Abstract
Museums today play vital roles in the Arabian Peninsula in general and Qatar in particular. These functions vary between the social, economic and political. Recently, Qatar museums’ practices have focused on a political role. To highlight this role, I will take the recently opened slavery museum Bin Jelmood House (BJH) as a case study in this article. This paper aims to discuss and analyse the use of BJH in a comprehensive ‘soft power’ strategy to deflect international criticism of Qatar following the decision to award the 2022 World Cup to the country. Analysing BJH’s narrative was problematic, as the museum chooses to display a particular history which has been politicized to fit directly into Qatar’s international politics. The central questions this paper focuses on are as follows: Why was this specific social history chosen? What purpose does BJH serve? Why is Qatar trying to portray itself as liberating and open? To find the answers, I first interviewed the museum’s researchers, who talked about the process of collecting that specific narrative of the museum and the audience’s reaction. Second, analysing the museum’s narrative shows that museum practice today creates a different starting point than it used to, such as new ideas, strategies and policies. That conveyance the museum’s desire to become more open and liberal compared to previous practices.
Highlights
This article elucidates how cultural institutions’ policies demonstrate how social life of slaves was of peace and happiness in Qatar
The shift in museum practice became a necessity if we consider that Qatar uses cultural institutions as a soft power tool
The Qatari government is aware of this missing culture; it knew that the absence of freedom, democracy and human rights could hinder the country from becoming cosmopolitan. That could be another factor in the establishment of the new museum practice, as the country discusses the thorny history of slavery through Bin Jelmood House (BJH)
Summary
This article elucidates how cultural institutions’ policies demonstrate how social life of slaves was of peace and happiness in Qatar. The museum was established to display part of Qatari history that had never been talked about before, as was announced in the museum’s introduction: In line with Qatar National Vision 2030, Bin Jelmood House exists to promote reflections and conversation on important truths about historical slavery in Qatar and the critical issue of modern slavery around the world (An introduction panel at BJH). The Qatari government is aware of this missing culture; it knew that the absence of freedom, democracy and human rights could hinder the country from becoming cosmopolitan That could be another factor in the establishment of the new museum practice, as the country discusses the thorny history of slavery through BJH. This is possible, especially if we consider the last exhibition at the museum, which ends visitors’ tours with a presentation of modern slavery (fig. 4)
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