Agonistic museum diplomacy: Advancing a conflict-oriented approach to global engagement

The contemporary moment is saturated with conflicts—geopolitical turmoil, genocides, and wars; identity-related discrimination and harassment; socioeconomic disparities; and ecological disaster. Amid this landscape, we address museums as venues of conflict: spaces in which conflict emerges and plays out between different actors and on intra- and interinstitutional levels. In this article, we assert that a different attitude and engagement with conflict in museums is necessary. We offer the concept of agonistic museum diplomacy as a generative theoretical approach to understand conflict and cultural connection in museums. Contextualizing this approach within scholarship on cultural diplomacy, museum diplomacy, and agonism, we demonstrate how agonistic museum diplomacy can foster different forms of engagement with conflict—from superficial resolutions of conflicts (which might, in the worst case, reinforce existing disenfranchisement with museums) to more substantial institutional changes that respond to conflicts (which might, in the best case, strengthen inclusivity, legitimacy, and trust in museums). We argue for agonistic museum diplomacy as a necessary conceptual framework and demonstrate that conflict-attuned museum management and practice advances knowledge about cultural diplomacy, its values and discourses, which is necessary in our conflictual times.