ABSTRACT
Stuart Hall set out the state of racial inequalities in the cultural heritage sector and the challenges to be addressed at the high-profile conference ‘Whose Heritage?’ in 1999. The author participated in the 1999 conference and gave her reflections on whether change had taken place since Hall’s provocation at both the Museum Association annual conference in 2009 and the ‘Whose Heritage?’ conference in 2019. Based on her interviews with Black and white employees and independent consultants in the sector and her own experience to date, the author argues that, despite a plethora of cultural diversity and decolonisation initiatives and the availability of anti-discrimination legislations, there is little evidence of impactful change commensurate with the twenty years that have elapsed. Solutions for the future vary between white and Black respondents. The former suggested a reformist approach and the Black interviewees wanted nothing less than an abolition of existing models to make way for anti-racist structures, processes and mindset and the mobilisation of the Black communities to hold the cultural institutions and the government to account. The author concludes that the future of the UK’s cultural services has to be negotiated between Black and white people in order to arrive at a model that is fit for purpose and capable of securing racial equality and Black peoples’ cultural rights.
