Power and Identity

How identity is signified through the language of ‘Us and Them’ is important to note. These binary positions are maintained through the silencing of the other from participating fully in circulations of power, rendering participation void and empowerment-lite. This chapter will discuss how these performances of power are somewhat due to a need for the museum to protect its ‘identity’. This identity tells the museum what it is and what it is for; it also identifies who will fund it. The following section will discuss globalisation, social identity theory and Stuart Halls’ identity theory and how this applies to the maintenance of Us and Them binaries and a denigrating position of the ‘out-group’. With increased globalisation, visitation to cultural institutions could be expected to mirror the diversity we see on our streets. However, the footfall into museums has not been representative, and neither have we seen a diversification of their predominantly white middle-class staff (Sandell, R. (Ed.). (2003). Museums, Society, Inequality. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203167380 ). This chapter presents the theory in order to ask how museums can expect to represent cultural transformation and hybridity when the subject (as object) is starkly different from their own cultural understanding further compounded by fixed notions of identity.