PROPOSAL TYPE
Traditional Panel
SEEKING
- Seeking General Feedback and Interest
- Seeking Additional Presenters
- Seeking Specific Expertise
RELATED TOPICS
- Memory
- Museums/Exhibits
- Public Engagement
ABSTRACT
An important task for public historians of memorialization is studying the shared memory of a community. Interpreting exhibitions of a museum portraying the liberation of a country opens up opportunities for that particular community to share their “true” experienced memory of that event. The Liberation War Museum in Bangladesh is one such museum established as “people’s museum” with memory objects collected through community effort. The galleries provide chances for public historians, especially for someone from that community to understand the interdependence of museum workers and stakeholders with the community.
DESCRIPTION
This traditional panel offers conversations on museums made with community effort and the ways they provide scopes for public historians in understanding the interdependence of museum workers and stakeholders with the public. This proposed panel will include mass atrocity museums, such as the Liberation War Museum of Bangladesh, which was established by a “memorial trust” with a community effort 25 years after the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan. The permanent exhibition of this museum is established with a community effort through donations by the freedom fighters of the liberation war, their family members, and the families of the victims of the Bangladesh Genocide committed during the liberation war. This “people’s museum” made it possible for Bangladeshis to speak on their “true” experienced memory against the Pakistani denial of the genocide. At the same time, this establishment is intriguing for any public historian in studying the relation between people and a “people’s museum.”
Solidarity among the Bangladeshis is the key behind the founding of the Liberation War Museum. A group driven by the same ideologies of “liberation” from oppression and post-independence, denial of a genocide came forward in creating a shared, solid platform of expressing their collective memory. This memorialization process of the liberation war and the genocide during the war through the museum is fascinating, since it is a place where the museum workers and stakeholders are significantly connected (and dependent) on the community. The solidarity between them and the public makes it a successful, functional collective memory space. The foundation and the permanent exhibition of this museum can be studied in parallel to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which provides another dimension of solidarity among genocide museums.
With this session proposal, I am looking for other panelists interested in studying museums established with community effort and their interconnectedness. This can include but is not limited to mass atrocity crimes where denial is in play. The solidarity of a community and the ways that can affect the memorialization process through museums is the theme for this panel, but other ideas are greatly appreciated.
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Ummul Muhseneen, University of South Florida, [email protected]
ALL FEEDBACK AND OFFERS OF ASSISTANCE SHOULD BE SUBMITTED BY JULY 10, 2024. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.