Decolonizing museological thinking: reintegrating the matter to re-think museums

Abstract

The article presents a theoretical reflection on the colonial basis of the museum, considering its historical development in Brazil, since the creation of the National Museum (Museu Nacional) in Rio de Janeiro, in 1818. It proposes the decolonization of museological thinking by critically recognizing its foundations in the Enlightenment and in the reiteration of the rational and material subject, the ontological subject inherited since the cartesian cogito. In a decolonial approach, it identifies as the main trace of colonialism in museums and in cultural heritage the breach between subject and object, and between thinking and matter, which are structural of philosophical thinking in the West. Comprehending museums as devices for “materialization”, based on the concept by Judith Butler, the paper proposes the reintegration of matter into thinking in museological theory as a path to re-thinking museum practice in post-colonial regimes.