Laurence Maidment-Blundell writes:
Drawing upon semi-structured interviews and participant observation, this paper examines the experiences of Engage volunteers at the Horniman Museum in supporting the delivery of the decolonising Chá, Chai, Teaexhibition, and explores the extent to which these experiences align with top-down institutional aspirations.
Findings suggest that whilst Engage volunteers are supportive of the decolonising emphasis of Chá, Chai, Tea, they are equally frustrated by institutional frameworks that hampers their live interpretation and subsequent contribution to the Horniman’s decolonisation process.
The methodology guiding this paper is George Marcus’ (1995) Multi-Sited Ethnography (MSE). MSE follows the processual connections between sites and attempts to reconstruct the systems of relations and trans-local interdependencies that coproduce any particular social settings/phenomena.
As part of the Horniman’s decolonial practice, they commissioned a temporary exhibition titled茶, चाय, Tea (Chá, Chai, Tea) which aimed to explore the global significance of Tea whilst also interrogating the colonial connections of Frederick Horniman and Horniman Tea.
Even-though there were top-down assertions of how Chá, Chai, Tea was guided by discourses concerning epistemic decolonisation and reconstitution, connectedness, and resonance, the holistic manifestations of these were hampered by a lack of volunteer live interpretation that could sufficiently grapple with the Horniman’s colonial wounds.
