ABSTRACT
Many exhibited histories are potentially contentious. A conventional narrative of national pride might, for example, be viewed as inaccurate or demeaning by those who are ignored or who feel themselves to have been oppressed by the national majority. Exhibited histories may also be contentious because of disagreements over facts; because of the particular emphases given; or because of the graphic content of what is displayed. In developments that gathered pace from around the 1970s, often associated with identity politics and decolonization, many countries have seen questioning of established public histories and also attempts to exhibit other histories, such as of those left out of, or represented as marginal within, established accounts. As part of a more critical approach to the past, there has also been a considerable increase in numbers of exhibitions that seek to exhibit aspects of a country’s or city’s history that those who identify with the country or city might have preferred to forget. Such ‘difficult heritage’ focuses on crimes committed by one’s own nation or people, that is, what we can call ‘negative self-history’ for short. This history is not necessarily contentious, in that the great majority may agree upon the facts involved, but it is nevertheless difficult in that its display raises ethical issues, including over the emotions that it may provoke. In terms of negative self-history, Germany’s exhibition of its World War II and Holocaust crimes has been especially extensive and has also provided some of the impetus for an increasingly widespread turn to the display of negative self-histories in many other countries. This has seen an expansion in the museological addressing of both difficult histories and contentious histories – categories that may overlap. This includes those of other wars and massacres, of colonialism, and of the subjection of Indigenous peoples and other minority groups.
