Critical Museum Theory/Museum Studies in Canada: A Conversation

Abstract

Canadian scholars have been crucial in shaping the active field of critical museum theory/museum studies, with anthropologists, sociologists, historians, art historians, and curators working to challenge and reimagine the educational function, social role, politics, and pedagogy of museums, while expanding the very notion of what a "museum" has been in the past and could become in the future. The trajectory of this endeavour has been examined at length, in university courses, essays, and handbooks, which highlight arguments made since the 1960s about the powerful role of museums in reinforcing class distinctions, creating narratives of national identity, and glorifying colonial attempts to subjugate Indigenous peoples, as well as more recent considerations of how museums foster the active contributions of visitors, promote varying modes of intercultural exchange, and enable affective encounters with memory. 1 In an effort to reflect on the current state of this field in Canada and share some of its diversity, Lianne McTavish posed questions to leading scholars, inviting their responses. Her goal was to highlight the issues of particular interest to Canadian museum scholars, which have developed alongside but also in distinction from the burgeoning literature on museums stemming from the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia, all centres of research on museums. In September of