Can we reduce the harms of the white museum space?

Abstract

This paper challenges the interpretation of decolonisation as ‘diversification’ by many museums in the UK; arguing ‘diversity’ as a concept unconsciously assumes diversity from whiteness, and in the white colonial space can result in perpetuating racial and colonial dynamics. Exploring critical whiteness literature by writers such as George Yancy, bell hooks, Ruth Frankenberg, Richard Dyer, Kehinde Andrews, and Nirmal Puwar; I examine the unshifting parameters of whiteness  and how this translates into the museum space, offering examples of exhibitions that address racism and colonialism in ways that confronts whiteness but does not re-objectify or ‘Other’ people, providing a framework for the museum sector to  move forward in more informed and conscious ways that reduce the violence and racism of their white colonial spaces.