Power and knowledge: The birth of museums in China

Abstract

Drawing insight from various museological concepts, such as “disciplinary museum” and “exhibition complex,” I sketch a brief history of museums that first emerged in China during the mid-nineteenth century. In this paper, the museums in China—from the late Qing dynasty (1850–1912) to the early Chinese economic reform period of the late 1970s and early 1980s—will be studied through a Foucauldian lens to further illuminate the nation's museum history. By studying four types of museums—China's first foreign museums, private museums, the Kuomintang museums, and the Chinese Communist Party museums—I explore how these institutions provided the public with different modes of consciousness and civil identity and how individuals respond to the cultural effects of museums. Whereas museums had been utilized as an instrument for different political parties, I aim to show how discourse has been radically transformed while these institutions represent the administrative mechanisms throughout different periods. I hope to initiate a discussion for future studies on how the contemporary museological phenomenon might be linked to the reminiscence of museums in the past.