This research project addresses diaspora museums in North America.
New museums are increasingly being established by diaspora communities to share migration narratives with public audiences in North America. These museums are predominantly small, community-driven, and complicate linear narratives of migration by foregrounding the complex ties of diaspora communities to home and host societies. Amidst an increasingly polarized response to migration and the expansion of diaspora communities globally, diaspora museums function as envoys to bridge understanding about migration experiences. Conceived with stakeholders in the sector and advancing a community-based approach to research, this project brings an interdisciplinary team of students, scholars, diaspora community members, and museum practitioners together to examine diaspora museums as a subsector in North America.
Based in the Practitioner Media Lab at Western University this research will advance knowledge on the complexities of this institutional formation and expand our understanding of how cultural diplomacy functions to bridge difference. Led by Sarah E.K. Smith (Western University) and Sascha Priewe (Aga Khan Museum), the project team includes Palina Louangketh (Idaho Museum of International Diaspora), Kirsty Robertson (Western University), and Eduardo Luciano Tadeo Hernández (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco).
This project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
