National Museums in Africa brings the voices of African museum professionals into dialogue with scholars and, by so doing, is able to consider the state of African national museums from fresh perspectives.

Covering all regions of the continent, the volume’s thirteen chapters allow for a deep and nuanced understanding of the intricate interplay between past and present in contemporary Africa. Taking stock of the shifting museum landscape in Africa, with new players like China and South Korea challenging the conditions of cultural exchange, the book demonstrates that national museums are being rediscovered as important sites of political engagement and cultural negotiation. This is the first book to critically examine the roles national museums in Africa have played in the societies in which they are situated, but it is also the first to consider the roles that national museums might play in current debates concerning the restitution and repatriation of cultural patrimony taken from Africa during the colonial era.

Informed by a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, this ground-breaking book will appeal to anyone interested in museums in Africa. It will be particularly useful to scholars and students working in the areas of museum and heritage studies, African studies, anthropology, archaeology, history, art history and cultural studies.

About the Author

Raymond Silverman, a historian of the visual cultures of Africa, is Professor Emeritus of History of Art, African Studies and Museum Studies at University of Michigan.

George Henry Okello Abungu is an archaeologist and Emeritus Director-General of the National Museums of Kenya. He is the founding Chairman of Africa 2009, the International Standing Committee on the Traffic in Illicit Antiquities, and the Centre for Heritage Development in Africa.

Peter Probst is Professor in the Department of Art History at Tufts University, Boston, where he directs the Museums, Memory and Heritage Program. He has published widely on African modernism, iconoclasm, and the politics of heritage.

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