ABSTRACT
Using the case study of the Nairobi National Museum (NNM), this chapter interrogates how the African has been exhibited in postcolonial museums. It begins by tracing the colonial introduction of the museums in the continent, as well as the exclusion and misrepresentation of the African in the colonially introduced museums. The chapter analyses the content, format and development process of post-colonially installed exhibitions to establish whether the museums have been decolonised to represent the interests of the African. It highlights the issues of the colonially expropriated African Cultural objects held in western museums and the gap their absence creates in terms of exhibiting the Africans’ stories in the African museums. The challenge of representation of a unitary nation in the context of disintegrated ethnic ‘nationhoods’ in many years after independence in many countries is discussed. Drawing from the authors’ academic and professional experiences, the chapter explores how the Nairobi National Museum and African museums in general have continued to contend with the presentation and representation of the African and his/her historical and contemporary socio-economic realities.
