cannibal, the one who worshiped strange pagan gods. It was also the case of the natives who began to rebel against the violence and injustice of the conquerors, many times, and of course, in an aggressive or unfriendly way.
In short, the dehumanized and barbaric individual who posed a threat to the explorer, and therefore to the empire he served. These kinds of ideas were forged from the lack of information, the unreality, and the distortion of the conquerors. The settlers only knew a "civilized" and socially acceptable model of life: theirs. In most cases, they perceived the natives as a kind of sympathetic and potential servants who lived at the dawn of civilization.
The change from colonial to postcolonial European museums reflects the concern about the heritage of imperialism, and with decolonization the museums had the challenge of assessing the legacy of the past. (Thomas, 2010). With the prejudices that eurocentrism has develop over other it was not surprising that so much emphasis has been placed on equality over the past three decades (González-Ruibal, 2014). The change of focus in the museum environment was necessary, essential. The colonized subject focused on the periphery needed a more complete and realistic representation. A representation capable of sowing its reality with credibility and overcoming the centuries of dehumanization.
In this way, colonialism, slavery, immigration, and a multiplicity of networks and practices that symbiotically linked Europe to other regions of the world through the history, and had also created debates concerning the legacies of these encounters and the transhistorical phenomena that impact ethnic minorities and immigrant population (Thomas, 2010). These concern a broad set of cultural, economic, political and social restitution, the study and reassessment of colonialism, the role and “instrumentalization” of memory, the status of postcolonial subjects and ultimately the dynamic of a multicultural Europe (Thomas, 2010), that needed to take place in the museum institution.
The renovation of the anthropological-ethnographic museum became a prevailing necessity (Tomàs, 2012). However, after World War II the foundations of that colonialism began to be questioned in the metropolis and in the colonies, many of which had begun the road to independence. “All this led to the ethnology museums entering into crisis and
beginning the first attempts to reinvent themselves, eliminating or minimizing all colonialist expression, trying to re-signify the objects coming from the pillages made in previous decades, and also adapting to some societies each more multicultural" (van Greet, et al., 2016, p. 342).
Under postcolonial reading, the relationship with the "other" cannot be established in terms of exoticism or colonial relationship, but in terms of intercultural relations in the context of a globalized society, a new context of cultural connections and exchanges (van Greet, et al., 2016). Then, those distant and caricatured others become part of that group of multicultural citizens who live in western countries and cities. Thus, new museums have tried to exhibit with a sense of memory, but the assessment of the respective roles played by particular nation-state remains contested (Thomas, 2010).
Therefore, the reformulation of the role of the museum in the 21st century Europe is dual: rethink its positionality in the postcolonial Europe and reposition postcolonial Europe populations in the museums themselves.
In some European museum institutions, initiatives have already been taken in this regard, focusing on the debate around cultural difference and the variety of representations. These are some of the most notable examples concerning postcolonial discourse. If we start from the museum model in force during the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century, we find vast collections that, as we have already mentioned, were a new demonstration of hegemony by the colonizing countries (Price, 2014).
Several European museums initiated a change in the exhibition of their collections integrating post-colonialism as a voice alternative for the population of the colonies. Some have developed policies more in line with the representation of the other while integrating the importance of knowing the material culture of the other. Others continue to conserve more colonial stories and with more subjective elements of power.
The Royal Museum for Central Africa was founded following the 1897 Colonial Exhibition in Tervuren and displayed objects collected throughout the colonial period until the Republic of Congo gained its independence in 1960 (Bodenstein & Pagani, 2014).This institution was stuck in the find secular colonial model, a common problem of anthropological and ethnographic museums developed under the Eurocentrist curatorship model. The museum was renewed thanks to an attentive criticism of the colonial process, in addition to the contribution of African pieces, associating with more than twenty countries in Africa and also collaborating with the Belgian African diaspora (Price 2014). Nevertheless, the collection “as it is displayed now, the present exhibition
still reflects the way Europe regarded Africa in the 1960, there is recognition that this is ‘despite a radically altered social context not only Africa but here as well” (Thomas, 2010, p. 8), but for the remodeling of the museum it aims, however, to be a place of a different kind, relating not only to a national and exclusive memory but to a transnational relationship between two communities, united by a common but undoubtedly difficult past (Bodenstein & Pagani, 2014).
The Ethnographic Museum of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, is known for tackling and feeding for decades debates on cultural difference, as well as abundant exhibitions from an innovative perspective, and focused on decentralizing the old and Eurocentric ethnographic authority perspective (Price, 2014). All this housed under "ethical, philosophical and political bases of a collection in the field, art collections, museum strategies among other issues. The catalogs for an amazing parade of exhibitions, from «Collections Passion» (1982) to «Le Musée Cannibale (2003)» (Price, 2014: 159).
The Ethnological Museum in Berlin, Germany, will place its collections in the Humboldt Forum, inside a remodeled Prussian palace located in the center of the city. As Price indicates, it will focus on a very particular way: "There, conservatives have declared as a goal the attention to the colonial past (including violence) and the history of the collections, as well as the deconstruction of the concept of "Authenticity" and rejection of the idea of "traditional" a-historic cultures. They also point to current exchanges regarding human remains and collaborative exhibition projects with resources with the communities of origin" (Price, 2014, p. 160)
The reinstallation of the Benin collection of artifacts at the Ethnographical Museum of Stockholm in 2010 formulates the fundamental question of the legitimate ownership and guardianship of objects taken from foreign lands (Bodenstein & Pagani, 2014). This museum, mainly focused on the African field, has organized different exhibitions around the participation of Scandinavian participation in the Free State of the Congo and the conservation of human remains in the controversial debate about immigration and repatriation (Price, 2014). The way they display the object reflects a juxtaposition of values expressed that allows the museum to offer a form of partial reparation. Because the interpretation of the object’s place its cultural, social and political importance, although it cannot offer, any promise of actual restitution (Bodenstein & Pagani, 2014).
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The Pitt Rivers Museum, located in Oxford, England, which was founded in 1884, has renewed the projection of its anthropological collections. At present, it has focused on the visibility of Australian aborigines or Tibetan society. The institution, belonging to one of the countries with the most significant colonial activity, in the beginning, the
museum was organized based on typological criteria where objects were classified according to their formal and functional qualities. The material culture of different periods and societies was presented together in an attempt to show the evolution of the simple to the complex and to represent a reconstruction of the history of the world from the primitive / civilized dichotomy, making the museum a clear example of comparative ethnology (Tomàs, 2012). Nowadays, the exhibition “has organized an active program of resident artists and is making a special effort to include contemporary materials that challenge the modes of authenticity/traditionalism of past exhibitions” (Price, 2014, p. 160). Moreover, it has also inaugurated a research project that will return digital copies of photographs currently stored in Europe to the descendants of Australian aborigines who are protagonists of them, providing a significant resource on Indigenous heritage (Price, 2014).
The Museum of America in Madrid has more than 25,000 pieces related to Latin American countries colonized by the Spanish. These have been classified in different areas; ethnology, the pre-Columbian era, and the colonial period (Museum of America, n.d.). This museum, which was inaugurated in 1941 during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, still retains its original wooden display cabinets and a certain cabinet air of scientific curiosities. The museum's initial discourse was varied, very much in line with the nineteenth-century model that prevailed in Europe. As of 1983, the institution decides to focus on a new model, with the intention of representing the colonized peoples with greater veracity and more comprehensive documentation (Museum of America, n.d.).
Since the 80s, therefore, the museum has become what we know today: the collection is divided into two floors and five areas: knowledge, continent, society, religion, and communication. To get to address such an immense continent, they decided that the discourse was thematic and away from the purely chronological. It offers a very varied perspective of otherness: inside the museum, pieces and information are belonging to the five continents. Moreover, although the collection fails to delve very broadly into the groups that make it up, it does show a general perspective (Gómez-Robledo, 2014).
In this way, we understand that museum exhibitions in Europe have had an evolution outside of post-colonial theories. That is to say, they go from an objectification of the other in a Eurocentric framework, to pose problems of claim and representation based on their collections.
At this point, it is worth to mention that all the modifications in the conception of the ethnographical museums happened due to a change in the ways social theories were treated since the 1960s and 1970s (Tomàs, 2012). In addition, this involved international
institutions, which regulate the museums and protect the heritage. However, more important, to embrace strategies to face the colonial past and find common ground with the history and the representation of others.
Due to the destruction of archaeological and cultural sites, and the looting that occurred during World War II, in 1946 the International Council of Museums was created. It is an international non-governmental organization, with a formal relationship with respect to Unesco and with consultative status with respect to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ICOM, n.d.). Between 1948 and 1965 ICOM’s firsts conferences were held with three main points educational role of museums, exhibitions, the international circulation of cultural goods and the conservation and restoration of cultural goods.
Towards 1977, a new policy of ICOM’s took places in which they support to Asian, African, and Latin America developing countries for the training of museum staff and restorers (ICOM, n.d.). Then, four consecutive conferences enabled ICOM to fulfill two strategic goals, first, the agreement of a policy on museums in the service of society and its development; second a reference document of a Code of Ethics (ICOM, n.d.).
As of 1986, ICOM intensifies its action in favor of the fight against the illicit traffic of cultural goods, as well as the prevention of risks related to natural disasters. Similarly, ICOM has followed a new path, increasingly rooted in the international museum community and closer to civil society. (ICOM, n.d.).
In 2001 ICOM has undergone some changes ‘following a thorough review of the ICOM’s Code in the light of contemporary museum practice, structured on the earlier edition, was issued in 2001’ (Thomas, 2010). This, especially about the article 6: “Museum collections reflect the cultural and natural heritage of the communities from which they have been driven. As such they have a character beyond that of ordinary property which may include strong affinities with national, regional local, ethnic, religious or political identity. It is important therefore that museum policy is responsive to this possibility” (ICOM, 2017, p. 33)
According to Thomas (2010), this article is vital because it contributes to the debate post-colonialism in its numerical 6.2 Return of Cultural Property and 6.3 Restitution of Cultural Property. Thus, when faced with the multidimensionality of post-colonialism, we find three strategies that confront colonial history: 1. Rethink the ownership, 2. Reposition of the aesthetic and political representations, 3. Cut the difference between “we” and “they to recognize the post-colonial audience and that the nation-states are not the same (Thomas, 2010).
To conclude, the change in European museums was the result of a combination of three factors: first, as we discuss in the previous chapter, the development of social theories that changed the position of the exotic and / or distant “other” and gave it a voice
and protagonism in the history; second, the historical events of the last century such as the Second World War, the independence of African countries, and the independence of countries of Southeast Asia; and third, the emergence of regulatory institutions such as ICOM that, among other things, regulated the position of museums regarding the exposure of foreign cultures. Given this, the ethnographic museums in the Netherlands were not exempt of the challenge and change.
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Social changes, new museum approaches and new policies in today's globalized world have also led to organizations and initiatives to promote debate about ethnographic museums. An example of this is the Ethnography Museums and World Cultures’ (EMWC) or Réseau International des Musées d’ Ethnographie (RIME). In this initiative carried out between November 2008 and October 2013, ten ethnographic museums from Europe joined to organize workshops, exhibitions, symposiums, spectacles and publications, in relation to the perception of the population in topics such as modernity and first encounters (CultureLab, n.d.). These discussions revolved around questions such as “To what extent do ethnographic museums perpetuate a distinction between “us” and “them”? What are the implications for museum practice of the colonial contexts in which many museums’ collections were developed? How can the perspectives of indigenous peoples be integrated into museum interpretation? What is the role of contemporary art in ethnographic museums? What is the relationship of anthropology to ethnographic museums today? How should we collect and interpret material culture in the 21st century?”
(Diantha, 2013). This, showing the importance of questioning multicultural relationships and reassessing the content of narratives in museums.
The museums that were part of this organization were “Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale de Tervuren [BE], Musée du Quai Branly (Paris) [FR], Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford) [UK], Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (Leiden) [NL], Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico «Luigi Pigorini» (Rome) [IT], Världskulturmuseet (Göteborg) [SE], Linden-Museum Stuttgart [DE], Museo de América (Madrid) [ES], Museum für Völkerkunde (Vienne) [AT], Nàprstek’s Muzeum (Prague) [CZ]” (CultureLab, n.d.)
The previous chapters showed the relation of postcolonial theory to the changes in and around ethnographic museums, with a review of some approaches of European museums that involved the subject of the other and their representation. Now, to understand how postcolonial discourses are manifested in museum settings in the Netherlands, and furthermore, in some of the objects of this exhibitions, it will be necessary to do an analysis of the Dutch ethnographical museums. I took as reference three museums with ethnographic and archaeological collections: The Tropenmuseum (Museum of the Tropics), the National Ethnology Museum, and the Museum of Africa. This study is the result of an extend research of available literature (regarding the museums), official publications from the institutions, visits and one interview with Rita Ouedraogo (Research programmer of the RCMC).
In 2014 the Tropenmuseum of Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde of Leiden and the Afrikamuseum in Berg en Dal were merged to create The National Museum of World Cultures (Tropenmuseum, 2019b). Before this, “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the subsidizer, found the Tropenmuseum no longer to be one of its core tasks. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, which subsidizes the other two ethnological museums, only wanted to include the Tropenmuseum if the three merged” (Kammer, 2014). Since 2017 the World Museum (Wereldmuseum) became part of the The National Museum of World Cultures. The four museums together shared a collection of nearly 450,000 objects, 260,000 photographic images and 350,000 items of documentary footage.
These museums were chosen as the research for this project for three main reasons. First, because they are the main ethnographic museums of the Netherlands, with approximately 350,000 visitors a year all together (Kammer, 2014). Second, the museums are mainly focus on ethnography in contrast with the Missiemuseum Steyl that besides the ethnographical collection also contains a natural history collection and exhibition, for example. And third, because the museums cover a worldwide perspective with material culture from all around the world.
The Tropenmuseum is located to the east of the city center of Amsterdam in Linnaeusstraat 2. Since 1926 the building was inaugurated as the Colonial Institute and
the Colonial Museum, which later became the Museum of the Indies, and in 1950 it would become the Tropenmuseum (Tropenmuseum, 2019a).
Since 1864 Dutch traders, explorers, workers, and administrator of the United East India Company began what would be the collection of the representation of the Dutch colonies. Frederik van Eeden took the lead in this project by organizing the colonial museum on the first floor of his house in Haarlem (Aldrich, 2010; Tropenmuseum, 2019). This fist scenario of the Colonial Museum opened in 1871 and displayed raw materials and products from the colonies like timber, bamboo, coffee, tobacco, baskets, and furniture (The Tropenmuseum, n.d.).
Later, in 1910, the Colonial Institute Association was created by a group of parliamentarians and public servants (Aldrich, 2010). This Association collected the founds a promote the construction of what would be the new Colonial museum of the Netherlands with pieces and artifacts from the Dutch territories outside Europe. With the donation of funds and designs of banks, the colonial ministry, trades companies, and the Amsterdam city council, in 1916 the construction of the building started (Aldrich, 2010).
On October 9, 1926, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands inaugurated the building (Tropenmuseum, 2019a) with a persuasive speech that reaffirms the magnitude of the expansionist and colonial mentality: “(…) May this edifice continue to bear witness to compatriots and strangers that the Netherlands and our extensive overseas territory, although separated by wide oceans, are, and for better or for worse, in labor and striving, will remain, united forever” (Woudsma, 1990, pp. 23-24).
Figure 1. Inauguration of Colonial Museum by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands Source: Tropenmuseum.com
In addition to the raw material and the products previously mentioned, the museum collected as well indigenous products that were made from these raw materials. By the time, the ethnographic objects increased and made their way into the collection. The museum was then a trade museum that also focused on certain cultural phenomena (Faber & van Dartel, 2009). The narrative of the museum in 1926 was about “how a tobacco plantation worked and enabled visitors to see and hear a gamelan orchestra. The objects and presentations not only spoke about the practices and customs of the inhabitants of Indonesia, Suriname and the Antilles, but today also give insight in the mindset and perspectives of the collectors and the museum staff, including the staff of the Koloniaal Museum (Colonial Museum) of which it was a part”. (Faber & van Dartel, 2009, pp. 7-8).
Figure 2. Display of objects that recreate the museum in Harleem Picture by: María Camila Marín, Tropenmuseum
In 1944 the museum closed its doors, because due to Second World War, work in the institute became more and more difficult, and they had the need also to hide and protect the objects of the museum. In 1945 the museum reopened under the temporary name of Indisch Museum (Indian museum), and in 1950 it was established as the tropenmuseum with the collections of the colonies and with new acquisitions of other museums (Tropenmuseum, 2019a),
During the 1970s, the Dutch welfare state developed, and labor immigration policies were implemented, to promote social awareness in problems such as poverty and discrimination (Price, 2014). According to Legêne (2009), the implementation of the new policies was relevant to the Tropenmuseum because “these internal public welfare policies were combined with a broad political commitment to international development cooperation with the so-called Third World” (Legêne, 2009, p. 14). This changes also happened within the context of UN policies, as well as in bilateral relationships.
Moreover, since the 1970s, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs/ Development Cooperation became the leading donor of the Museum (Legêne, 2009).
The collection of the museum is made up of both modern artefacts and pieces of ancient art, photographs, videos; as well as by archaeological pieces and traditional elements of countries of the South Pacific. All these objects are the result of the combination of the 19th-century collection of the Colonial Museum and the old collection of the ethnographic museum of Artis (Legêne & Brakel, 2008). The objects are a sample of cultural diversity and the universal relationship of human cultures because, despite the differences, we all connect as human. Since 2014, the Tropenmuseum and its collection became part of the National Museum of World Cultures.
The history of the museum is a representation of the change of discourse around colonialism. In the beginning, the institution was a result of its own era, which mean a representation of the colonial empire. The construction of the museum as a showcase for the colonies, through the profound concept of showing the ownership and display of “other” culture as an exotic souvenir. Aldrich (2010), points out the museums expressly founded to promote colonialism and curators intended that the exhibitions proclaim the merits of the empire. That goal of displaying was also related to the propaganda of civilizing the “savages.”
During the post-war era, Tropenmuseum was consequent about changing from Colonial Museum to Indisch Museum. This change reflected the beginning of a decolonizing process that was related to the independence of Indonesia (Faber & van Dartel, 2009). With the hand of the Tropenmuseum as the new name of the museum, a new perspective was revealed in the exhibition. “It focused on new regions of the world such as Africa, South America, Southern Asia, and the Middle East. An affinity with contemporary issues developed in combination with a growing socio-economic and cultural focus” (Faber & van Dartel, 2009, p. 8). In this way, the discourse studs up against the concept of eurocentrism, and started the slow process of mediator by rationalization and narration of the reality of the “others.”
Another critical moment on the postcolonial structure of the museum was the 1970s when the museum transformed into an information center on the Third World (Faber & van Dartel, 2009). For this period the exhibits were not as much focused on objects as they were on stories and argumentations. Also, a new tool of the display, such as photographs, texts, and audiovisual presentations became important. “The recreation of living environments became the exhibition strategy to help the visitor imagine the daily lives of common people in Thailand, Mali or Peru more easily” (Faber & van Dartel, 2009, p. 8). The disruption of the discourse here consisted on the replacement of colonial paternalism and national economic gain to the action-orientation of international solidarity movement (Faber & van Dartel, 2009).
Over the almost 50 years in between that configuration of the museum and today, the exhibition continues changing according to the demands and realities of the public and the society.
After several visits to the museum, and detail observation and analysis of the display, I was able to identify two main layers of the permanent exhibition. In the first layer, is the geographical division of the fourth main wings of the museum: New Guinea, Indonesia, Southeast-Asia, and Surinam. For each one of the areas, there is a different approach to the material culture and history in relation to the Netherlands. The exhibition universal human themes such as grief, celebration, seduction, prayer, and conflict. A purely geographical organization of each area is left aside that allows us to understand the museum's slogan of how, despite our differences, “we are all human” (Tropenmuseum, 2019b). The second layer is about the colonial history between the Netherlands and the other regions.
The New Guinea exhibition is divided into two parts. The first consists on a majority of archaeological and cultural remains that represented the spirituality and cosmogony of the indigenous tribes. Among the labels of this collection there are also text about colonization and improvements of the New Guinea culture. The objective of this part of the exhibition is to show the material culture of foreign countries and it can be seen as a way of appropriation of other people culture, but the discourse and display of the museum reveal the intention of teaching. Also, the archaeological objects in this part of the museum are representations of the true meaning of the objects, with no transformation or interpretation of the “western” curator.
Figure 3. Display of material culture Picture by: María Camila Marín, Tropenmuseum
The second part of the New Guinea exhibition is about the colonial relation between them and the Netherlands. In this part, the museum shows a straightforward relationship with the colonial past of the European country. Here, the narrative is about how the colonies contributed positively to the development of the Netherlands and vice versa, not only for economic interests but also for the cultural contributions that the exchange implies. An interactive experience about history is offered between this part of the exhibition. In this way, diaries of the European expeditions, military narratives, ship, maps, and representations of the construction of new cities can be observed. Through these rooms, it is continuously mentioned how the colonial past should not be denied, but if cultural recognition of the mixtures is indispensable, just as the current culture is a product of that same past. The importance of the museum's objective as an education and memory entity is also mentioned, and not of a colonizing entity of power.
Figure 4. Display of the contribution of materials from New Guinea to the Netherlands
Picture by: María Camila Marín, Tropenmuseum
The room about Indonesia is also represented with the interaction between the Dutch and the native people. In this area, you can see the cultural exchange among people. However, in this part of the museum an interesting scenario of postcolonialism discourse is represented: wax figures of fictional European character recreated in the Indonesian environment. With this representation of the European people, it shows them as the “other” in the showcase, reversing the narrative of the colonial museum. About this, “Though obviously ironic, the display is not devoid of a certain sense of nostalgia that is at once contradictory and fitting for such a paradoxical exercise in self-reflexive museum representation” (Bodenstein & Pagani, 2014, p. 43)
Figure 5. European character recreated in the Indonesian environment Picture by: María Camila Marín, Tropenmuseum
The third geographical area of the Tropenmuseum is Southeast-Asia. In this room, the exhibition is about the material culture of this subcontinent. The objects among this area represent elements of daily use, religion, music, and jewelry. The labels around this room also tell parts of the colonial background of the Netherlands in this region.
Figure 6. Material culture from Southeast-Asia Picture by: María Camila Marín, Tropenmuseum
The fourth geographical scenario of the Tropemuseum is the Surinam room. This part of the museum contains a more social and current vision of the narrative and the objective of the institution. Here, the museum shows a space to fight against racism,
remembering the implications of slavery even in our society. This narrative layer is not only the reflection on the legacy of slavery in the Dutch black population but also a way of making visible the faces and names of the people who were victims of these events. This space is a new wing for post-coloniality in the Netherlands.
Figure 7. Recreation of racist images from the present Picture by: María Camila Marín, Tropenmuseum
The Museum of Ethnography is situated on the Steenstraat 1 in Leiden. The history of this institution dates from the year 1837, as one of the oldest ethnological museums in the world. King Willem I, the first king of the Netherlands encourage the establishment of national institutions for the promotion of science and art and instructed scholars to collect collections in China, Indonesia and Japan (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 2019a). “The physician Philipp Franz von Siebold assembled a large collection of Japanese objects and works of art between 1823 and 1830 while working at the Dutch trading agency Deshima (Nagasaki). In 1837 this Von Siebold collection, together with the collection of the Royal Cabinet of Rarities, formed the basis of the National Ethnographic Museum” (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 2019a). Since 1935 it has been currently housed in a previous academic hospital (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 2019a)
Since 2014 the Museum Volkenkunde is a part of the Stichting Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen (Foundation National Museum of World Cultures). This foundation consists of the Museum of world cultures, the Tropenmuseum and the Africa museum (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 2019b). In 2017 the foundation began collaborating
with the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam. The joint collection contains nearly 450,000 objects, 260,000 photographic images, and around 350,000 items of documentary footage. In addition to the collection, the four museums share a joint mission: inspire an open view of the world and contribute to global citizenship (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 2019b).
The Museum Volkenkunde has a permanent exhibition of eight cultural regions: 1. Indonesia, 2. Asia, 3. Africa, 4. Central America and South America, 5. The Artic and North America, 6. Japan and Korea, 7. China, and 8. Oceanía. The exhibition serves to teach that “despite cultural differences, we are all essentially the same: humans” (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 2019b). Moreover, so, the culture can trace down to material representation despite the race or the nationality. The museum has an implicit message that the culture can be close to everybody, and the knowledge of it should be share.
After a couple of visits to the Museum of National Ethnology, about the exhibition, I realized three layers of the exhibition. The first one is the display of archaeological remains, and other objects of the material culture of the different regions to represent different areas of the human culture, for example, the religion, the jewelry as a sign of power, the clothes, the music, the ceramics (for eating or ceremony), among other elements. This is possible using a narrative that involves the representation of archaeological finds and cultural objects as elements of tradition and heritage. The objects are shown as pieces of art, in a way to be observed, but far from a close analysis of the meaning.
Figure 8. Caps from Mali, they were found during and archaeological excavation of graves
Picture by: María Camila Marín, Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde
The second story or layer of the museum I find more subtle than the first because it can be noticed in some label around the exhibition. It consists on the influence of the Dutch on the geographical areas. With this part of the storyline of the museum, it is displayed not only the colonial history (about the plunder of treasures, or the gifts from colonies) but also about the academic and explorers around the globe, or European people that contribute to the collection of the objects.
Figure 9. Gerti Noorter, Dutch explorer in the Artic
Picture by: María Camila Marín, Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde
The third layer that I could identify in the museum was the contemporary ethnographical line. This layer is important in the experience of the visit and the understanding of the narrative of the museum as an ethnographical institution. Around the rooms of the museum, each geographical area has a projection of videos of the living traditions. This videos as the complement of the exhibition draw a line between the classical ethnographical display and the contemporary ethnographic exhibition (Bjerregaard, 2014). The importance of these two ways of ethnographical exhibition leads to the discussion around the other on the postcolonial discourse.
The manifestation of the postcolonial discourse in the Museum of National Ethnology differs from the discussion about the Tropenmuseum and the colonial past. As it was discussed in the second chapter of the ethnographical museum emerge as a result of a new perspective over the narrative of the “other.” However, the history of the ethnographical collections and museum is older and polemic as the Colonial Museum’s history that was mention before.
The ethnographical museum1 in the middle 1800s was institution made by
anthropologist to develop their evolutive and physics theories through the collection of objects from different parts of the world (van Greet, et al., 2016, p. 345). The collections were meant to showcase the exotic and the foreign, but also, to demonstrate the difference between the civilized and the salvage (Boursiquot, 2014). The beginning of the ethnographical museum was with objects and later on, the exhibition, in some places, was complement with the display of living native people (van Greet, et al., 2016). The discourse of this way of exhibit was a clear example of the colonial thinking discuss in previous chapters. On the one side, the “other” seen as a curiosity object that reflects the eurocentrism and the superiority discourse of the power to study and catalog other human beings. On the other side, the conception of the institution that showcases the expansionist or the scopes of the European people. “Along with the ethnological exhibition of human beings in colonial exhibitions and world fairs, these objects both confirmed anthropology’s status as an empirical science and established the distinction between Westerners and the ‘Others’” (Boursiquot, 2014, p. 65).
Before becoming the multicultural institution that it is today(or that it tends to be), the ethnographic museum had a significant evolution in its objectives. It had a scientific perspective, in which the museum seeks to preserve, classify and study the products of humankind and nature (Boursiquot, 2014). Later, during the nineteenth century the combination between museum and anthropology took shape: “The idea of a natural selection, validated by the concept of evolution, justified the classification of ethnographic artefacts with animals and other natural specimens. Ethnographic objects were seen as evidence of the gradual evolution of humankind from the state of savagery to civilization” (Boursiquot, 2014, p. 65).
However, the position of showing the other as something exotic changed, the same way the museum’s discourses and exhibits shift. The Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, as an ethnographic institution, had to turn the narrative of its collection. Over a new context of cultural exchange and connections, the relationship with the “other” could not continue as a colonial relation, and it has to be in terms of intercultural context of the global society (van Greet, et al., 2016). Down the gaze of the postcolonial world, it was not possible to talk about a distant society or a remote “other,” the ethnographical collection had to acknowledge the multiculturalism (van Greet, et al., 2016).
To conclude, The Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde was part of this process of change of the ethnographical perspective of the museum. The change implied letting behind the collecting for display the difference, to embrace the difference as part of all humankind characteristic.
1
In this context I talk about Ethnographic museums as a result of ethnographic expeditions to collect and build these museums (Boursiquot, 2014, p. 64)
The Afrikamuseum is located in Postweg 6 in the city of Berg en Dal. The African Museum was founded in 1954 as an initiative of Father Fr. O. Bukkems, a member of the congregation of the Holy Spirit while working as a missionary in Tanzania. Thus, the priest and other members of the congregation began to carry traditional objects that would recreate a vision of African culture in the Netherlands. Two years later, in the museum of Africa, it became an independent foundation, and a year later a new space for the museum was opened in an open garden of a house (Afrikamuseum, 2019a).
The museum's collection consists of traditional African objects from the early 19th century, contemporary African art and architectural samples from Ghana, Lesotho, Mali, Cameroon, and Benin. Among the objects are costumes, religious artifacts, masks, statues, and other objects that represent the customs and traditions of different African countries. The African museum exhibit shows us again the universality of culture through aspects such as grief, celebration, ornamentation, prayer, and conflict. This narrative exemplifies the diversity of humanity (Afrikamuseum, 2019a).
The central division in the exhibition is the outdoor villages and the indoor museum. The outdoor exhibition is an exciting representation of five regions of Africa. First, there is a Lesotho compound that represents the south of Africa (Afrikamuseum, 2019a), you visit four traditional villages of Africa, all of them with their vegetable plots and grazing cattle. Over the area is possible to visit the recreation of the Dogon village from Mali, the Baka pygmies' mongulus from Cameroun, the Ghanianian compound, and the pile dwellings from Benin.
The indoor exhibition is a combination of the traditional elements of Africa, the view of modern Africa, and the influences of Africa around the world. The first part of the museum is an overview of the image that Europe had create around Africa for decades. The display is made with children toys, magazines, and the purple shoes of Black Pete, element that don’t identify or represent the African culture2 (Afrikamuseum, 2019b). This
section aims to be reflexive about those imageries of the other. The history of African counties is connected to almost all other countries of the western world due the slavery. That historical event caused social and political problems that can be seen nowadays like racism, poverty and segregation. In this way, the first part of the museum is a scenario that shows some of the results of that trade many years ago.
2This section of the museum was under renovation during the period this research was conducted.
Before the visits, a reading of blogs and articles of the museums was done, doing this part for the Afrikamuseum some interesting content about this section was mention due to that I thought about the importance of mention it. Here I want to mention the online Blog “Wilma Takes a Break”
Figure 10. Element that don’t identify or represent the African culture Source: http://wilmatakesabreak.nl/afrika/op-ontdekkingsreis-afrika-museum/
The second part of the Africa Museum is the classical ethnographical display. The material remains that represent the culture and traditions of African countries. Over this exhibition the religion plays an essential part which is reflected in the many spiritual representations and rituals such as the connection with the ancestor. But, also represent the modern religions that still active like Christianism and Muslim.
Towards the museum, the concept of the influence of African Diaspora around the world is a constant reminder. With that in mind, the third part is an exhibition of the modern art from African artist, but also artists with the influence of the African Diaspora from Cuba, Haiti, American, and the Netherlands. This time the exhibition was about fashion in Africa. Starting from the assumption that fashion is a global issue, in general terms we do not refer to Africa when thinking about fashion, but this continent has a lot to say. Thus, this room is an area that shows the main fashion cities that are Casablanca, Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi with samples of the style and design that can be found there. There is also a section with a vision from the world of local fashion with messages about second-hand markets and trends. Finally, there is a section with “Dutch experts who process their African roots in fashion: Daily Paper, Karim Adduchi, Lady Africa, Doru Komonoteng Loboka and Nsimba Valene Lontanga” (Afrikamuseum, 2019c)
Figure 11. Fashion in Africa
Picture by: María Camila Marín, Afrikamuseum
Colonialism has been present in the history of the Museum of Africa, since its creation, due to the fact that its collection is a product of missionaries. The work of the missionaries is a representation of colonialism because it involved forms of subjugation of one people by another (Young, 2016). In addition, the concept of bringing religion to another region is based on the ideas of civilized and uncivilized. It is almost impossible not to talk about Africa and mention colonial issues such as slavery or racism. However, despite this historical connotation, the discourse analysis over this museum will be around the way it embraces the decolonization.
From the moment the visitor enters the museum, faces the stereotypes of the African people created by the white European (naked, uncivilized, poor, big red lip or big mouth, silly). Those images are recreation of the historical racism or the colonial body that black people face every day. The body in which each of the linguistic, discursive, practical, performative, economic and, in a sense restricted to civilizational, cultural representation forms (De Oto, 2017). Racism is something that organize the social structure (Cavalli, 2017), and turns the white people in something superior. As a result of this social structure, the complex of inferiority has been reproduced and interiorize by the people of color. In that sense, it is necessary to acknowledge the color to be able to “wash it up” and free itself from their own racism (Fanon, 2009). With the recognition of the racist stereotype, the museum is washing the face, and freeing themselves from the chains, and in that way, decolonizing the racism.
In the second wing of the exhibition, cultural objects represent the past and the African identity, the materiality of the past in the museum is used to show the objects as a sign of a distant culture making it closer as you know it. The role of the archaeological objects,
and the material remain is also a way of displaying another cultural aspect of the African countries that is translated on the past. The exhibition in this wing is one of the strategies and goal of the modern ethnographical museums in which there is a place for the past for the multiculturalism around the modern era.
Figure 12. Figurine altar, Benin
Picture by: María Camila Marín, Afrikamuseum
The third area of exhibition of the museum is a place where the modern discourses and process of decolonization takes place. The display of African artists and artist with African influences is a way of giving the voice to the colonized, or the subaltern that Spivak (1988 [1985]) explain. The other gets a voice (Spivak, 1988 [1985]) to tell his story, and he does not need the Western's position to define himself. This scenario is important to the new approaches of the ethnographical museum because here the African is no longer the other but is part of the new story of art and modernity. Here, the museum that is not limited to a specific historical period or to a particular cultural group. It gives a places the human person and not the object as the center of their concerns, which gives priority to cultural action and its relationship with visitors, which displaces identity through diversity (Tomàs, 2012).
Finally, the museum's outdoor section. Here the museum object ceases to be something distant and envelops visitors in reality. This part of the museum is a new proposal of museography, which in turn faces post-colonialism. The open-air museum is characterized by the association it makes with popular culture and tradition (Tomàs, 2012). It manifests different types of life and generates a temporary opposition. The last exhibition hall is the final objective of postcolonial theory, in which it involves the viewer. This form of exhibition highlights the cultural identity of a given territory, raising awareness when interacting with this (Tomàs, 2012).
To conclude this chapter, we see then that postcolonial discourse manifests itself in several ways. In the Tropenmuseum postcolonialism is a historical process that serves to remember the past, to reconcile with the other and even to confront the colonial position and legacy. In the museum of national ethnology, post-colonialism is a way to include the narratives of the "other" and make it part of the same story. Finally, the African museum presents post-colonialism as a decolonization in which it confronts the colonizing entity, this decolonization is also seen in the way they give voice to the "other" or subaltern. These postcolonial dimensions are a scenario of the challenges and complications that museums must face when they create their exhibition and choose the narrative.
Figure 13. Cameroon household
