Reclaiming the Other: Tribal Museums as Postcolonial Spaces

Abstract

In this article I locate myself within the scholarly conversation on museum decolonisation through an investigation of existing literature concerning contemporary Native American museums, both mainstream and tribal. Orienting my research within the historiography of museums’ entanglement with colonialism, I examine decolonisation efforts in the United States by analysing the role of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), a collaborative mainstream museum, together with smaller tribal museums and centres across the country, positing the latter group as complementary yet radical alternatives. Primarily drawing on the works of Susan Sleeper-Smith, Amy Lonetree, Amanda Cobb and Jennifer Shannon, I closely examine the histories, actors and epistemologies of contrasting approaches to Native American museology, and ultimately maintain that tribal museums come the closest to radically postcolonial spaces and are thus imperative to the wider agenda of museum decolonisation.