Eds. Bruno Brulon Soares and Andrea Witcomb write: The museum is an institution embedded in European modernity. It was invented when a perception of ‘the Other’, or colonised populations, was being disseminated: this ‘Other’ represented a necessary exterior, or alterity, to be conquered.
By conquering other peoples, they shaped the modern world based on the hierarchisation of different forms of knowing and being.
This makes decolonisation an ongoing process that involves restitution and rehumanisation, notably through the sharing of knowledge and by encouraging mutual understanding.
As an organisation, ICOM has had a longstanding involvement in this process.
The historical and geographical foundation of museums, and their colonial biases, were first denounced by ICOM member Stanislas Adotevi, a Beninese philosopher, politician and civil servant, in 1971: museums are ‘theoretically and practically attached to a world (the European world), to a class (the cultivated bourgeoisie)’ and ‘to a certain cultural perspective’ (Adotevi Citation1992/Citation1971, p.122).
