Article Title：Whose History?: Museum-making and struggles over ethnicity and representation in the Sunbelt
Abstract：
This article examines the contested versions of history, defined as a kind of discourse, surrounding the attempt to establish a museum in Tampa, Florida. As part of a strategy of urban redevelopment, white elites in Tampa in the early 1990s attempted to attract a museum with a piracy theme based on artefacts recovered from The Whydah Galley, an 18th-century pirate ship - the piracy image fitting well with their own 'invented tradition'. However, when it was discovered that the ship was originally used in the slave trade, local African American civic leaders mounted a protest, using a counter-discourse that challenged interpretations of 'history' by addressing issues of identity, partially through references to slavery and utilizing a rhetoric of cultural authenticity, questioning the elites' cultural and class ascendancy. The project was eventually cancelled.
Keywords: African Americans; archaeology; ethnicity; history; museums; piracy; slavery
DOI: 10.1177/0308275X02022003762
Source：CRITIQUE OF ANTHROPOLOGY
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