Onderhandelen over koloniaal erfgoed. Het (co-)design van historische museumeducatie in postkoloniaal perspectief

'Negotiating colonial heritage' examines how the meaning of colonial collections is negotiated in practices of history teaching in museum contexts. It pursues the threefold aim to examine what layers of meaning a diverse range of instructional actors add to curated exhibitions of colonial collections, how they integrate these into an educational design, and why they make particular choices in the design process. Part of an interdisciplinary project, this dissertation focuses on 'Swahili-Arab' cultural heritage collections stored and exhibited in two Belgian museums: the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren, and the Royal Military Museum in Brussels. Part I describes the origins of these collections, largely 'collected' before, during and after the so-called 'Arab Campaign' (1892-1894) in Eastern Congo. From the end of the nineteenth century onwards, these collections were integrated in Belgian exhibitions. They transformed their original meaning as witnesses of interculturally hybrid societies into tools of colonial propaganda. Alongside newly created propaganda objects, the exhibition of these collections served the legitimization of the Belgian colonial enterprise in Congo throughout the twentieth century. The latter was framed as a humanitarian intervention aimed at the abolition of the slave trade in Eastern Congo, controlled by Swahili-Arab traders. In light of recent postcolonial debates in Belgian society, it is discussed how instructional actors may use these collections to - together with young people - interrogate longstanding and still widely resonating national and colonial master narratives. An extensive theoretical framework is elaborated, connecting insights from theory-formation around historical thinking and historical consciousness and from the fields of critical heritage studies and post- and decolonial studies. Building on this framework, allowing for a critical engagement with colonial collections during museum education, parts II and III empirically examine how instructional actors engage with the Swahili-Arab collections on display in both museums. Part II - based on extensive design tasks and in-depth interviews - qualitatively analyses the individual educational design process of three profiles of instructional actors: prospective history teachers, experienced history teachers, and museum guides. It reveals how most instructional actors prioritise cognitive and historical disciplinary engagement with colonial collections above sparking emotional-affective reflection and experience. While the need for a critical engagement with colonial heritage in present society is recognised, participants generally struggled with integrating both historical complexity and meaningful present-day reflection on the legacies of colonial heritage and history among diverse student audiences. A complex configuration of educational and epistemological beliefs - stemming from diverging professional routines and educational backgrounds across different profiles - as well as the often-overlooked role of individual positionalities largely shape instructional actors' design choices. Part III investigates a heterogeneous professional learning community (PLC) in which eight instructional actors collaboratively - in an attempt to cross the borders between history education in schools and museums - negotiated the educational use of colonial collections in museums. A qualitative framing analysis of interactions during a five-month professional learning program, including physical and online exchanges and expert lectures is presented. It demonstrates how dialogical and reflective educational collaboration significantly influences participants' web of beliefs on history teaching in a museum context, and their individual positionalities with regards to the value of critical reflection on colonial legacies in history education. It is emphasized how this negotiation process is shaped by broader and changing societal and political debates on mental decolonisation, specific institutional contexts, and persistent coloniality embedded in Western museums' functioning. Overall, this dissertation adds to an emerging field of research on non-formal history teaching and heritage studies by innovatively foregrounding the often-overlooked perspectives and practices of those designing and mediating learning around colonial collections. It especially highlights the need to dynamically study the relationship between beliefs and practices of history teaching in situated contexts, with eye for individual positionalities. Its findings have important implications for teacher training and professionalization. This includes the need for an integrated conceptualization of cognitive and emotional-affective engagement in relation to history teaching, and an alignment of epistemological beliefs on heritage and history. Finally, based on the findings of the PLC study, it invites for reflection on the use of museums as places for the professional development of history teachers, and on the role different forms of expertise - also beyond academic expertise - may play in this development.