As this special issue dedicated to the intersection of museums and the fields of historical justice and social justice was nearing completion, pro-democracy demonstrators entered their twentieth week of mass protests on the streets of Hong Kong. Following months of political unrest pitting pro-Beijing protesters against anti-government demonstrators, what began over the government’s proposed extradition bill that would see mainland China become the trial ground for people in Hong Kong accused of crimes has grown into a full-fledged pro-democracy movement with demands that now include larger democratic reforms.
And, following her impassioned speech at the UN Climate Action Summit at UN headquarters in New York City on September 23, 2019, climate activist Greta Thunberg has continued to inspire millions in a global movement urging immediate climate justice. Throughout her autumn tour in the Americas, in which she has led Fridays for Future rallies across Canada and the U.S., from Montreal (estimated by some to be the largest rally in the city's history) and Vancouver to Iowa City, Thunberg has continued to galvanize the world community to address the urgency of the climate crisis through sustained public involvement and societal change.
As these two examples of recent weeks illustrate, justice and activism are intimately engaged. The continued rise of activism in its many forms, fuelled by the momentum of peoples’ movements supporting diverse political, social, environmental and economic reform and change all over the world is the hallmark of our contemporary times. The ethos of this moment and its manifestations have also had profound effects on contemporary museological praxis, as new museum types, programming, collecting, research, exhibitions and larger practices dedicated to justice – in relation to both unresolved and ongoing injustices and contested histories – and activism so clearly reveal.
In keeping with this ethos, the timely publication of this special issue of Museum Management and Curatorship brings together articles addressing subjects of social and historical in/justice in museological practice as reflected upon by museum professionals and academics from different geopolitical contexts and a breadth of international perspectives around the globe. The focus of the issue has intentionally been conceived broadly as a means of encouraging equally broad approaches to articulating and theorizing how museum practices have evolved in their intersection with the fields of historical justice and social justice. In what ways are museums engaging with subjects of injustice, and to what ends? What are the new networks, who are the new actors in these networks, and what strategies have they introduced? What are the political implications of a contemporary museological praxis engaged in contested subject matter? Is current professional training adequate for the new roles and practices of museums engaged in these fields? A recent increase in the literature dedicated to museums, social justice and activism underscores how museum professionals are collectively rethinking the many potential roles of museums, as well as the impact on contemporary praxis that engagement in these important fields entails.
This special issue is the second of a new tradition at the journal. Since December 2018, we have dedicated Museum Management and Curatorship’s sixth issue of the calendar year to a designated theme of interest to the international museum community, with the intention of exploring the theme from multiple points of view. In the first edition, Editor-in-Chief James Bradburne oversaw an issue which examined museum governance in Italy, and the implications of the Franceschini reforms for a number of the country's state museums. Articles by both supporters and critics discussed these reforms from the dual perspectives of curation and management. In taking up the subjects of historical and social justice in contemporary museum praxis, the 2019 special issue aims to consider the nexus of justice and museums from the diverse practices of curatorship and curatorial activism, museum education, community collaboration and, in the words of one of this issue's contributors, ‘an active political perspective’. (Ünsal)
Each of the articles of this special issue focusses on a different contemporary facet of social or historical justice and, in candid writing, highlights challenges as well as potential solutions to evolving museological praxis in these areas. The authors have approached the theme from different perspectives and theoretical frameworks. The work of museums in situations of transitional justice has been addressed by curators Cristina Lleras, Sofía Natalia González-Ayala, Juliana Botero-Mejía and Claudia Marcela Velandia, who recount the making of – and experiences surrounding – Voces para transformar a Colombia (Voices for the Transformation of Colombia), a temporary exhibition unveiled by the country’s developing national Museum of Memory (still in planning) at the annual literary fair, Filbo, held in Bogotà and subsequently in Medellín in 2018. The Museum is considered a measure of symbolic reparation for the victims of the country’s prolonged armed conflict for which a precarious and still fragile Peace Treaty was signed in 2016. But what constitutes appropriate museological actions for symbolic reparation? And how might such actions engender change and societal transformation? The authors of this article probe these fundamental questions and describe curatorial measures aimed at contributing to the necessary step of achieving symbolic reparation, and therefore a form of justice, for Colombia. They also consider the response of different publics to the exhibition, noting how they constructed their own meanings from the content of Voces para transformer.
Questions of diversity, representation and equity in museum decision-making and processes of museum and community collaboration have been addressed by curator Armando Perla and human rights activist Yasmin Ullah. In their article they discuss the stages of the development of a relationship between members of the Rohingya community in Canada and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which led to the co-curation of an exhibition about the ongoing genocide in Burma perpetrated against the Rohingya people, Time to Act: Rohingya Voices, inaugurated in June 2019. While offering important insights into community-museum engagements and collaborative practices, the authors also reflect more broadly on how museums can engage ethically with historically marginalized populations, bringing special attention to questions of representation and diversity in museum leadership, but also to privilege within societal structures such as museums. Argued through the lens of critical race theory, as well as anti-oppression and social justice frameworks, the authors provide a detailed account of how a form of activist curatorship evolved in the meaningful encounter of community and museum throughout the co-curation of Time to Act – requiring time and communication, but also, training and institutional reflection, which emerge as valuable suggestions going forward for best meeting the diverse needs of the different communities with whom museums work.
The development of educational programming within the context of the rise of human rights museums has received specific attention by academic and researcher Chia-Li Chen, who analyzes the National Human Rights Museum in Taiwan as a case study of how a museum balances memorializing and human rights functions in its work in the context of a country’s coming to terms with a history of martial law (1949–1987) and the White Terror era. Discussing the Museum’s diverse programming, and presenting the range of both the practices and challenges that have arisen within a developing national museum dedicated to preserving traumatic memories of the past while also connecting this past to the present and future to empower visitors through human rights education, Chen builds on previous pedagogical theories to propose how a pedagogy of listening and dialogue can provide meaningful direction in this work.
Thinking through how museums can address different social injustices – the refugee crisis and grave human rights violations among them – and the structures that inhibit equity to diverse communities around the globe, anthropologist, lecturer, and heritage and museum consultant Deniz Ünsal considers what it means for museums to adopt an ‘active’ political perspective in their work. Drawing on the writing of social theorist Boaventura de Sousa Santos and his concept ‘epistemologies of the South’, Ünsal discusses museums in the context of globalization and global networks, reconsidering the approach of museums with different publics and social issues in light of these conditions. Adopting de Sousa Santos's epistemological perspective, she highlights the processes of intercultural translation and demonumentalization as productive means for repositioning knowledge regimes in contemporary museums.
We are also inaugurating the practice of including an exhibition review in addition to a book review, each of which have a direct rapport with this issue’s theme. María Juliana Angarita shares her impressions as a visitor to Voces para transformar a Colombia (discussed by Lleras et al), highlighting the metaphorical dimensions of the exhibition and its positioning within the framework of transitional justice, as well as its address of the structural roots of violence. Author of several books interrogating the intersection of social activism and museum work, Kylie Message reviews one of the more recent publications to address the rise of activism in museological practice, Museum Activism, co-edited by Robert R. Janes and Richard Sandell and published at the beginning of the year.
Finally, 2019 has been a watershed moment in social justice and activism, one in which the museum sector has made its own mark. As contributing authors were finalizing their articles over the summer, the Executive Board of ICOM announced its proposal for a new museum definition, one that it submitted for review and vote at the Extraordinary General Assembly at ICOM’s triennial conference in Kyoto, Japan, in September. With its explicit reference to rights, social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing, the proposed definition marked a very different approach from previous definitions structured around the principle functions of museum work that have served the museum community since ICOM’s inception in 1946. Following vigorous debate by members of the world’s museum community, the Assembly chose to postpone the vote regarding the proposed definition in order to allow for more discussion of the proposal.
The articles collected here tell their own stories about how museums and museum professionals are engaging with the very ideas put forward in the proposed new museum definition. I would like to thank the authors for their contributions to this special issue as well as to ongoing museological reflections in the arenas of historical and social justice more broadly. It has been a great pleasure and privilege to guest edit this special issue and to exchange with colleagues throughout this process.