Museology in colonial contexts: a call for decolonisation of museum theory

The theory of museology produced over the past half century to define its own moral interpretation of reality has shown to be marked by paradigms created within colonial structures of power. This paper aims to question whether museology has a political centre. Two methods of analysis – author geopolitical backgrounds and bibliography and citations – were chosen to identify the main patterns of geopolitical impact on international museological production through examining key international publications: Dictionnaire encyclopédique de muséologie, The International Handbooks of Museum Studies and ICOFOM Study Series. Our research shows that the theory of museology is still produced according to colonial structures of power.