A few weeks ago, I attended a conference that included a session on what the organisers referred to as ‘the Israel-Palestine Conflict’. Now, of course, this in itself was full of warning signs (are we really going to minimise genocide by referring to it as a ‘conflict’?), but given the silence of many parts of the heritage sector with regards to the current genocide, I was curious as to how it would pan out. Unfortunately, it was quite disappointing – instead of a critical conversation as to how the heritage sector can acknowledge complicity and do better, the entire session was framed around ‘coming together for the future’ and ‘being in dialogue with one another’.
At the same time as this was occurring, there was also a great shift of social media users moving from Twitter (aka ‘X’) to BlueSky. With a new social media landscape still in development, many BlueSky users are proactively protecting themselves and their communities by encouraging early collective blocking of known conservative and otherwise right wing individuals. This has become such a massive practice that commentators have begun to decry the conscious creation of ‘echo chambers’ on social media (e.g., Kelly 2024).
‘Dialogue’ has often be situated as one of the key methods to counteract the increasing polarisation of the world (e.g., Monteiro et al. 2020, Van Alstein 2022). By placing emphasis on the ways in which we not only engage with, but also respond to each other, proponents of dialogue-focused methods believe that we can move towards conflict resolution without violence, and create more social cohesion and further community building.
But why is this potentially dangerous? Isn’t it good that we can talk to each other with ‘civility’ and ‘politeness’? To start, let’s first note that ‘civility’ and ‘politeness’ are often weaponised as well to suppress dissent and restrict the ways in which the oppressed can engage with their own oppression (e.g., Lozano-Reich and Cloud 2009, Chávez 2018). And this aligns greatly with the weaponisation of ‘dialogue’ as well, where it can similarly be used to force the oppressed and otherwise marginalised into spaces with their own oppressors, where political and historical context are often removed to create a ‘level’ field without recognition of underlying power dynamics. In this vacuum, all viewpoints are given equal weighting – yet this does not take into consideration how state-sanctioned propaganda or institutional oppression shape these very viewpoints. Do we really need to give space for ‘dialogues’ that are continuously fed to us through the mainstream media, or viewpoints that are identical to those being utilised by politicians to take away the rights of others? Why should the oppressed be asked to ‘understand’ the logics behind their oppressors’ violence towards them?
In the heritage sector, ‘dialogue’ is similarly touted as an invaluable tool for dealing with ‘difficult’ or ‘complicated’ histories (e.g., Venieri 2022, Puddle and Katwala 2023), allowing visitors to heritage sites and museums to potentially learn not just from the exhibits, but from each other as well. Dialogue in these settings intend to widen the perspectives of others, as well as encourage further self-reflection from individuals. Handled with care, it can be a powerful tool for encouraging deep engagement with heritage and its broader impact on society and culture – but again, this needs to be done with care. So much of history is still in the process of being untangled from the lies born from colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy – what do we truly achieve if ‘dialogue’ simply reaffirms the distortion of heritage that has previously been accepted and normalised? How do we instead unpick the ways in which oppressive systems have embedded viewpoints that run counter to a more liberated, free, and just world?
Museums and other heritage spaces should be fertile ground to explore complicated and difficult histories, and can even showcase the various perspectives – however messy or conflicting – on these histories. But without a critical perspective on how this is done, we may find ourselves complicit in perpetuating harm onto the most oppressed and marginalised in our communities. And without the courage to stand up for what is right, we will never be able to divest ourselves from these cycles of violence of which our institutions have always been part of.
References
Chávez, K.R. (2018). Community Debates: A Pedagogical, Queer, Intersectional Feminist Experiment. Feminist Formations 30(3), 102-112.
Kelly, J. (2024) With BlueSky, the Social Media Chamber is Back in Vogue. Financial Times. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/65961fec-a5ab-4c71-b1c8-265be3583a93
Lozano-Reich, N.M., and Cloud, D. (2009). The Uncivil Tongue: Invitational Rhetoric and the Problem of Inequality. Western Journal of Communication 73(2), 220-226.
Monteiro, R. D. A. A., Toledo, R. F., & Jacobi, P. R. (2020). Virtual Dialogues: A Method to Deal with Polarisation in a Time of Social Isolation Caused by COVID-19. Journal of Dialogue Studies, 8, 113-133.
Puddle, J., and Katwala, S. (2023). Inclusive Histories: Narrating our Shared Past in Polarised Times. British Future.
Van Alstein, M. (2022). Polarisation and Conflict: A Non-Violent Approach. Flemish Peace Institute.
Venieri, F. (2022). Facilitated Dialogue: An Emerging Field of Museum Practice. EXARC Journal 2022/1.
If you’re financially stable enough, why not donate to help out marginalised archaeologists in need via the Black Trowel Collective Microgrants? You can subscribe to their Patreon to become a monthly donor, or do a one-time donation via PayPal.
Please also consider donating to fundraisers for Palestinians currently in Gaza by clicking here.
Animal Archaeology 