For social change collaborative programmes at the Mutare museum

Abstract

The question of how to define a museum has been a festering debate globally, and particularly for previously colonized societies who inherited the institution from a specific historical period – the colo - nial era, which fostered oppression, marginalisation and ostraci - sation of colonised societies. In the post-colonial context, beyond contests over the definition of museums, the major debates and dis - cussions have been on the role and relevance of museums within the wider society. Thus, as the museum world rethinks the current defi - nition, it is perhaps also a good moment to critically reflect on how museums do create spaces for effectively dealing with societies and remaining relevant. For many museums in Africa created during colonial subjugation, museum knowledge production, classification and representation practices structured ethnographic collections in accordance with Western epistemological thoughts. For many such institutions, this is the moment to address the intellectual and emotional processes of decolonisation in terms of repatriation of objects or developing collaborative projects with communities (Sandahl 2019). This book draws on the ongoing debates around the coloniality of museums and associated knowledge production and representation practices to imagine a decolonised museum in Africa. In this Introduction, we set the background and context of these debates, as well as the historical and current contexts of museums in Zimbabwe, before providing a specific narrative on the development of Mutare Museum in Eastern Zimbabwe. We argue that the decolonial future of museums lies in them challenging their histories and normative practices by a mingling with heritage sites, local cultural practices and ways of knowing. To demonstrate this, this book moves between the museum, selected sites and associated practices