The establishment of museums in colonial East Africa and their transformation after independence

Peace Memorial Museum, Zanzibar

(PhD award with Birkbeck College, University of London)

Project leader: Sarah Longair

Department: Learning and Audiences

Project start: January 2006
End date: 2011

Other departments: Africa, Oceania and the Americas

External partners:

Hilary Sapire, Lecturer in Imperial History in the Department of Archaeology, School of Classics, History and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of London, http://www.bbk.ac.uk/

Project funded by:

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) with support from the British Museum

Description:

This project uses museums established in the twentieth century in East Africa as the primary source through which to understand colonial relationships and society. Through their collections, architecture and interpretative materials, museums became a cultural tool of colonialism. The changing interpretation of historical collections can be used as historiographical evidence to examine the transformation of the museum from the colonial to the post-colonial period.

The principal case study for this project will be the Peace Memorial Museum in Zanzibar, opened in 1925, which was intended from its earliest inception to be a museum for all communities. Its educational programme in the 1920s to 40s was active in both bringing in schools and communities into the museum and in taking information into rural areas through a pioneering outreach programme including film. 

The pressures upon the museum resonate with many in museums today – insufficient storage, lack of funding, maintenance of buildings and the desire to expand audiences. 

This project will compare the Zanzibar Museum, which was a government project, with others in East Africa, such as the then Cornydon Museum in Nairobi which grew from a personal collection. It will also examine the way the museum objects and buildings have been reorganised and reframed after independence to suit the needs of contemporary Zanzibari society.

Objectives:

  • To examine the motivations behind and the processes involved in the establishment of colonial museums in the twentieth century
  • To highlight the importance of museums and the sources related to them (collections, buildings, labels and panel texts, museum administrative records) in the study of colonialism
  • To explore the links between museums in the colonies and those in the UK, such as the British Museum, to build up a picture of museum exchanges and networks
  • To examine the legacy of colonial museums on heritage development in East Africa today.

The results of this project will be published after the submission of a PhD thesis in 2011.

More information:

A conference on Museums, Material Culture and Empire is planned for November 2009 to bring this project together with others exploring similar subjects, in conjunction with the National Maritime Museum.

Image: Peace Memorial Museum, Zanzibar

 

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