I am now changing my accent to sound more African : the communication of non-European otherness in guided tours for school classes in German and British museums
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While European museums that exhibit non-European objects are increasingly reframing their public role by integrating different perspectives from so-called source communities , engaging in discussions about restitution, and actively addressing the history of their collections, this does not mean that the institution of the museum has entirely overcome essentialist or condescending depictions of non-European regions and groups. Arguing that a critical reflection of the museum s representational power has predominantly unfolded in the domains of research and curating, and only insufficiently in the areas of education and communication, this dissertation critically investigates ways in which non-European otherness is communicated in the context of museum education, specifically during guided tours for school classes.The material at the core of this work consists of session protocols and transcripts of fourteen different guided tours for school classes that were observed and documented in four different museums located in Germany and Great Britain. Additionally, interviews with the individual gallery educators as well as heads of the learning departments have been conducted to better comprehend the actor-network underlying the performance of the guides during these sessions. The analysis of the guided tours shows that there are recurring patterns of speaking about non-European Others that are (consciously or subconsciously) applied by the guides regardless of the specific regional contexts that they address. As a detailed discussion and interpretation of these seven recurring themes and practices of communicating otherness reveals, the guides often seek to raise awareness and tolerance for difference, but thereby essentialise otherness, reinforce stereotypes, and mediate European superiority. Three main factors are suggested to explain this phenomenon: the guides self-portrayal as authority figures, the perceived necessity to reduce complexity and avoid difficult topics, and a certain desire for, or pleasure of speaking about cultural difference. In a second step, the emergence and significance of these three motivating factors is put in context with the wider framework in which the guided tours take place. The analysis of the actor-network of the gallery sessions shows that the museum as institution and the expectations connected to it as well as the difficult positions of the guides within the institution contribute to the continuation of essentialist representations of non-European Others in these educational situations. As the focus of the analysis is on deconstructing still-existing and often-reinforced myths about Others, it is mainly based upon previous work done by scholars advancing the fields of Critical Ethnography and Writing Culture, e.g. James Clifford, Arjun Appadurai, or Johannes Fabian. However, relating these questions to the field of museum education, in which existing ethnographies and their remediations in the museum space are again put into words and interpreted for the public, requires an interdisciplinary reflection of this complex meaning-making practice. Hence, literature on museum and art education (e.g. Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, George Hein) as well as insights from narratology (e.g. Mieke Bal, David Herman, Ansgar Nünning) play an important role for the analysis of the material.Verknüpfung zu Publikationen oder weiteren Datensätzen
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Giessen : Giessen University Library Publications