Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a research of the indigenous representations displayed in the Museo Nacional de Colombia. The museum recreates symbolic violence due to the fact that the indigenous representation proposed, lead to the negation of their memories, knowledges, and experiences, which is a constitutive part of the violence that currently affects these communities in Colombia.

Paper long abstract:

This work is the result of a research grant provided by the Latinamerican Council of Social Science -CLACSO-. The paper presents a research of the indigenous representations displayed in the Museo Nacional de Colombia. The study incorporated a direct work with three of the actors that converge in the museum scenario: its employees, its public and the indigenous people.

The main addressed question was ¿who produces the knowledge of indigenous people and how this knowledge is legitimized through a publicly supervised institution?

My suggestion is that the museum´s display recreates some indigenous imaginaries that are constitutive of the violence that currently affects these communities in Colombia. In the museum symbolic violence is exercised due to the fact that the indigenous representation proposed, lead to the archaeologization of their existence and the negation of their memories, knowledges, and experiences.

The indigenous inclusion in the Museo Nacional follows some representation patterns which reproduce coloniality and correspond to its triangular structure: coloniality of power, of knowledge and of being. Then, what I propose is the decolonization of this space, which means the cleansing and detachment of coloniality. As a strategy, I suggest to promote an education oriented to the construction of dialogic spaces characterized by being participative in concrete actions, not just discursive as in the current situation.

I propose an education not only focused on the transfer of information and contents but more based on relationships and dialogs that allow the recognition and valuation of humans and not only of objects.