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"A gold mine for teaching and the rarest of ethnographic studies, Butler's study carries us into the heart of one of the most divisive cultural firestorms to ever hit museums." - Jeffrey Feldman, New York University
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword by Anthony Shelton
Acknowledgements
I. Entering the Debates
Reading the Royal Ontario Museum
Coming into the Field
Museum Ethnography
Looking Ahead
Final Notes on the Forum
II. Into the Heart of Africa and the Status Quo
The Status Quo
Toward a Reflexive Museology
Re-presenting Imperialism: A Personal Walk Through the Exhibit After the Fact
Museums Will Be Museums
III. Prelude to the Controversy
The Ambiguity of Irony
Power Relations and Public Culture
The Politics of Consultation
IV. The Coalition for the Truth about Africa: Strategies and Challenges
Performing Resistance
The Politics of Contestation
Experiences of "Otherness"
Democratizing Museums
A Counter Text: The CFTA Pamphlet
Contradictions of Resistance
Racism and Multiculturalism: Articulating a Contradiction
V. Various Positions: Responses to the Coalition for the Truth about Africa
Beyond Into the Heart of Africa
Authority at/of the ROM
Classroom Confrontations
Media Conclusions: Radicalizing the CFTA
The Academy and Complex Subject Positions
The Black Community: "Protest and Process"
Victims and Victimization
Other Voices at the ROM
Outcomes
Afterword: Canonizing an Exhibition, Renovating the ROM
Appendix: Coalition for the Truth about Africa Pamphlet
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Shelley Ruth Butler is an anthropologist and research fellow at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. She has written numerous articles on the politics of museum exhibitions and on tourism in South Africa.
Summary
"A gold mine for teaching and the rarest of ethnographic studies, Butler's study carries us into the heart of one of the most divisive cultural firestorms to ever hit museums." - Jeffrey Feldman, New York University
