African museums and their participation in the debates on the ICOM new museum definition

Abstract

ABSTRACT From 2017 to 2022, ICOM worked on changing the 2007 definition of a museum to make it accord the challenges and responsibilities of the twenty-first century. To make the process transparent and participatory, ICOM invited all interested stakeholders to submit their vision of a museum. By April 2019, out of 269 new museum definitions proposed, Africa, with only 17 definitions, remained the least active region in the discussion of the reinterpretation and reconceptualisation of a museum. Additional consultations initiated in 2020 after the postponed vote in Kyoto got over a 60% rate of responses from the continent. To understand African participation and contribution properly, the article analyses how a museum as an institution has come into historical being, how it has been legitimised over time, and whether or not the newly approved definition in Prague, 2022, is truly transformative and representative for Africa.