Deterritorializing the Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Abstract

This article asserts the value of assemblage theory to making sense of a museum like the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR), which has struggled with the formidable challenge of comparatively representing human rights in ‘difficult’ cultural and historical contexts. While acknowledging the many merits and productive outcomes of the relatively recent intersectional and interdisciplinary turn in ‘new’ museology, I argue that a fully realized assemblage theory such as that developed by the Mexican-American filmmaker and philosopher Manuel DeLanda holds the potential to substantially refine and extend the explanatory power of this kind of approach. With particular reference to the CMHR’s interactions/ intersections (and so positionality) with the various legacies of Canadian settler colonialism, and more specifically debates over the question of genocide and the nation’s commitment to upholding the right to water, I argue that ‘assemblage thinking’ permits us to appreciate more richly, and in a more nuanced way, the museum’s evolving identity, representational strategies, and growing accumulation of expressive power. More broadly, I contend that assemblage theory is ideally configured to map the dynamic interaction/intersection of overlapping clusters of large- and small-scale objects, spaces, ideologies, memories, feelings, structures, histories, and experiences constitutive of institutions and sites of conscience such as the CMHR.