Representing the Diaspora: performances of ‘origin’ and ‘becoming’ in museums

The museum exhibitions set in place for the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade of 1807 have provided a means to reassess identity in Britain. How individuals construct and reconstruct their sense of region, nationality, ethnicity and cultural heritage in the face of a traumatic history is a concern of enormous resonance. As issues of identity within Britain are negotiated in the context of multiculturalism, European expansion, immigration, and global environmental and security concerns, the stories we choose to tell ourselves and others about who we are become essential issues. The role of the museum in these processes is significant as they can provide the spaces, materials and resources for the education and negotiation in the formation of identities. As Britain as a nation confronts its own history of complicity in the Atlantic slave trade, issues of racism, prejudice, equality and social justice come to the fore. Considering the magnitude of these subjects an issue is expressed in this paper over the museum representation of an African Diasporic identity. In this paper the ‘poetics of exhibition’ will be examined in two museums in Britain which have responded to the bicentenary year with detailed and proficient displays on the history of enslavement. Based upon large-scale audience surveys carried out at these two museums the ways in which those who associate themselves with the African Diaspora and who also connect or disassociate themselves with the exhibitions will be studied. It will be argued through this analysis that these museum whilst providing an excellent and sensitive study of enslavement are being interpreted by its audience as representing a particular model of identity formation which excludes the consideration of some aspects of the African Diasporic identity. This paper will offer in place an affirmation of an alternative model of representation, one which can respond to the particularities and the multifaceted nature of the African Diaspora.