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Caribbean Museums and National Identity
- History Workshop Journal
- Oxford University Press
- Issue 58, Autumn 2004
- pp. 224-245
- Article
- Additional Information
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History Workshop Journal 58 (2004) 224-245
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Caribbean Museums and National Identity
Alissandra Cummins
Click for larger view | Figure 1 The Opening of the Jubilee Gallery at the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, 1935. Courtesy of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. Courtesy of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. |
Click for larger view | Figure 2 Barbados Museum Front Façade, 2004. Courtesy of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. Courtesy of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. |
Click for larger view | Figure 3 The Education Officer with School group, Museum courtyard, 2004. Courtesy of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. Courtesy of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. |
History explores and explains pasts grown even more opaque over time; heritage clarifies pasts so as to infuse them with present purposes . . . But heritage, no less than history, is essential to knowing and acting. Its many faults are inseparable from heritage's essential role in husbanding community, identity, continuity, indeed history itself.
Public debate on the nature of history, ownership of heritage and the role of museums in shaping public memories of the past has not on the surface attracted a large audience in Caribbean nation states, but behind the scenes the picture is very different. Such questions have been central to recent advances at the Barbados Museum, and are at the core of a bitter struggle for control and 'ownership' of the island's history. From its inception in 1933,2 the Barbados Museum enjoyed both financial and policy support from the government, despite the suspicion of some members of the Barbadian Parliament that they might be 'indulging the hobbies' of 'a select group of aged, wealthy persons'. In their view, an institution of such importance 'should . . . not be left too much to the mercies of voluntary subscribers', [End Page 225] where the 'exclusivity of the society' could serve as a deterrent to public participation.3 Official support continued with Independence (1966) and in 1973 Minister of Education Erskine Sandiford called for 'a new consciousness, a more intense search for identity, and for the roots of our being and belonging . . . The way forward depends upon our knowledge of who we are now and whence we came. It depends upon our conceptions of the past . . . Each generation faces the task of interpreting and re-interpreting the past'.4 By the early 1980s the Barbados government's determination to see the Barbados Museum function as 'an instrument of national identity' as well as an institution in the service of national development had been informed by eminent Barbadian poet and writer Kamau Brathwaite's critical review of the Museum, in his contribution to a survey of the indigenous cultural industries.5 Minister Nigel Barrow's letter appointing the Museum Development Plan Committee in October 1980 considered that:
the Barbados Museum is not really representative of the various aspects of Barbadian life . . . The Minister is therefore committed to the development of a national museum policy aimed at changing the character of the Museum in order to make it truly representative of the history, culture and development of Barbadian society . . . as an institution in the service of national development.6
The redefinition of Barbados' cultural history was planned in the light of the Museum's resources and deficiencies,7 and Government was to be required to invest in every aspect of the museum including the staffing, collections, and the buildings. The aspects of Barbados's history to be reclaimed were fully articulated in the Development Plan of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (BMHS) in 1982.8 Agreement on the process to achieve these goals was a different story. Reform-minded members of the BHMS council fully accepted the notion of a 'partnership' with government, to be reflected in the membership of the council. Recidivists, however, viewed any change with suspicion and clung obstinately to their memory of the past. The proposal to restructure the museum's council was treated virtually as a hostile take-over. Government was suspected of attempting to 'nationalize' (rather than rationalize) the Museum through subversive methods, and...
