{"id":137854,"date":"2023-11-23T00:45:02","date_gmt":"2023-11-23T05:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=137854"},"modified":"2023-11-23T00:45:02","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T05:45:02","slug":"museum-collections-deeply-entrenched-in-violence-colonialism-professor-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/museum-collections-deeply-entrenched-in-violence-colonialism-professor-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Museum collections \u2018deeply entrenched\u2019 in violence, colonialism, professor says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lafayette course explores how \u2018imperialism,’ ‘looting\u2019 shaped museums<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Lafayette College students are being taught that modern museums are instruments of \u201cpower,\u201d entrenched in \u201cviolence\u201d and colonialism, according to a new anthropology course offered this fall.<\/p>\n

Professor Monica Salas Landa, who teaches the \u201cMuseum Studies: History, Theory, and Debates\u201d class at the private Pennsylvania university, said she wants to give students a new perspective about museums and their collections.<\/p>\n

This month, her class organized an exhibit, \u201cPotential History and Unlearning Imperialism,\u201d with museum objects that have had \u201cimperialist ties erased from them\u201d and \u201ctheir histories reframed,\u201d The Lafayette<\/em> student newspaper reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Salas Landa said popular museums like the Met and the British Museum often \u201csanitize\u201d objects and displays in a way that obscures \u201cthe very violent context of their extraction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The purpose of the class exhibit, which is on display through Dec. 6, \u201cis to address the deeply entrenched violence inherent in museum collections through thought-provoking textual interventions,\u201d she told<\/a> the college\u2019s news office.<\/p>\n

Students presented the information to make people think about where the objects came from and how they were taken, including by using \u201cindigenous names for the objects,\u201d Salas Landa told The Lafayette<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not use quotation marks, because they can be perceived as othering,\u201d she said. \u201cWe pay a lot of attention to grammar and to those little details that we don\u2019t notice but end up reproducing imperial ways of writing, of seeing, of thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salas Landa added: \u201cMost of these objects were extracted under very violent circumstances. This very violent process of extraction was tied to imperial projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Offered for the first time this fall, the anthropology class teaches students to think about the modern museum \u201cas an instrument and technology of power,\u201d according to the course description<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The course involves discussions about \u201chow the practices and ideologies of colonialism, looting, and exploitation have shaped the construction of museums and their collections since the cabinets of curiosities of the Enlightenment.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also asks students to consider if \u201cmuseums can be transformed into spaces for restitution, repatriation, community building, and the unlearning of the imperial foundations of knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other colleges also are adding DEI thought into anthropology and museum curation courses. Tufts University began offering an Anti-Racist Curatorial Practice certificate in 2022, The College Fix<\/em> reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MORE: Archaeology\u2019s woke trend: Obtain consent from someone who\u2019s dead to study their bones<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

IMAGE: Lafayette College Library\/Instagram<\/p>\n

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