Museum narratives of Islam between art, archaeology and ethnology A structural injustice approach

To inform debates about decolonising museums in Europe, this chapter argues that the narratives of Islam and the Middle East in Dutch museums constitute a structural injustice that requires reconciliation beyond the repatriation and re-interpretation of individual objects. This chapter maps histories of dividing Middle Eastern history and culture into different time periods, each appreciated differently in its relation to Europe, and the subsequent distribution of collections over museums of art, archaeology and ethnology. It discusses how Islam is positioned in the resulting hierarchical museum landscape. Europe has a long history of perceiving the Middle East as an ‘in-between’ culture, and Islam as a religion ‘in-between’ salvation and paganism. The words Middle East already indicate this in-betweenness. The main focus is on the narratives of Middle Eastern and Islamic collections in museums in the Netherlands, where, like in many countries in Europe, the debate about the colonial legacies of museums has gained momentum in recent years. It suggests that the effort to rethink collections should be coupled with the decolonization of museum disciplines.