Museums, Citizenship and Belonging in a Changing Europe

Over the last few decades, museums, including ethnographic and world cultures museums, have been conscripted into national and transnational debates around questions of citizenship and belonging. Influenced by, among other factors, political, popular and academic debates about who belongs to the nation, what constitutes national culture/heritage and how this heritage has been (mis)represented, museums have responded in diverse ways, mobilising their collections to connect with diverse citizens within society, including (post) migrant citizens. 

In this two-day conference we want to look critically at some of these different responses by museums to the debate on citizenship and belonging. Focused on ethnographic or world-cultural museums within diverse (so-called) multicultural polities, we are interested to think critically about how we might reposition these museums in the postcolonial moment when citizenship and belonging are in question. 

What are the different theories of citizenship that can be useful to think about the role that ethnographic and world cultures museums can play, in the present and in the future? How should these museums address their colonial histories to better serve the (postcolonial) societies of which they are a part?