Leiden University Student Repository

Fontijn, Sofie (2025)

Museum Metamorphosis: Towards a Decolonial Museum

Master thesis | International Relations (MA)

This thesis analysed the role of museum practices in challenging the assumptions of coloniality underlying traditional understandings of the museum. To answer this question, an interpretative case study was performed on the Dutch Framer Framed (FF) museum. This was analysed by performing a critical discourse analysis (CDA) on physical, digital, and textual sources on two exhibitions of the FF. Through CDA, this thesis found three concepts through which the assumptions of coloniality are challenged in the museum: future-making, embodiment, and multiplicity. These concepts align with the literature on decoloniality in the museum, but are not all explicitly present in the literature. Overall, this thesis found that the museum is a site that can challenge decoloniality despite its colonial roots.

Critical Museum Studies

Museology

Coloniality

Decoloniality

The Netherlands

Critical Discourse Analysis

International Relations

Author

Fontijn, Sofie

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Culture and Politics

Supervisors

Smith, K

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en