White Thinking

Diversity Fails in Scottish Heritage

Abstract

This article considers how the Scottish heritage sector has responded to allegations that it is part of larger infrastructures for imagining, centring, and privileging the reproduction of whiteness. It traces key debates about Scottish identity over the past two decades before exploring a number of recent projects within the heritage sector (in which one or both of the present authors have participated) that have sought to challenge the institutional whiteness of Scottish museums. In particular, it draws on the findings of: EDI in Scottish Heritage (EDISH), a project which fed into the Scottish Government-commissioned project Empire, Slavery and Scotland’s Museums (2022) that was coordinated by Museums Galleries Scotland; and concludes with small number of connected cases studies from a recent project, ‘“White Thinking” and the failed promise of diversity in Scottish heritage’, involving several heritage institutions which aimed to better understand the practical and ideological constraints on the ability to enact transformational change in the sector.