Posts
Decolonization
Building True, Lasting Collaborations with Source Communities
It’s well-documented by this point: museums are changing. No longer solely repositories of information and keepers of culturally important artifacts, museums today are taking on new roles …
Apsáalooke exhibition at Field Museum avoids stereotypes, shows ‘Native Americans are still here.’
The atrocities committed against indigenous people by white settlers are being acknowledged in Chicago and across the country, but the "Apsáalooke Women and Warriors" exhibit at the …
Chris Newell: First Wabanaki Leader of the Abbe Museum
Ian Elsner describes Museum Archipelago (@museum_go on Twitter) as “a tiny podcast guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums.” As a devoted follower of the podcast, I was delighted …
Is That Hung White?
A conversation on the state of museum exhibitions and race. This article originally appeared in the Summer 2020 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. In 2016, a group of 24 …
Of Law and Ethics: What do museums need to know in this new era of cultural property ownership disputes?
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2020 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. A tension often exists between the law and the ethics of collecting cultural …
Knowing Better, Doing Better: The San Diego Museum of Man takes a holistic approach to decolonization
This article originally appeared in the January/February 2020 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. As museum professionals, we typically think of the word “curate” as a …
Museopunks Episode 41: Digitization is not neutral
Over the past decade, museums have increasingly shared high-resolution open access images of their collections. Yet there are significant legal and ethical complexities related to digital …
Two Case Studies in Decolonization
In this series of posts, EdCom’s Trends Committee is taking a deeper look at emerging phenomena identified in the most recent edition of TrendsWatch from the Center for the Future of …
Decolonizing the Future: museums as agents of generational equity
“We treat the future like a distant colonial outpost devoid of people, where we can freely dump ecological degradation, technological risk, nuclear waste and public debt, and that we feel …
Museopunks Episode 38: Decolonization and its Discontents
As decolonization moves more firmly onto the agenda in museums, so too does its critique. In this episode, we speak with Sumaya Kassim, author of the essay ‘The Museum Will Not Be …
Ceding Authority and Seeding Trust
This article originally appeared in the July/August 2019 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. Through a decolonizing collections practice, the San Diego Museum of Man is …
Discomfort in Learning: Museum audiences react to decolonizing practices.
This article originally appeared in the July/August 2019 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. Traditional museum models of interpretation have historically failed …