Author: Monique Scott
Source: Museum Anthropology, DOI: 10.1111/muan.12285, March 2024
Type of Publication: Journal Article
Abstract: As we further seek to 鈥渄ecolonize鈥 museum images of Africa, the museum archives of African Collections鈥攖he correspondence, ledgers, diaries, photographs, and other documents of White explorers working in Africa鈥攕uture the colonial practices that produced ways of seeing Africa鈥攁nd Blackness more broadly鈥攂ack onto the objects that museums maintain and display today. As increasing scholarly attention seeks to rectify the anti-Black colonial violence of the archive, this research aims to situate the pedestrian colonial ethnographic practices and spectacular African explorer mythmaking found in museum archives within the foundation of museum anthropology and the museum itself. It also looks to the possibilities of contemporary museum practice to reframe and repair colonial museum constructions of Africa.
Monique Scott is an associate professor of history of art and director of museum studies.
History of Art
Museum Studies
