‘Such endings that are not over’: The slave trade, Social Dreaming and affect in a museum
- Submitting institution
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Manchester Metropolitan University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 214289
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
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10.1057/s41282-016-0032-x
- Title of journal
- Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 77
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 1088-0763
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- September
- Year of publication
- 2016
- URL
-
https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/618099/
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
1
- Research group(s)
-
B - Art & Performance
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The article demonstrates the first use of Social Dreaming (SD) as a research method within the field of museum studies. SD was employed to examine the affective responses of visitors to the exhibition, Breaking the Chains: The Fight to End Slavery at the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol in 2007. It was one of the exhibitions that marked the bicentenary of the 1807 Act that abolished the British slave trade. The effectiveness of SD lies in its method of publicly processing and analysing complex emotions, especially where these are difficult to express because the subject matter is troubling. A skilled convenor (in this instance, Manley) conducts a group in which, by means of the associative unconscious, the participants share and analyse dreams. The article documents the application of the method in four workshops and the accompanying processes of engagement with the Museum’s management and the Bristol participants. The imperative for the research was to demonstrate tactically how museums contribute to public and scholarly debates about slavery and racism, in particular within the charged political environment of the bicentenary. The research brought an innovative method (SD) and methodologies (psychosocial studies and Deleuzian theory on affect) to the debates within heritage studies about ‘difficult heritage.’ The research concluded that the slave trade and its aftermath haunt the affective imagination today. The research is of value to museum and heritage professionals as well as academics in that it reveals hitherto unknown causes and effects of visitors’ reactions to the display of history. The authors analysed together the SD data and the exhibition using a psychosocial framework in which they are both experts. Trustram used her specialist knowledge of museum studies theory and practice, whilst Manley contributed the theory and practice of SD.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -