Letter from the Editor

Abstract

This special issue, Difficult Memories and the Museum, aims to extend conversations among and between practitioners and museum studies scholars around how to be intentional and thoughtful in the collection, selection, preservation, arrangement, circulation, and interpretation of cultural artifacts that surface difficult pasts. The articles included here consider museums in Brazil, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Chile, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic and are the product of exchanges between Canadian and Brazilian researchers. I hope in reading this issue, it becomes evident that examining and contending with issues of difficult memories in museums benefits from a global perspective. Museum curation is global in the sense that it is impacted by the movement of individuals, artifacts, and ideas across both temporal and spatial borders.