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Chapter Outline - 5 May 2010
Douglas, Stacy
Museums as Constituent Power: Investigating the Symbiotic Relationship of Museums and Constitutions
Thesis Synopsis
This project investigates the museum as a constituent site of the political, community, and the subject – or rather, interrogates the museum as constitution of socialityjectfically state, in some detail, what these resonances are ...connect it to your sites of investigation if possib. It takes as its site of investigation three museological sites - the British Museum (London, UK), Constitution Hill (Johannesburg, SA), and the District Six Museum (Cape Town, SA). More specifically, it analyzes the interactive adult learning programs in operation at each. This analysis is undertaken based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with museum participants and museum staff, ethnographic research of the interactive programs, and a discursive analysis to these interviews alongside teaching materials and workshop resources from the museum’s programs.
This investigation is undertaken with the aim of considering how the production of the social at the museum is constitutive of concepts that are also central to contemporary anglo-western constitutional theory.[1] Specifically, it argues that even as contemporary constitutional theory attempts to conceive of constitutions outside of legal texts tied to foundations of the nation-state, much of the analysis remains within a deep grammar of constitutionalism that privileges conventional notions of the legal. In focusing on the role of museums in constituting sociality, this project argues that any clear line demarcating the “museum” and the “constitution” is in fact much more porous than much contemporary constitutional theory considers. The chapters contained herein explore different areas within which the fluidity of this border may be seen.
Chapter One outlines the constitutional theory which I draw from in my investigation and establishes the framework from which I launch my proposal that museums, as producers of sociality, can also be seen “as constitutions”. Chapter Two takes as its focus the concept of “the museum” as it has been written and thought about by academic cultural critics. This chapter discusses techniques of containing and ordering in operation at the museum and their role in the concretization of static notions of democracy, culture, and the subject. Chapter Three begins to weave the site of the museum and the site of the constitution together by explicitly exploring a common thread found between the two – the quest for inclusion through universal representation. Chapter Four explores the notion of time as progress at the museum and argues that this particular temporal logic is another locus of similarity between museums and contemporary constitutional theory. Chapters five, six, and seven similarly investigate themes that I argue cut across both the museum and constitutional theory. Indeed, contained notions of the human as self-authorized agent in chapter five, the aesthetics of claims for justice in chapter six, and the centrality of archival foundations in chapter seven, are all themes which highlight the similarities between my three museological sites and present-day thinking about constitutions. All of these points of similarity largely revolve around static, and I argue limited, conceptualizations of ideas of the political, the community, and the subject. Therefore, throughout these chapters I also point to possibilities of thinking about these categories that rub against the categories themselves.
These chapters work together to form an image of how these sites function symbiotically, or as mutually constitutive. It is the aim of such an image to point to the ways in which the line demarcating the site of the “museum” and the “constitution” is blurred. The areas explored in the seven chapters found herein demonstrate that there are multiple sites through which the museum constitutes particular practices of sociality which cannot be entirely separated from the sphere of the “legal”.
Brief Chapter Breakdown
Introduction
Chapter 1
Museums as Constitutions: A Symbiotic Relationship?
Chapter 2
A Real Smooth Operator: Anamorphic Technologies In and Around the Museum
Chapter 3
Reconciling the Polis: The Quest for Universal Representation through Museums and Constitutions
Chapter 4
The Time That Binds: Investigating Chronological Time as Progress at the Museum
Chapter 5
Constituting Objects Constituting Subjects: Androcentric Relations at the Museum and in Constitutions
Chapter 6
Curators of Constitutions: The Aesthetics of Justice
Chapter 7
Archival Foundations: Museums and Constitutions as Record-Keeping Practices
Conclusion
Expanded Chapter Outline
Chapter 1
Museums As Constitutions
Q. What are the boundaries of museums? What are the boundaries of constitutions? Can clear boundaries be drawn between the two?
This chapter lays the foundation of my aim into the links between museums and contemporary anglo-western constitutional theory. Utilizing the constitutional theory of Gavin Anderson, James Tully, and Neil Walker, I argue that any clear line demarcating the “museum” and the “constitution” is actually more porous than conventional constitutional theory would assert. Firstly, I claim that there are similarities between the site of the museum and the sites of the constitution. These similarities are rendered visible by looking at both sites through dominant frameworks that are in operation at each. These paradigms include chronological time as progress, the aesthetics of justice, the search for universal representation, archival foundations, and androcentric relations (explored in the following chapters). The second argument is that “the museum” and “the constitution” operate symbiotically in their construction of symbolic imaginations of political community. This symbiotic relationship can most clearly be seen through the mutual constitution of three significant concepts – the political project, the community (or “the people”), and the (legal) subject. An analysis of these three concepts is drawn throughout the chapters in my project exploring three museological sites – the British Museum (London, UK), Constitution Hill (Johannesburg, SA), and the District Six Museum (Cape Town, SA).
Major works consulted: Gavin Anderson, James Tully, Neil Walker
Chapter 2
A Real Smooth Operator: Anamorphic Technologies In and Around the Museum
Q. What have theorists of the museum said about it as an institution, especially as it relates to thinking about political community? How has the recent shift in museums towards “democratization” been theorized?
This chapter reviews contemporary work on the role of the museum, especially as it relates to new projects of “democratization”. It outlines, and then critiques, scholarship on the characterization of the national public museum, especially in Europe, as a site of “secular” worship. Rather, it suggests that the clear demarcation between the “secular” and the “religious” at the museum is blurred. Building on the theme of questioning clear boundaries, it further argues that the museum is comprised of what Donald Preziosi calls “a family of institutions housing multiple anamorphic orientations” (Preziosi 2003: 34). These orientations render the “messiness” of the museum into a coherent and ordered whole that narrativizes relations between objects and subjects that concretize the idea of an authorial selfhood and sacralize notions of “culture”.
Major works consulted: Tony Bennett, Eileen Hooper-Greenhill, Didier Maleuvre, Donald Presiozi
Chapter 3
Reconciling the Polis: The Quest for Universal Representation through Museums and Constitutions
Q. What are some of the motivational forces behind and/or historical developments that have contributed to the project of universal representation at the museum and in constitutions?
This chapter explores the motivations behind the quest to “bring community together” through representational inclusion at the museum and in constitutions. Building on the themes of “representation” and “democracy” laid down in my literature review (see page 17-21 and 31-35), this chapter links these practices between the two sites. Specifically, it will explore the ecumenical background of these practices and draw out differences and similarities between the museum and constitutions. Aside from this historical exploration, the chapter also investigates the limits of a politics of representation. It does so by addressing two major arguments. The first being that such a politics is limited both because its quest for universal representation differentiates between populations even as it seeks to include. The second being that the project of representation is always limited because it can never adequately represent the infinite complexity of life forms.
Major works consulted: Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, Didier Maleuvre, Saba Mahmood, Max Weber, Slavoj Zizek
Chapter 4
The Time That Binds: Investigating Chronological Time as Progress at the Museum
Q. How are ideas of the political, community, and the subject formed through the structure of chronological time at the museum?
Time is a significant motif for thinking about the political at the museum as it is such a widely deployed concept in the construction of a political project, community, and the subject. This chapter will investigate these categories at the museological three sites of my project. In this exploration I will draw from the work of Tony Bennett, Michel Foucault, Didier Maleuvre, and Donald Presiozi from my literature review, to consider the deployment of “time” both as an anamorphic technology and as subject to the anamorphic technologies of the museum. In other words, I will consider the use of time in constructing a clear, transparent, and knowable history, as well as the construction of time itself as a smooth teleological narrative from which political projects, communities, and subjects are imagined through and from. It also explores the work of Walter Benjamin in trying to think through a “different” temporality that may allow for the conception of a different notion of the political, community, and subject.
Major works consulted: Walter Benjamin, Tony Bennett, Michel Foucault, Didier Maleuvre, Donald Presiozi
Chapter 5
Constituting Objects Constituting Subjects: Androcentric Relations at the Museum and in Constitutions
Q. What kinds of relationships are created/asserted between “humans” and “objects” in the Learning Programs at the museums? In constitutions? How does this conception shape ideas of the political, community, and the subject?
This chapter investigates the creation of categories of the political, community and the subject through the technologies of human/object relations at the museum and in constitutions. In other words, how is the “human” conceived of at both sites? Is it asserted to be an entirely distinct category from “objects”? Are there similarities in the way that these categories are deployed at both sites? This analysis will also include an exploration of the use of objects in the interactive programming of the adult learning programs at the museum.
Major works consulted: Walter Benjamin, Bruno Latour, James Tully, Neil Walker
Chapter 6
Curators of Constitutions: The of Aesthetics of Justice
Q. What is the relationship between the aesthetics of the collections/exhibits involved in the Learning Programs, and the aesthetics of constitutions? Are there similarities/differences?
This chapter takes as its focus the role of aesthetics in conceiving of the political, community, and the subject at the museum and in constitutions. Specifically, it will address Jacques Ranciere’s taking up of the Aristotelian split between logos (the ability to rationally make claims to justice) and pathos (the ability to express pain and pleasure). For Ranciere, the disjuncture that this split creates has significant consequences for politics as he claims that the ability to articulate the sense of painful injustice (through pathos) is barred from the realm of the political. As a result, “capacities in not only sensing but expressing what is sensed are the hinge upon which the institution of a political community pivots, simultaneous with a delimitation of who will and will not partake of that community” (Wolfe, Katherine. From Politics to Aesthetics). The chapter will use Ranciere as a launching off point to investigate what he calls the “distribution of the sensible” in the aesthetics of the museum and constitutions. Moreover, this analysis will think through the “interactive” aspect of the Learning Programs to consider what role embodied practices of remembering/learning history do/could play in the construction of the political, community, and the subject.
Major works consulted: Pierre Bourdieu, Jacques Ranciere, [still building this list]
Chapter 7
Archival Foundations: Museums and Constitutions as Record-Keeping Practices
Q. Does the role of record-keeping play a foundational role in the constitution of the museum? Constitutions? What are the similarities and differences between the two?
What is the role of record-keeping techniques in the creation of the political, community, and the subject at the site of the museum and the constitution? How do the techniques differ between the sites? How are they similar? This chapter seeks to explore yet one more site of similarity between the museum and the constitution to continue to draw out the hypothesis that the two sites are mutually constitutive.
Major works consulted: Jacques Derrida, Karin Van Marle, Cornelia Vissman
Conclusion
[1]This term is meant to describe the constitutional theory as it is articulated by “mainstream” constitutional theorists writing in the English-speaking European and North American scholarly traditions over the past forty years. However, in some cases it also included theorists speaking to these constitutional traditions and theoretical articulations from former European colonies around the world. As I invoke the term “constitution” and “constitutions” throughout my project, I am referring to this tradition of theory as opposed to any particular “constitution”.