A Programme of Absolute Disorder: Decolonizing the Museum

Summary

"A complete overhaul of the Western museum tradition" —Publishers Weekly

"An impressive critique of the universal museum as complicit in the damages inflicted by colonial power" —Isaac Julien, artist and filmmaker

"Should fascinate anyone interested in social justice, post-colonialism and the arts" —Euronews

"Powerful and so relevant" —Diacritik

The Western museum is a battleground—a terrain of ideological, political, and economic contestation. Almost everyone today wants to rethink the museum, but how many have the audacity to question the idea of the universal museum itself?

In A Programme of Absolute Disorder, Françoise Vergès puts the museum in its place. Exploring the Louvre's history, she uncovers the context in which the universal museum emerged: as a product of colonialism, and of Europe's self-appointed claim to be the guardian of global heritage.

Vergès outlines a radical horizon: to truly decolonize the museum is to implement a "programme of absolute disorder", inventing other ways of apprehending the human and non-human world that nourish collective creativity and bring justice and dignity to the dispossessed.