The Ethnographic Museum in a changing Europe

Speaker: Wayne Modest, chief curator Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam

Within a context of ongoing globalization, increasing anxieties have emerged about the future of the nation-state and the cultural communities that are deemed to constitute such national imaginaries. Across Europe, there has in recent years been a growing political and public resistance against what are regarded as loose immigration and integration policies. These policies are seen to threaten both the economic possibilities of those deemed as ‘native’ citizens and their presumed national cultures. This paper locates the ethnographic museum at the centre of these discussions. I will focus much of my discussions on the Tropenmuseum and the situation in the Netherlands, while also drawing on research that examines similar issues across Europe. The idea to turn to the ethnographic museum for thinking about contemporary issues in Europe emerges from my concern with what I see as a growing moral panic surrounding who belongs to and in Europe. As fears circulate around the imagined threat that immigrants pose to the social order, this panic, evident in political and popular discourse, adopts a culturalist language that conflates ideas of citizenship with supposedly specific cultural traits. No longer is formal-legal citizenship sufficient for claims of national belonging. Narratives of national belonging increasingly attempt to exclude those who are thought to have different cultures. I want to ask what, if any, role ethnographic museums have played and continue to play in the formulation of such exclusionary national anxieties, and what role they can play in undoing such culturalist thinking. My ultimate aim is to “think through” the role that these museums can play in fashioning more convivial presents and futures “in a changing Europe”.

Wayne Modest (UK) is head of the curatorial department of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He previously worked at the Horniman Museum in London and the Museums of History and Ethnography at the Institute of Jamaica. With a regional focus on the Caribbean, his research interests include material and visual culture; slavery; histories of collecting and exhibitionary practices. His publications include catalogue contributions and book chapters. He is currently working on the forthcoming book “The Contemporary Museum: Curators, Collections, Communities” (Berg, co-edited with Viv Golding). He is also working on the book tentatively entitled “Victorian Jamaica”

Der Vortrag findet im Rahmen der 7. Tage der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie 2012 statt.