Politics of Museum Objects in West Africa
This article shows how the objects exhibited in African national museums work either as a basis for a discourse on identity, or as a medium of recognition and political claims. The tribal paradigm inherited from the colonial period gives rise to a range of adjustments and updates, both reporting on the cultural diversity and national unity of these countries. At times, the connection between the visitors and the museum collections produces a process of subjectivization and appropriation, refocusing the debate on the different bodies composing patrimonial institutions. Using examples taken from national museums in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Senegal, this article questions why the political use of these objects engenders museographic issues, leading to broader interrogations about the making of a sense of community in West Africa.