Museums as places for intercultural dialogue - Network of European ...

The ability of the museum to trigger reflections, to suggest alternativeways of looking at the cultural heritage it preserves evokes what HomiBhaha calls ‘the Third Space of enunciations’: ‘the “inter” – the cuttingedge of translation and negotiation, the in between space – that carriesthe burden of the meaning of culture... By exploring this Third Space,we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others ofourselves.’ 5 In so doing we recognise the relativity of truths in order tohave “multiple versions” rather than “objective truths,” and do the samewith identities, which are manifold rather than defined once and for all.Museums as Spaces of NegotiationElena DelgadoMuseums, like other cultural institutions, should strive not only to becapable of representing otherness, but also to acknowledge the limitsof interpretation and translation; they should not assume that the studyand documentation of collections are enough to make the object‘transparent.’ 6 We cannot pretend, not even as scholars or specialists,to know all the codes underlying any object.In playing their role as interpreter-mediators, museums can recognisecultural difference through a range of activities (including workshops,conferences, concerts and events), by sharing imageries, by promotingthe ‘rhizomic identity’ 7 mentioned by Eduard Glissant, respecting the‘opacity’ of the other as well as of his / her forms of expression, andacknowledging that cultural cross-fertilisation is inherent in all societies.Museums have long been considered emblematic spaces forconsolidating the values and identity of the society by which they werecreated, 1 transmitting monologues which, until recently, could not bequestioned.In today’s complex world, where cultural references can becomeblurred between virtuality and nomadism, museums must be capableof repositioning themselves and show a willingness to questionthe objectivity of the dominant cultural context, making way for thereferences and perspectives of new social actors.The significance of a museum lies not only in its collections, but alsoin the reflections and insights it is able to trigger around the objects,the knowledge it provides and the multiple visions and interpretationsit offers on the heritage in its care. It is necessary to acknowledgethat the original meaning of an object is lost the moment it entersthe museum’s walls. The ability of a museum to unfold narrativesand suggest inferences allows it to act as a platform for reflection onknowledge systems, beliefs, values and attitudes. The museum site,its architecture, exhibition spaces and the surrounding urban or naturalenvironment are resources to be exploited with a view to developingnew strategies for social dialogue.Museums must respond to new patterns of knowledge production andtransmission, as well as to the new social configurations within localcontexts, where tensions and frictions produced within and acrossnational borders may be evident.As metaphorical “free zones”, museums must strive to ‘take their placeat the intersections, in those spaces where individuals and distinctcultural identities can act and interact, transform and be transformed.’ 2By taking on this new function, museums can become neutral spaceswhere differences and mutual difficulties of understanding, habituallyexperienced as limits and sources of conflict, become somethingvaluable: ‘new opportunities for active citizenship.’ 3The European project MAP for ID recognises and promotes the socialdimension of the museum and its ability to bolster mutual knowledge,and therefore the ability of people to live together. To think of museumsas places of intercultural dialogue requires us to question the socialsegmentation resulting from multicultural policies, in which therecognition of cultural diversity and distinct identities often ends upreinforcing discrimination and segregation.According to Néstor García Canclini, ‘the concept of interculturalityreminds us of interaction and encounter, i.e. what happens when arelationship of exchange is established between groups. Whereasmulticulturality entails the acceptance of difference, interculturalityimplies that negotiation, conflict and mutual exchange exist betweendifferent groups.’ 4In order to become a space for negotiation, museums must disownthose homogenising and discriminating values which are still veryclosely connected to their role in legitimising historic identity. Only thenwill people of different origin, background and attitude have accessto the knowledge embodied in objects and artefacts, to their past,present and future narratives, and, eventually, to a collective meaningmakingprocess.As Martin Barbero points out, one task for cultural and educationalinstitutions should be the development of strategies to help citizenslearn to live with conflict, with the other and with difference, bypromoting attitudes which lead to the intersection of cultures and ofknowledge. 8Museums must reflect on new strategies for meaning-making, as wellas on museological solutions best suited to safeguarding democraticrights in the framework of contemporary social and cultural tensionsproduced by globalisation, by staking on what Seyla Benhabib definesas the task of democratic equality: ‘to create impartial institutions in thepublic sphere and civil society where the struggle for the recognitionof cultural differences and contestation for cultural narratives can takeplace without domination.’ 91C. Duncan, Civilising rituals inside public art museums, Routledge, London and NewYork, 1995.2N. García Canclini, Diferentes, desiguales y desconectados. Mapas de la interculturalidad,Barcelona, Gedisa, 2006, p. 166.3Ibid., p. 166.4Ibid., p. 15.5H. Bhabha, The location of culture, Routledge, London and New York, 1994, p. 56.6E. Glissant, Introduction à une poétique du divers, Gallimard, Paris, 1996. ‘I don’t needto “understand” the other, in the sense of simplifying him or her on the basis of my ownexperience, in order to live with this other or to create something with him or her. Todaythe right to opacity should consist in the assertion of the concept of non-barbarity.’7Ibid..8J. Martin-Barbero, Oficio de cartógrafo, Fondo Cultura Económica, Santiago de Chile,2002.9S. Benhabib, The Claims of Culture. Equality and Diversity in the Global Era, PrincetonUniversity Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2002.8 9