Confronting Colonialism at the Tropenmuseum: Understanding the Afterlives of Slavery

The research for this project will culminate in a final paper examining the Tropenmuseum’s new temporary collection Afterlives of Slavery, as a case study to consider efforts to transform the purpose and relevancy of museums. The exhibition, which recently opened in 2017, explores the Netherlands’ ties to slavery and colonialism, revealing how these histories continue to influence contemporary life. The inquiry of this paper will be divided into three sections. First, I will survey the Tropenmuseums’ traditions of representing former colonies, drawing on archives and existing scholarship that analyzes select curatorial displays. Second, I will investigate how the Afterlives of Slavery exhibition uncovers histories repressed by ‘social forgetting,’ revealing the relationship between past and present. I am particularly interested in unpacking the significance the collection’s shifted focus from objects to personal narratives, and its incorporation of objects from the original collection. This section will employ a multimodal critical discourse analysis to holistically examine the curation of the permanent collection’s visual, textual, and spatial elements. Lastly, I will consider the limits of enacting transformation from within institutions, and the capacity for previously colonial museums to facilitate conversations of national reflection. To be cont’d

Faculty Supervisor:

Mark Campbell

Student:

Partner:

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

Toronto Metropolitan University

Program: