Mapping Museum–Community Relations in Lwandle*

Abstract

South Africa's political transition brought both challenges and opportunities for the country's museums. Since 1994, many community museums have been formed with the active involvement of social groups formerly excluded from the management of public spaces. The Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum is one such community project, which aimed to commemorate migrancy through displays mounted in a preserved migrant labourers' hostel. This article explores the relations between the Lwandle Museum and local communities, examining how the creation of the museum involved various forms of conflict, including problems created by the lack of alternative accommodation for some of the hostel dwellers, a lack of funding, tensions between ‘professional’ guides and local experts speaking to their own experience of migrancy, incomprehension as to the purpose and meanings of different aspects of exhibitions on the part of locals and tourists, and tensions between preservationism and tourism as alternative museum goals and strategies. The authors reflect on debates over how to commemorate migrancy and involve local communities from their own position of active engagement with the museum as curators, and in the light of their own experiences of managing tensions with the community.