Paper short abstract:

The ECHOES Project focuses on the history of colonialism. Considering museums as “culturemakers” and powerful educational spaces, at WP4 we have been analysing the way African heritage is musealized and mediated at the National Historical Museum (RJ) and the National Ethnology Museum (Lisbon).

Paper long abstract:

ECHOES is a H-2020 Project focusing the history of colonialism to collectively listen and reshape merged colonial memories and cultural expressions that are at the heart of contemporary heritage debates, within and beyond Europe.

Researchers from WP4 have been analyzing the way national museums in Lisbon (Portugal) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) are managing the cultural traces related to musealised heritage resulting from the African presence in two national museums: National Historical Museum, in Rio, and National Ethnology Museum, in Lisbon.

Both museums have relevant collections related to colonial history and to African presence in each of the cities. Collections that can tell us about the dissonant dimensions of this history, so that society can better understand the essence of multi-ethnic identities, the hybrid nature of our cultures and of the multiplicity of forms of inhabiting space.

Museums are “culturemakers” that can act as a key element in the interpretation and collective uses of cultural heritages of colonial origin, and also as a powerful educational space to inclusively manage identity conflicts, seek consensus and build democracy.

How are these museums making use of these concepts to develop a critical pedagogy that can help society to reflect on the merged dimensions of colonial history in the XXIst century?

How and by whom are these collections being de-codified, interpreted, verbalized and integrated into our lives?

Have these heritages been repressed, removed and reframed, or are they re-emerging with a renewed role in current societies to be key empowering of subaltern memories?