Abstract
Museums are increasingly recognised as active agents of social transformation with the capacity to address urgent global challenges. In a world marked by inequality and mobility, they play a crucial role in fostering understanding and dialogue around contemporary migration from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe. This paper explores how museums can adopt activist and empathetic approaches to engage with migration-related narratives and forms of difficult heritage. It bridges recent developments in museology with heritage and migration studies to examine the potential of museums to promote inclusion, empathy, and social awareness within the context of contemporary displacement. The research employs a qualitative methodology that combines an extensive literature review, a multimodal analysis of four drawings produced at a refugee and migrant centre, and a case study of the Museum of the Refugee Memory 1922 on the island of Lesbos, Greece. These drawings are examined as forms of emergent difficult heritage, intertwined with trauma, memory, and displacement. The findings indicate that such materials, which are frequently excluded from institutional narratives, possess transformative potential when incorporated into community-based and activist museological practices. By embracing these approaches, museums can become spaces of ethical engagement, empathy, and intercultural dialogue. This investigation contributes to ongoing debates in critical museology and heritage studies by advocating for institutional strategies that prioritise inclusion, visibility, and the ethical representation of displaced communities. This approach positions museums as agents of solidarity in the face of global displacement.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Museum Activism, Difficult Heritage, Migration, Emergent Heritage
