Can We Accept Today That the Museum Continues to Convey Colonial Ideology? An Analysis of Two Fundamental European Instruments to Decolonize Museums

Abstract

The article intends to broaden the debate about colonial collections and their potential repatriation. In some countries, official guidelines on how to deal with colonial collections are long overdue and many museums seem to find that inaction is the perfect strategy. Supported by the latest developments at European level and offering a detailed analysis of the Macron Report and the recommendations of the Deutscher Museumsbund (German Museums Association), this article seeks to provide food for thought that will serve as an in-depth, wide-ranging debate about colonial collections. It makes a comprehensive review of these two European instruments to implement ethical care for colonial collections. Admitting that colonialism has permeated all modern institutions, including the museum, and that many collection items located in Western museums are historically and culturally “sensitive” underscores the moral and ethical obligation that each museum must face, inter alia, as a way to contribute to the deconstruction of a colonial ideology which is perpetuated far beyond the formal end of colonialism. The article aims, furthermore, to demonstrate how awareness and research are the cornerstones of the process that will allow us to rethink colonial collections and document them from a less dated perspective.