Research Background

Situated by the Seine, the Musée du Quai Branly (Quai Branly Museum, MQB) was opened in Paris in 2006. On June 20, Jacques Chirac (2006), President of the France Republic, inaugurated the museum:

It is a great joy for me to inaugurate the Quai Branly Museum today with you from all over the world. I sincerely thank you for having responded to my invitation. I believe that it is an event of great significance of culture, politics and moral. This new institution dedicated to other cultures will provide an incomparable aesthetic experience along with a vital lesson in humanity of our times.

While the world never saw mingled nations before in the history, it was necessary to imagine an original place that does justice to the infinite diversity of cultures, a place that shows a different view of the genius of the people and civilizations of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas (Chirac, 2006).¹

The uniqueness of the MQB lies in its devotion to presenting the aesthetic dimension of African, Asian, Oceanian, and American civilizations. The museum provides not only

1 Original text : « C’est pour moi une grande joie et une grande émotion que d’inaugurer aujourd’hui, avec vous, venus du monde entier, le musée du quai Branly. Je vous remercie très cordialement d’avoir répondu à mon invitation car c’est, je le crois, un évènement d’une grande portée culturelle, politique et morale. Cette nouvelle institution dédiée aux cultures autres sera, pour ceux qui la visiteront, une incomparable expérience esthétique en même temps qu’une leçon d’humanité indispensable à notre temps. Alors que le monde voit se mêler les nations, comme jamais dans l’histoire, il était nécessaire d’imaginer un lieu original qui rende justice à l’infinie diversité des cultures, un lieu qui manifeste un autre regard sur le génie des peuples et des civilisations d’Afrique, d’Asie, d’Océanie et des Amériques. »

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an extraordinary visiting experience but also a consideration to the diversity of humanity.

The relations between the West and the non-West have always been unequal.

Historically, the dichotomy was made fairly absolute in the nineteenth century by the expansion of the European empires, which established colonies all over the world. The European powers exerted immense influence upon the local politics, society, language as well as many other aspects. Colonial and imperial rule was further legitimized by anthropological theories. In the nineteenth century, the old colonial powers of Europe began to establish ethnographic museums in succession over the world: the Museum Aan de Stroom in Antwerp (established in 1864), the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington (established in 1865), the Musée du Trocadéro in Paris (established in 1878), and the Museen Dahlem in Berlin (established in 1886). However, these objects are perceived to be telling narratives of colonization and implying their inferiority in civilization in front of the displays due to the characteristics of museum, serving as a powerful public institution and political instrument (Sauvage, 2007).

The significance of the MQB in the 21^st century is that it endeavors to break the old relations and reach out to the non-West through the appreciation of man’s works by aesthetic merit. The museum aims at corresponding to Republican values, intending to

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serve as a gate to claim France’s openness to the other world (Dias, 2008b). Mr. Chirac continued to express his prospect of the museum on the inauguration speech:

By showing that there exists other ways of acting and thinking of other relationships between individuals, other connections in the world, the Musée du Quai Branly celebrates the luxuriant, fascinating and magnificent variety of the works of the man.

It proclaims that no people, no nation, no civilization neither exhausts nor summarizes human genius. Each culture enriches its share of beauty and truth, and it is only in their ever-changing expressions as if glimpsed the universal that brings us together (Chirac, 2006).²

Times have changed and so has the society. The MQB strives to promote cultural diversity and equal humanity yet globalization is influential: it is both a help and an obstacle. On the one hand, globalization unites people and presents diversity; on the other hand, it is a form of standardization which could mount the tension of identity.

Mr. Chirac said:

This diversity is a treasure that we must preserve now more than ever. Taking advantage of globalization, humanity foresees, on the one hand, the possibility of unity, secular utopian dream today become the promise of our destiny. But at the same time, standardization gains ground, with the global development of the law of the market. But who does not see globalization that would also be a standardization of identity would only exacerbate tensions, at the risk of igniting deadly fires?

(Chirac, 2006)³

2 Original text : « En montrant qu’il existe d’autres manières d’agir et de penser, d’autres relations entres les être, d’autres rapports au monde, le museé du quai Branly célèbre la luxuriante, fascinante et magnifique variété des oeuvres de l’homme. Il proclame qu’aucun peuple, aucune nation, aucune civilisation n’épuise ni ne résume le génie humain. Chaque culture l’enrichit de sa part de beauté et de vérité, et c’est seulement dans leurs expressions toujours renouvelées que s’ entrevoit l’universel qui nous rassemble.»

3 Original text : « Cette diversité est un trésor que nous devons plus que jamais préserver. A la faveur de

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As a new museum of the Other, the MQB proposes an alternative way to think about the relations between the two through holding exhibitions. Beyond the traditional perspectives on exhibiting the non-West, the new concept developed by the MQB establishes a direct link between the equivalence of cultures and the equality of humanity. The universalism of aesthetics is thought to be a proper medium to lower political tension and to cross cultural barriers between nations.

The MQB has given rise to heated debates and research. The significance of the MQB is that it invokes a breakthrough of evolutionist representation that has long been adopted by the anthropology (Désevaux, 2002). The exhibition is not only about knowledge and aesthetics but also about cultural interaction and cultural recognition through the emphasis of the relations between exhibits and architecture (曹之鵬，2001).

Naumann (2006) gave a complete introduction to the MQB and conducted a newspaper interview with the director of the museum Stéphane Martin. Their books Le goût des autres: De l'exposition coloniale aux Arts premiers and Paris Primitive: Jacques

Chirac’s Museum on the Quai Branly respectively written by Benoît de l’Estoile (2007)

and Sally Price (2007) have located the MQB in the context of the transition of French

la mondialisation, l’humanité entrevoit, d’un côté, la possibilité de son unité, rêve séculaire des utopistes, devenu aujourd’hui la promesse de notre destin. Mais, dans le même temps, la standarisation gagne du terrain, avec le développement planétaire de la loi du marché. Pourtant, qui ne voit qu’une mondialisation qui serait aussi une uniformisation, de ferait qu’exacerber les tensions identitaires, au risque d’allumer des incendies meurtriers? »

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ethnography museums and colonial exhibitions, providing rich and thorough discussion over the representation of the Other. Among other recent studies, consideration have largely been given to the downplayed historical context of the objects, the political signification, and the museum’s vague exhibition orientation (Alivizatou, 2008; Amato, 2006; Dias, 2008; Lebovics, 2007; Sauvage, 2007; Thomas, 2008). The distinction between art historian and anthropological disciplines, the aesthetic universalism, and the representation of the Otherness have also been the subjects of much controversy (Amato, 2006; Jolly, 2011; Lebovics, 2006; Levitz, 2006; A. Martin, 2011; Shelton, 2009; Strand, 2013). Another key discussion is about the promotion of cultural diversity in a globalized world and the equal dignity of cultures resulting from the denial of cultural hierarchy (Dias, 2008a, 2008b). Researchers also show interest to the museum’s architecture design, which is thought to be an unfortunate spectacle (Lebovics, 2006, 2007) and reveal the sophisticated relation between culture and nature (Ruiz-Gomez, 2006).

The research motivation of the present study is based on my personal interest in art and the awareness of ethnic issues in the society. These two factors happen to meet at the MQB: it sees the Other from the aesthetic perspective. Regarding the historic events and clashes happening at the moment, issue about race or ethnicity has always been a difficult topic to deal with from abroad to home. Since art is related to aesthetic

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experience and brings pleasure to sight and mind, could it be able to bridge the hierarchal gap between different ethnic groups? What made me decide to search for this topic was my actual visiting experience. After the two-week summer course in Freie Universität in Berlin in 2014, I seized the chance to visit the MQB for the very first time. I was amazed by the mysterious atmosphere and natural scene that surround the museum. The museum architecture not only blended well with but also stood out in the luxurious residential houses nearby. I was also impressed by the beautiful artworks and the unique spatial design inside. The MQB gave me a marvelous experience that I had never had in other art museums or historical museums.

Based upon the historical development of ethnography museum and the critics about colonialism or imperialism as well as about the art/anthropology relation, the thesis aims to approach to the issue by adopting Tony Bennett’s theory of

“governmentality” to reconsider MQB’s role as a political technique in dealing with ethnic diversity under globalization. In his book The Birth of the Museum, Bennett (1995) proposes three dimensions in regard to museum’s function and meaning: first, it is considered that the nature of the museum is a social space in which civilized forms of behavior could be learnt; second, it is considered that the nature of the museum is a space of representation; third, it is considered that the museum is a space of observation and regulation where visitor’s body would constantly under surveillance and be transformed

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in accordance with the norms of public conduct. The thesis will further elaborate these three dimensions in Chapter 2.

These dimensions are adopted as a framework to examine the MQB from three aspects accordingly. However, viewed in modern times, the theory has become deficient.

While there are growing numbers of researchers considering the postcolonial implication and the representation of anthropological exhibitions of the MQB, little attention has been given to ethnic groups and international tourists who may provide a larger scope of thinking for cultural governance in this hybrid and mobile society.

Therefore, it could be a breakthrough to see the MQB in the relations between internal governance of objects in the museum and external governance of diverse population in France and the world.