Amsterdam University Press

Chapter Title: Concluding Remarks

Book Title: Practicing Decoloniality in Museums

Book Subtitle: A Guide with Global Examples
Book Author(s): Csilla E. Ariese and Magdalena Wróblewska
Published by: Amsterdam University Press. (2022)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv23dx2pf.10

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 Concluding Remarks

Practicing decoloniality is happening all around us, in all kinds of museums,

whether we consider them to be overtly colonial or not. As this book has
shown, the examples abound from all over the world, both in large urban
institutions as well as in rural areas or individually owned museums. We
hope the examples will be inspiring, particularly to those museum staff who
did not previously consider decoloniality to be relevant to their institutions.
Additionally, for museum visitors, we hope that this book will provide a
new perspective and will reveal how even museum visiting can be an act of
decoloniality. We encourage you to reflect critically during your visits and
to provoke museums with your questions. Only then can the decolonization
of museums and society go hand in hand.
Finally, while we highlight the urgency of practicing decoloniality in
museums, we also agree with Ariella Aïsha Azoulay that “it is not possible
to decolonize the museum without decolonizing the world.”1 Our conceptual
framework with six aims of decolonization is presented here with examples
from museums. Yet the terms we use – such as transparency, empathy,
visibility – can be applied far more universally, for instance to politics, educa-
tion, or social interactions. The actions embedded in each of the six terms
are all important in creating a more just society. Nevertheless, practicing
decoloniality in the museum remains an important part of decolonizing
the world. This work of decolonization is an urgent task for all of us to do
together. It may seem daunting, but with plenty of examples to follow, the
road ahead should become a little bit more accessible.

References

Alli, Sabrina. 2020. “Ariella Aïsha Azoulay: ‘It Is Not Possible to Decolonize the
Museum without Decolonizing the World.’” Guernica [interview], 12 March 2020.
Available at https://www.guernicamag.com/miscellaneous-files-ariella-aisha-
azoulay/ (accessed 1 April 2021).

1 Alli 2020.

Ariese, Csilla E., and Magdalena Wróblewska, Practicing Decoloniality in Museums: A Guide with
Global Examples. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022
doi: 10.5117/9789463726962_concl

This content downloaded from 181.58.38.30 on Thu, 02 Nov 2023 17:33:40 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms