Museums and Social Justice

MUSEUMS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
by (Name)
Name of the Class (Course)
Professor (Tutor)
Name of the School (University)
City and State where it is located
Date
Introduction
Museums have to exhibit historical representations of different communities and social groups. The community consultation strategy involves holding meetings and conducting discussions with the stakeholders, such as groups and communities, and arriving at a consensus. The heritage aspect of museums is undeniable, and the accurate representation of different heritage aspects is essential. Museums also serve to educate communities on the various heritage aspects of other communities or the ones within which they live (Crooke, 2010). Raison d'être of Museums refers to the mandate of educating and shaping the collective values and understandings of society (Watson, 2007). Museums can govern and regulate social values as well as the attitudes that define citizenry. Such values may also represent different groups and diverse cultural identities (Witcomb, 2003). The sense of community consultation is evident as it helps maintain credibility and the relevance of museums. The socially accepted representations by museums are credible and reliable in different aspects. Notably, there are different museums, ranging from arts, music, artifacts, and many more. Generally, the historical connections of museum exhibitions have a connection with the various social injustices that occurred in the past. For instance, different museums around the world display the trans-Atlantic slave trade. They clearly show the atrocities that Africans endured before they were forcefully bundled together in small ships. This paper examines the debate on whether museums should engage in activism and social justice.
Museums and Activism
Museums act as institutions of representation, and they play a critical role in social justice and activism. Based on Nancy Fraser’s arguments, museums play a critical role in the struggles for social justice. The failure to recognize this critical role can cause tensions during the community consultation processes. Museums attempt to give balanced representations of the historical events that took place in ancient times. A good example is the search for political recognition and social justice by most African-Caribbean individuals who lost their identities based on the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. These communities manage to conserve their history and pass the knowledge on to their newest generations through museums' conservation approaches. The conservation of their heritage can only maintain the struggle for social justice for these communities.
There is a spurt in growth in the number of museums concerned with social justice over the last half-century. Notably, the increase does not justify these institutions' acceptability and validity, but they indicate growing interest.
However, the museums' increasing claims of having to demonstrate their social worth are the driving forces that beget the question of social justice and activism. Some debates do not support museums' involvement in social justice, arguing that the idea of social justice is way beyond museums' capabilities. The move appears to discourage museums from addressing social justice problems. The skepticism would be beneficial if it worked towards spotting museums to take social justice and activism seriously to achieve a positive validation.
Social museums remain a phenomenon for the last half-century despite having a long history. The past half-century saw the rise of activism, with different economic sectors partaking in ensuring social justice. There are opinions that social justice museums are radical and lack progressive ideas. Such views mostly originate from groups whose historical activities negatively impact the good of others. Therefore, the long history of pursuit for social good by museums is worth noting.
A good example is the Conservative 2003 review that occurred in Australia. The move aimed to unify the historical narrative of ofa national unity fronted by the ancient French administration. The narrative was a lie and misleading the public. Instead, the French government engaged in radicalization moves that advanced their narrative of national unity interface of oppression. Museums have a long history of endorsing cultural good. The unveiling of public museums in the 18th century led the public to a common belief system that they are entitled to consistency in society's values from museums' representations. Besides, white supremacy was considered a social good, and such examples as Kipling's argument of “the white man's burden" were actively promoted by the ancient museums. The two ideas are examples of social injustices meted upon non-white communities. It was a common belief that the whites were supreme and entitled to the best that society could offer. Such ideas were represented in museums. Unfortunately, these were the best that the museums could do owing to the community consultation approaches.
Richard Sandell is the pioneer of the argument that sought to have museums engaging as social agencies with cultural authority. He argued that museums should represent themselves in a way that is acceptable as a social good by contemporary society. His argument focused on museums' engagement as the leaders in advancing progressive morals and not settle for established narratives that claim morality, such as Kipling’s ideas. Moral leadership is inspiring but needs careful consideration, particularly by museums, given the difficulty in establishing progressive and misleading values.
The Contemporary State
While museums have a length history of social reform, Sandell considers museums in recent years to have increased confidence in proclaiming their value as agents of social change. The museums improved in articulating their capacity to promote cross-cultural understanding, to tackle prejudice and intolerance and to foster respect for difference.” These museums differ from their forebears in their distinction between “implicit” and “explicit” social justice, as differentiated by Sandell. While museums with ‘implicit’ social justice goals seek to interpret their collections in a way that promotes civic unity rather than fear of difference – an approach which is partly reactionary to the critique that museums have historically been what Bennett called “difference machines,” which presented cultures in “hierarchical ways with oppressive and excluding consequences.” There is also an ever-increasing number of “specialist museums,” which explicitly set out to advance social justice in their communities. The distinguishing feature of these museums from their nineteenth-century counterparts, is the adoption of programs, interpretive techniques, and practices, which are explicitly developed in order to affect real change in society. Unlike earlier museum forms, which simply assumed their existence would create positive social change, new social justice museums are geared towards real outcomes. Measuring and evaluating social outputs, as well as determining the most effective techniques for promoting real change, are thus central to contemporary museums engagement with social justice goals.
Immigration Museums as Museums of Social Justice – The Australian Case
Immigration museums in Australia, specifically Melbourne’s Immigration Museum and Adelaide’s Migration Museum, emerged in the context of the late twentieth-century multiculturalism, which dominated Australia politically, and socially from its conception in the early 1970s. While the policy originated as a programme to assist non-English speaking immigrants to settle in Australia, without the loss of their cultural heritage, it quickly evolved into an agenda which recognised cultural identity, national cohesion and the promotion of social equality. It was thus from the multiculturalist agenda that immigration museums received their inheritance of social justice principles.
Kylie Message, prominent Australian museum academic, much of whose work, perhaps uniquely, focuses on multiculturalism in Australian museums, distinguishes a new trend of museums in “pragmatically multicultural,” post-colonial societies, such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada. These museums are identifiable “by their aspiration to contribute to the meta-narratives of civic unity and a common notion of public good, by adopting advocacy roles, accepting ideas about the rights associated with ‘cultural citizenship,’ and supporting or developing strategic partnerships with local areas and source communities – indigenous and migrant.” Immigration museums, with their strong ties to local communities and cultural groups, must certainly be considered a part of this general trend.
Furthermore, Australian immigration museums address what might be considered our country’s primary instances of social injustice; colonisation and dispossession, issues of racism, and the continued repulsion and mistreatment of ‘non-desirable’ immigrants and refugees. Immigration museums’ primary tool for addressing these injustices is the accurate and thought-provoking presentation of history. Indeed, their dedication to the social-justice cause is evident in their persistent presentation of non-celebratory stories of migration and settlement in Australia, which are no longer politically sanctioned.
The Typical Nature of Immigration Museums
Furthermore, immigration museums are valuable sites of exploration due to the typicality of the problems they encounter. Like all social justice museums, immigration museums must tread a fine line between the acceptable and the risqué. This deliberate choice focuses on a museum-type which promotes ‘sanctioned’ rather than ‘progressive’ morals, due to the inherent danger of these discussed previously. Immigration museums promote established rights codified in international human rights laws, such as cultural diversity, the equal rights of man, and the right to seek asylum. However, this should not result in immigration museums being condemningly labelled ‘conservative,’ as they also promote viewpoints that frequently oppose dominant, acceptable accounts, particularly in the areas of dispossession, immigration and asylum seeking. Thus, immigration museums exemplify the problem typical to social-justice museums of navigating a path between radical social activism and the danger of offending conservative sensibilities.
Should Museums Address Social Justice Issues?
It is necessary to begin such a discussion with the question – why museums? That is, of all social institutions, why can or should museums attempt to address issues of social inequality. The lengthy depiction by Tony Bennett of museums historically being conceived of as important tools for social reform has already been discussed. Yet a gradual decline of this view over the nineteenth century led to an entrenched belief in the twentieth that museums ought to focus solely on their “core business” of collecting, researching and interpreting, a view that has itself declined in recent years with the rise of the New Museology and its heavy and deliberate focus on audiences. In spite of the rapid ascension of the New Museology, Sandell and Nightingale’s assertion that a “justification of the merits of a commitment to equality and a concern for diversity and social justice within the museum” is no longer “necessary” is overconfident in the extreme. It is by no means universally accepted that museums can or should overtly address social issues.
Richard Sandell is undoubtedly one of the strongest supporters of museums being appropriate and valuable forums for challenging injustice. Though acknowledging that the small audience base of museums limits their reach, he maintains that museums are nonetheless ideal sites for combating social inequality and prejudice for multiple reasons. Firstly, the physical act of visiting, he argues, is particularly stimulating and active, in a way which other forms of information reception are not. Secondly, the extent to which museums are seen to be more trustworthy than other forms of media, gives them an unparalleled ability to promote discussion and activism. He concludes therefore, that museums should attempt to combat injustice, as they are perhaps uniquely placed to do so.
The unique attributes of museums are seen as comprising a moral obligation by other museum practitioners as well. The International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience declare that they hold a common belief that the historic sites have an obligation of assisting the public to draw connections between the history of their sites and the contemporary implications. The obligation stems from the stories themselves, which are portrayed as ‘encouraging’ museums to address specific social goods. For instance, a workhouse museum is considered to naturally prompt a discussion on the contemporary conditions and social policies regarding the poor. Such a view considers the places, objects and stories of the past as containing moral imperatives that museums ought to act on, and is decidedly relevant to immigration museums whose valued stories, objects and sites would prompt discussion of contemporary migration, asylum seeking, and perceptions of race and identity.
It is not merely site museums, but all museums which are regarded as obligated to consider their ability to oppose social ills. Janice Cheddie, for instance, whose research focuses on cultural heritage, social policy, and cultural democracy, praises the London Mayor’s Commission on African and Asian Heritage in the UK, arguing that all heritage sites and museums have a responsibility to their increasingly multicultural communities in helping them understand and envision both the future and the past. This does not mean that all museums are equally suited to such a task, nor, as Sandell hastens to assure sceptics, does it imply “that the combating of inequality [should] become the sole aim of all museums, nor that disadvantage and discrimination are problems that museums alone must tackle.” Museums, particularly those which are not explicitly dealing with subject mat...