Minority views of national museums

Leicester

Aegean

Tartu

6 European Museums

Who were the minority groups?

Russian - speakers

Refugee

Mixed cultural roots Free choice

Roma

Economic migrants

Museum Minority group Participants

National Museum of Scotland

British Minority Ethnic (BME)

7

National Museum of Ireland

Minority Ethnic and economic migrants

5

National History Museum, Athens

Roma 5

Estonian National Museum

Russian-language speakers

5

4 Focus groups

Focus group profile

• 22 participants • 16 women, 6 men• Age range 16-65 years• 16 participants 31-65years• 13 born in Europe ( 8 nationals Estonia&

Greece)• 9 born outside Europe – Pakistan, Senegal,

Nigeria, Taiwan, Canada, Russia

Category of minority Examples MuseumPan-European minority Roma Greece

Historical legacy of a prior occupying regime

Russian speakers Estonia

Economic migrants Those who choose to move for economic reasons

IrelandScotland

Displaced Refugee – forced to flee Scotland

Mixed cultural roots Parents with different roots or national heritage

Ireland

Free choice People who have moved to a country through free choice to study or to work

ScotlandIreland

Different experiences

I’m very much against minority groups in any country. I think they tend to be overpowering and I think the locals resent that… Well they’re probably very important at a moment in time [but] I think it would be a mistake to suddenly focus on the latest group of migrants

Majority views

Museum visitor, Scotland

Minority Issues• Minority groups:– Do not expect to be represented in the national

museum– Are not regarded as “missing” by visitors

• Personal and national identity is especially complex and important to minorities because they are constantly negotiating their relationship with a dominant culture

Different experiences of national identity

I am proud to say that I’m an Irish, because I look at it from the point of view “a home away from home” and I think by now I am a person of two homes… I try to fit in and I look at other good things that would have happened to me, my family and my friends, in Ireland. And I say, “You know what? This is my home”

Assimilation

Peter, Nigerian, living in Ireland

Racism

Racism is encouraged by adults… Within this context, we cannot talk about either national identity, or integration to society

Kostas, Roma

Difference

Why am I different?

Barbara, aged 18-30, Roma

People don’t allow me that… whenever anybody questioned me about Irish-ness, I kind of go well okay my mum is from Trinidad. And I felt I was partly Trinidadian. When I went to Trinidad I realised I’m absolutely not Trinidadian. Everyone looked at me on the street. I was as different as a wealthy Westerner. And that made me go, okay, well what the hell am I, you know, neither of you groups actually completely accept me?

Brina, living in Ireland

Living between two worlds

Minorities in the National Museum

• Excluded• Absent• Silent• Mis-represented• Tokenistic

Ireland is a multicultural community now. [However] you can drive round the whole of Ireland and you would not see anything to suggest that, because there’s no symbols, there are nothing that would say that this country is no longer what it used to be… It is because of the system. The system is not telling you that you belong here… We don’t have that spirit, not through the relationship. So it’s a big problem

Peter, National Museum of Ireland

Minority Issues

• National museums could provide recognition and representation

• Participants wanted to be represented for who they are and be recognised for the contribution they make to the nation

• The challenge is for national museums to consider how they can re-interpret the notion of national identity, and national history, so that everyone is represented

A ‘conventional’ view of nation?• National museums do not challenge their visitors• Visitors (generally) seem happy with a conventional

perspective of the nation• But this approach excludes minority groups… is this

right?

A call to action!

• National museums could be….–More inclusive–More conscious of unheard voices and

experiences–More dynamic–More actively engaged–More dialogue