A palace as legacy: The former French colonial museum – perspectives from the inside

Anne Monjaret (1, 2, 3, 4) , Mélanie Roustan (5, 6)

1 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
2 EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales
3 IIAC - Institut interdisciplinaire d'anthropologie du contemporain
4 LAHIC - Laboratoire d'anthropologie et d'histoire de l'institution de la culture
5 MNHN - Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
6 PALOC - Patrimoines Locaux et Gouvernance

The Musée des Colonies was founded in 1931 in the Palais de la Porte Dorée, built for the Colonial Exhibition in Paris. Over the century, the lasting nature of the architecture has stood in counterpoint to the changing orientations of the museum as an institution, from arts to immigration. To what extent does the building continue to bear the stamp of its origins? Is a reversal of colonial material culture possible? This ethnography provides accounts of institutional discourses and employees’ memories collected by the authors, who have been conducting fieldwork on the site for 15 years. In focusing on permanent material culture (the building housing the museum) rather than on the circulation and changing status of collections, the authors provide an original take on colonial remains in France. They also set milestones on the specificities of permanency and monumentality in material culture approaches.

Mots clés: colonial museum; French anthropology; immigration; material culture; architecture heritage

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Héritage culturel et muséologie

Anne Monjaret, Mélanie Roustan. A palace as legacy: The former French colonial museum – perspectives from the inside. Journal of Material Culture, 2017, 22 (2), pp.216 - 236. ⟨10.1177/1359183517704550⟩. ⟨halshs-01851542⟩