Abstract
The collections, exhibiting techniques and events offered at France’s national museum of immigration history are explored through this critical review of Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration (CNHI) at the Palais de la Porte Dorée in Paris. The case study considers the extent to which one of the capital’s newest museums has successfully and sensitively aligned the colonialist architecture of its building – originally constructed for the 1931 World’s Fair – with twenty-first century, postcolonial perspectives on the decolonisation of cultural spaces, and pluralisation of curatorial narratives, to better reflect the histories and lived experiences of diverse audiences.
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1.The text in quotation marks refers to a statement by French historian Marie-Claude Blanc-Chaléard; see Blanc-Chaléard, Histoire de l’immigration (Paris, l’Harmattan, 2001), p. 3 in Nathalie Heraud, ‘The Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration: site of transmission and public education’, Museum International (Vol. 59, nos 1/2), pp. 103–09, available at: http://faculty.unlv.edu/gbrown/hist362/HIST362_SP08.htm (visited 15 July 2011) .
2.Hexagon/DOM-TOM refers to the relationship between metropolitan France and the former colonies designated as overseas departments and territories after the second world war. Examples of DOM-TOMs (or départements d’outre-mer and territoires d’outre-mer ) include the islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Réunion, which were departmentalised in 1946
3.Bidonvilles specifically refers to the informal squatter settlements that developed on the outskirts of urban areas in France during the 1960s–1970s, most of which lacked access to electricity, a clean water supply and other basic amenities
4.Sans papiers (or ‘the undocumented’) is a collective term for immigrants without official permits and identification documents to be able to reside and work legally in France. In many instances, the term denotes people seeking refuge and political asylum in France whose applications have been rejected by the state
5.From Leigh Raiford, ‘The consumption of lynching images’ in Only Skin Deep: changing visions of the American self (New York, International Center of Photography, Harry N. Abrams, 2003, eds Coco Fusco and Brian Wallis), pp. 267–73 .
6.Fusco and Wallis, ibid., p. 24 .
7.French writer Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) had a Haitian-Creole mother and rose from poverty to become one of the most popular nineteenth-century authors. His African ancestry is seldom featured in mainstream discourse on his life and work. Anna Julia Cooper (1858–1964) was the first African American woman to be awarded a doctorate at the Sorbonne (Paris, 1925). Blaise Diagne (1872–1934) was a Senegalese politician who became the first African to be elected to the French National Assembly in 1914. Senegalese poet and cultural theorist Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906–2001) and Martiniquan poet and academic Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) were involved in founding and constructing ‘Negritude’ as a philosophical, ideological and artistic movement in the 1930s. In later life, Senghor became the first president of independent Senegal and Césaire was involved in Martiniquan politics, participating in the island’s transition to departmental status in 1946 .
8.Heraud, op. cit .
9.Ibid., p. 106 .
10.One of Fred Wilson’s most celebrated installation projects – Mining the Museum (1992) at the Maryland Historical Society (Baltimore, USA) – involved the placement of empty plinths made of black marble and labelled with the names of African American anti-slavery heroes from Baltimore (specifically, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Benjamin Banneker) alongside existing white marble plinths and busts of historical figures with no direct connection to the state. For further information, see Ivan Karp and Fred Wilson, ‘Constructing the spectacle of culture in museums’, in Thinking about Exhibitions (London, Routledge, 1996, eds Greenberg, Ferguson and Nairne), pp. 251–74. Fred Wilson’s impact is mentioned by: Christopher Breward in From the Margins to the Core? Conference reflections , a summary report of an international conference exploring the shifting roles and increasing significance of diversity and equality in contemporary museum and heritage policy and practice (24–26 March 2010; London, Victoria and Albert Museum), pp. 1–13, available at: http://docs.google.com; by Vivien Golding, Learning at the Museum Frontiers: identity, race and power (Farnham, Ashgate, 2009); by Richard Sandell, Museums, Prejudice and the Reframing of Difference (London, Routledge, 2006) .
11.Details about the scope and remit of the ongoing Understanding Slavery Initiative are available online at: http://www.understandingslavery.com/ (visited 22 July 2011) .