Recontextualizing Cultural Objects in Museum Spaces

Museum practices of the past have negatively impacted representation of Native people. Collection practices of the 19th and 20th centuries centered upon the salvaging of “dying races” and the study of Native people to further social evolutionary models. Objects collected at this time were used to justify colonial endeavors and establish dominance over colonized people, through the claiming of their material culture. Past practices have become grievously embedded within the museum and must be decolonized. In the past, objects were used to further colonial interests and silence non-Western voices in the intent of sustaining a Western, hegemonic order. Today, they should be used to address colonial destruction and to accurately present narratives of various cultural groups. Art and natural history museums are critically analyzed to discuss the ways in which different institutions contribute to varying modes of misrepresentation. Cultural objects have either been aestheticized by art museums or viewed as specimens of study by natural history museums. Essentially, this investigation seeks to provide suggestions and solutions for better representation, through encouraging Native voice and community inclusion in all museums that contain cultural objects in their collections. Four case studies are analyzed and demonstrate the importance of recontextualizing objects in a manner that refocuses the narrative with a Native lens, rather than an oppressive, Western one.