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'My story is History/Herstory; my world is my museum…' Marginalisation, museums and the MLC

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The Department of Modern Languages and Cultures has been celebrating success in securing new funding for its important work bringing community groups in the UK and Latin America into partnerships with the museum sector, and raising the profile of marginalised groups. The newly announced Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Translation Award supports solution-focused research with practical and positive outcomes in low and middle income countries.

The award, encompassing 8 projects from the University of Liverpool, includes one project in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, and will enable the MLC researchers and their international partners to design and implement projects that translate research findings into social and commercial impacts.

Professor Claire Taylor, Project Lead, said:

We aim to raise the profile of groups with under-represented or marginalised histories, languages and cultures, and to work in ways of direct benefit to such communities. This GCRF award reflects the high quality of MLC research and its profile as part of a global University.

Working with an expert from Colombia’s National Museum, Camilo Sánchez, and supported by Dr Ailsa Peate and Dr Lucia Brandi, Professor Taylor is reaching out to community actors concerned with human rights, gender justice, and conflict transformation processes. The intention is to develop commercial opportunities and social enterprises that lend economic sustainability to their projects of public education, cultural representation and knowledge distribution.  

No time has been wasted as the team have already begun market-testing the prototype of an educational tool for challenging social marginalisation and invisibility. ‘A museum for me / un museo para mí’ is a type of ‘build your own museum’ kit suitable for both adults and children, which can be used in group learning situations. The process of building a mini-museum ‘for me and my stories’ encourages reflection and allows important questions of representation and historical narrative to emerge naturally through craft and play.

The project responds to research findings on the function of public museums in perpetuating or challenging the historic marginalisation of certain social groups. Un museo para mí encourages users to consider which, how and why stories about ourselves and one another are chosen or constructed for the public gaze and historical record.

Discover more

See below for news of our forthcoming UK events, as part of the Being Human Festival, and the Tate Exchange:

For more information on the 2019 UKRI GCRF award see:

You can follow the project on Twitter at @MVRColombia