Expanding Museum Spaces: Networks of Difficult Knowledge at and Beyond the Canadian Museum for Human...

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This article was downloaded by: [31.39.171.67] On: 07 July 2015, At: 07:02 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG Click for updates Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gred20 Expanding Museum Spaces: Networks of Difficult Knowledge at and Beyond the Canadian Museum for Human Rights Nadine Blumer Published online: 15 Jun 2015. To cite this article: Nadine Blumer (2015) Expanding Museum Spaces: Networks of Difficult Knowledge at and Beyond the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 37:2-3, 125-146, DOI: 10.1080/10714413.2015.1028831 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2015.1028831 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &

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This article was downloaded by: [31.39.171.67]On: 07 July 2015, At: 07:02Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG

Click for updates

Review of Education, Pedagogy, andCultural StudiesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gred20

Expanding Museum Spaces: Networks ofDifficult Knowledge at and Beyond theCanadian Museum for Human RightsNadine BlumerPublished online: 15 Jun 2015.

To cite this article: Nadine Blumer (2015) Expanding Museum Spaces: Networks of Difficult Knowledgeat and Beyond the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Review of Education, Pedagogy, and CulturalStudies, 37:2-3, 125-146, DOI: 10.1080/10714413.2015.1028831

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2015.1028831

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &

Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Expanding Museum Spaces: Networks ofDifficult Knowledge at and Beyond theCanadian Museum for Human Rights

Nadine Blumer

Analysis of how histories of violence are represented and received in culturalinstitutions such as museums and memorials is frequently framed in terms ofconflict and hierarchies or competitions of suffering. A postcard campaignlaunched in 2011 by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association(UCCLA) to lobby for inclusion of Ukrainian history in the Canadian Museumfor Human Rights (CMHR) reflects these tensions. One of the postcards, titled‘‘Count Me In,’’ displays the provocative image of an arm with the infamousAuschwitz prisoner tattoo. The text accompanying the image makes the claimthat, as the national group that ‘‘lost more of its population than any otherEuropean nation during the Second World War,’’ the history of Ukrainian suffer-ing must be ‘‘counted’’ in plans for a federally funded Holocaust Museum(UCCLA 2011)1—what would later become the CMHR and the site of analysisin this article.

The protest instigated by the UCCLA—one of the smaller but relatively vocalUkrainian organizations in Canada—was hardly an isolated incident in the16-year planning phase of the CMHR. Other cultural groups in Canada, includ-ing other Ukrainian organizations, Armenian and Palestinian groups, as well asseveral Indigenous organizations and communities, expressed concern that theywould not receive adequate exhibition space in the new museum. Often, thesecomplaints were directed specifically against plans by the CMHR to devote anentire gallery exclusively to the Holocaust. This also included protest from theCanadians for Genocide Education (CGE), a coalition formed in 2009 of almost50 associations representing 27 different Canadian communities. In a documentaddressed to the CMHR, the CGE stated that, ‘‘any federally funded institutiondedicated to human rights must be inclusive and equitable in all aspects of itstreatment of the subject. Otherwise, it will be suggesting that a hierarchy ofhuman suffering exists.’’ The CGE, however, did indicate that, ‘‘the genocideof Canada’s First Nations and Inuit is the only case of genocide that deservesspecial status [and warrants a dedicated gallery] in the CMHR as this genocide

The Review of Education, Pedagogy,

and Cultural Studies, 37:125–146, 2015

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1071-4413 print=1556-3022 online

DOI: 10.1080/10714413.2015.1028831

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happened in Canada and is a defining aspect of all that Canada is today’’ (CGE2009).

The development of the CMHR has been beset—and delayed—by a widerange of similar concerns from cultural communities across Canada. This articlewill focus on one issue that has been prevalent across these different cases: thedebate over ‘‘sufficient’’ wall space in the museum’s permanent exhibitions,often measured in relation to the amount of space planned for representationof the Holocaust. The objections raised here evoke the thesis of singularity, aclaim popularized in Europe, North America, and Israel in the 1960s suggestingthat the Nazi genocide of European Jewry occupies a unique and incomparableplace in the history of genocide, thereby making it difficult for other groups toclaim similar experiences of suffering and persecution (Alexander 2002;Chaumont 1997; Novick 1999; Rosenbaum 1996). As a result of the dominanceof this now ‘‘narrow standard of what constitutes suffering,’’ Wilke (2013)explains that other victim groups are often pushed into ‘‘establish[ing] narrativesof persecution that mirror the Jewish experience;’’ more often than not, sheargues, this leads to a competition of victimhood (152–153). Narratives ofvictimization, as with the postcard example, may be accompanied by the claimof ‘‘highest numbers,’’ that is, the more casualties, the more legitimate the claimof suffering and victimization (Zubrzycki 2006). Moreover, commemorative prac-tice is often based on simplified categories of victim identity, which may, as aresult, disregard instances where victimization and perpetration overlap withone another in the same ethnic group (Wilke 2013, 144; see also Hankivskyand Dhamoon 2013). In Canada, for example, this question of a ‘‘pure’’ victimcategory versus a ‘‘pure’’ perpetrator category has resulted in long-standing ten-sions between Jewish and Ukrainian communities and has framed at least part ofthe background of conflicts that have played out in the CMHR’s development.2

As Moses (2014) writes, ‘‘Jewish communal leaders condemn as Holocaustco-perpetrators those Ukrainian nationalists whom many Ukrainians hail asheroic resisters to Polish, German, and Soviet imperial domination, while at leastsome Ukrainians have accused Jews of collaborating with the Soviet regime inattempting to destroy Ukraine in the 1930s’’ (25).3

In this article I propose a framework that imagines the broader and intercon-nected networks in which museum narratives and ideas about historical viol-ence are represented and debated. This ‘‘networked’’ framework providesnew ways of understanding how social conflicts such as ‘‘competitions of vic-timhood’’ play out in multiple and mutually reinforcing arenas. In the field ofmemory, studies that focus on geographic space have been receiving increasedattention in recent years. Assmann and Conrad (2010) refer to this as memory’s‘‘spatial turn’’ to suggest that memory debates today are defined by ‘‘synchro-nic interactions and entanglements . . . [that] not only unfold within nationalcommunities of pride or attrition but are connected across borders’’ (7). Thisoverall expansion of and interplay between the spaces in which societies com-memorate and represent the past can also be applied to the field of museologyby similarly reframing our conceptualization of the spaces in which wetraditionally understand the work of museums to occur (i.e., physical concretewall space, limited or bound to nation-state borders). This reconceptualization

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of space (geographic or otherwise), I argue, has the potential, to further ourcollective conversation about the difficult knowledge produced in andaddressed by cultural institutions seeking to commemorate histories of violenceand educate the public about ongoing forms of injustice. This article willanalyze three overlapping, dispersed and interconnected spaces of represen-tation in which the CMHR engages with difficult knowledge. These spacesare (1) the discursive spaces of the media, political debate and speech, protestand activism; (2) the multidirectional spaces in which different instances ofhistorical violence influence or reinforce each other; and (3) the virtual spacesof the Internet and emergent digital technologies.

The concept of difficult knowledge is useful within the framework of thenetworked museum I am introducing, and for its application to the case of theCMHR. There are several ways of defining this concept, introduced originallyin the field of pedagogy by Britzman (1998) and then broadened by Pitt andBritzman (2003) to explain the dilemmas of learning about subjects that‘‘[reference] incommensurability, historical trauma, and social breakdowns’’(756). Difficult knowledge thus refers not to the content of what is being taughtor narrated but to the contentious or disconcerting effects of learning aboutand having to engage with representations of violent histories and unjustpasts—effects that generally signify a challenge and disruption to what we pre-viously thought we knew and are willing to understand about the world (Simonand Failler in press; Lehrer et al. 2011; Simon 2011). Such encounters, however,generate not only dilemmas of learning but also afford a certain pedagogicalpotential. Failler (this issue), for example, argues that confrontations with unjustpasts, supported by a certain amount of curatorial and pedagogical care, arenecessary for changing attitudes and behaviours in the present. Referencingthe work of Roger Simon (2011), she writes that, ‘‘allowing people to be ‘touchedby the past’ (rather than consoled or cured of it) is to allow them an opportunityto imagine ways of moving forward’’ (p. 236, italics in original). In short, difficultknowledge refers to the unsettling—yet productive and necessary—second-handencounters that the public experiences when learning about or being exposed tothemes of violence, suffering and death, as well as their aftermath, whether inclassrooms or in cultural institutions such as museums.

My use of the term difficult knowledge takes off specifically from this gener-ative perspective on the contentious effects of how museums choose to arrange anddisplay materials and present ideas related to historical violence. I proposethinking about difficult knowledge specifically as the effects of conflicts that arisewhen community groups compete with one another (or, are put in a position tocompete) in order to make claims either for or against dominant historical narra-tives of suffering. This definition also considers the mutually reinforcing andpotentially productive aspects of this conflict. In the planning of the CMHR, thisversion of difficult knowledge emerged in the form of debates that took place ascommunity groups sought to disrupt or challenge the hegemonic narrativeespoused by the museum that places the Holocaust at the foundation of itsdefinition and subsequent discussions of human rights. As I will show, thesedisputes have given rise to a series of interventions, the creation of alternativespaces of representation, and a re-imagining of violent histories that invite a more

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critical appraisal of the impact and role of national institutions in defining whatthe public might remember and learn in the realm of human rights.

This extension of difficult knowledge implores us to consider how multicul-tural societies, where a plethora of heterogeneous memories collide and alsopotentially co-exist, negotiate the spaces in which different histories of sufferingare represented and used for the purpose of human rights education. Taking theCMHR as a case study, this article asks the following questions: How might com-peting accounts of what is historically significant find ‘‘adequate’’ representationand reception in the limited (physical) space of the CMHR? What nonphysicaland networked spaces of representation exist on and beyond the walls of theCMHR, and how might their use facilitate the museum’s dual objective of com-memoration and education? I answer these questions by drawing on examplesfrom Canadian media sources from 1998 (when the idea of the CMHR was firstproposed) to the present, CMHR publications and materials made available onthe museum’s official website and its social media sites (e.g., CMHR’s blog,Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts), as well as online media createdand administered by grassroots organizations in direct response to the CMHR.These sources allow me to observe and analyze the debates and discourses gen-erated in the years of the museum’s development and in the lead-up to andimmediate aftermath of the museum’s opening in September 2014. Focusing onthe process of curating and responding to difficult knowledge (rather than thecontents on display), this article offers a different way of talking about the impactof (national) museums; it seeks to re-frame the otherwise socially and politicallyunproductive conversations about victim competition and the difficult knowl-edge that develop in the process. I show how a national institution such as theCMHR has responded (and at times failed to respond) to accusations of establish-ing a hierarchy of victimhood, and how the CMHR itself—its presence and thedebates surrounding its construction—has been used as a launch pad by margin-alized cultural communities in Canada seeking to find new ways and alternativemeans by which to advocate for change and recognition of their histories ofsuffering. In other words, this article aims to make visible the multiple andnetworked spaces in which histories of injustice are represented and received,without dismissing the very actual conflicts and complex power dynamics atplay. Before moving on to discuss the various overlapping spaces in which theCMHR produces and negotiates difficult knowledge, I elaborate on the broaderdebates in the fields of museum and memory studies as they pertain to nationalversus transnational memory and space, and human rights discourse.

CURATING NETWORKED SPACE(S) ON AND BEYOND MUSEUM WALLS

Transnational Memory and Universal Human Rights Discourse

Two recent trends in the study of collective memory are especially relevant to thepractice of museology, as I will show with the case of the CMHR. First, scholarsof memory are increasingly looking beyond national borders in order to recog-nize the implications of globalization on how memory is produced, contested,

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and circulated (Assmann and Conrad 2010; de Cesari and Rigney 2014; Levy andSznaider 2004). Memory—and its various manifestations—has shifted from thelocal=regional to the global and transnational because of the proliferation of glo-bal conditions that have facilitated the circulation, production and conflicts ofmemory. These conditions include the rise and increased connectivity of digitaland communication technologies, the emergence of new transnational actorsand networks, and increased migration mobility—all of which are potential ‘‘car-riers’’ of representations of memory from one location to another (Assmann 2014;Assmann and Conrad 2010; de Cesari and Rigney 2014; Eckel and Moisel 2008;Erll 2011). Second, much of this writing has been linked to questions of humanrights discourse and the role of the Holocaust in shaping—and at times, dominat-ing—how human rights are defined and applied in national and internationalpolicies. Authors Levy and Sznaider (2004) argue that Holocaust memory,because of its ‘‘iconographic status’’ (95), has enabled ‘‘the formation of transna-tional memory cultures, which in turn, have the potential to become the culturalfoundation for global human rights politics’’ (88). Holocaust memory, in thisargument, transcends specific ethnic and cultural boundaries, offering universallessons about the dangers of injustice that can (and should) be applied to otherhistorical instances of tyranny and oppression.

Although these trends denote important changes in how we conceptualizespace, mobility, the limits of the nation state vis-a-vis memory’s productionand representation, and the centrality of the Holocaust in international humanrights discourse, it is also important not to overstate them (see Diner 2007; Uhl2012). Nation-state borders and nationalist ideology continue to function as cen-tral arbiters of how and what collectivities remember, and how these memoriestranslate into nation-specific and global understandings of human rights(Assmann and Conrad 2010; Erll 2011; Rothberg 2014, 2009). As Assmann(2014) explains, ‘‘Nations are not elided in this transnational perspective, butthey are symbolically and politically recast’’ (547).

Several concepts spanning both memory and museum studies bridge thesedichotomized views between the national and the global dimension of memorywith more complexity and nuance. They also provide a necessary frameworkfor reconceptualizing competitions of victimhood in regard to how historicalviolence is represented in museums and memorials. Writing about new practicesof mobility in the contemporary age, for instance, Bautista and Balsamo (2011)introduce the concept of the distributed museum to explain how the ‘‘practicesof museology are now occurring in places other than formal museum institu-tions’’ (5) and may include a wide variety of ‘‘satellite museum spaces aroundthe city or the globe’’ (2). Central to the distributed museum is also the notionof a networked learning environment, which refers to educational infrastructurethat, in the digital age, is no longer limited to the single school system, but canalso include ‘‘ ‘mixed reality sites’ such as museums, libraries, and communityorganizations’’ (Bautista and Balsamo 2011, 2). In the case of the CMHR, the con-cept of distributed museum is thus doubly relevant; it applies both to how themuseum represents historical narratives of violence and how it disseminateshuman rights education across a network of interconnected physical (local andglobal) and virtual spaces.

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Similarly, Tan (2013) defines the concept of the networked museum as comprisedof ‘‘assemblages linking peoples, locales, social forces and experiences togetheracross time and space through cultural memory practices’’ (392). Tan describeshow the networked museum is oriented toward nonphysical artifacts that comein the form of information or conversation. Increasingly, he argues, traditionalobject-oriented collections are being supplemented or fully replaced by digitalobjects or online experiences. The networked museum refers to the multiple waysin which museum space can be thought of in terms of both physical and virtual (orother intangible) linkages and overlaps, and not limited to one physical site. TheCMHR, as I will show, functions as a networked museum as it attempts to establishaffiliations with various other institutions (in Canada and internationally), isactive in a variety of online virtual platforms, and whose messages are also shapedand disseminated via ‘‘intangible’’ domains such as public debate and mediareporting.

In my own earlier research on Germany’s commemoration of the Nazigenocide of the Roma—a largely ignored event in the historiography of theHolocaust—I developed the concept of memorial networks to analyze debates asto which victims of National Socialism should be commemorated in Berlinfollowing German reunification (Blumer 2013). I concluded that these conflicts’overrepresentation have, in part at least, served to create new commemorativeacts and spaces of remembrance for a broader range of Holocaust victim groups,including those historically omitted from mainstream representations of the past.The memorial network is composed of individual victim–group experiences thatare scattered across a geographic area (locally, nationally, or transnationally) indiscrete memorial structures, yet are productively linked to one another—evenif not on entirely equal footing—through various administrative, pedagogical,touristic, and commemorative activities. This configuration provides an alterna-tive to competitions of victimhood, denoting the more expansive spaces in whichhistorical narratives of suffering come together. By applying the concept of mem-orial networks to the CMHR, it becomes possible to recognize additional andalternative spaces of representation concerned with those histories of violenceor contemporary human rights abuses that some groups claim have been omittedfrom the museum’s exhibit.

Narratives of historical violence disseminated by museums and memorialsites may also be referred to as multidirectional—rather than hierarchicallyordered—in the sense that they have emerged in dialogue with one anotherthrough ongoing negotiation and cross-referencing (Rothberg 2009). Thisincludes the transnational movement of memory and discourse as narrativescirculate between different cultural=national contexts and then back, modifyingthe script according to which societies address difficult knowledge. So, althoughmultidirectional memory emphasizes the global circulation of memory narra-tives, it also recognizes the ongoing extent to which they are ultimatelyre-attached according to the particularities of the national=local context of recep-tion and thus modified and adapted to those specific contexts of commemoration(see also Knell 2011).

Applied to the CMHR, these concepts indicate that cultural-historical sites—andthe memories they represent—do not stand alone. Engagement with difficult

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knowledge in contemporary institutions such as museums and memorials neitherbegins nor ends in these physical spaces. As suggested by Bautista and Balsamo(2011), Tan (2013), Blumer (2013), and Rothberg (2009), representations of historicalviolence or pedagogical strategies related to human rights are dispersed across andnetworked with multiple overlapping spaces and institutions nationally and trans-nationally. The tensions expressed between the local and the global also requiresus to pay particular attention to the geographic location of the CMHR—Winnipeg,the first Canadian city to house a national museum outside of the National CapitalRegion and specifically, the museum’s placement on the Indigenous territorywhere the Assiniboine and Red Rivers meet.

WHAT KIND OF MUSEUM IS IT?

To analyze the CMHR’s development—conflicts, negotiations, concessions, andirresolutions—it is necessary to first situate it historically in the evolving contextof museology. The CMHR is an ideas or issues museum, in that it defines itself as ‘‘acentre of learning where Canadians and people from around the world canengage in discussion and commit to taking action against hate and oppression’’(CMHR 2012a). On the topic of representing violent histories in contemporarymuseums, Lehrer and Milton (2011) write that, ‘‘the goal of curatorial work isno longer simply to represent but to make things happen’’ (6). The objective ofclassical or modern museums, which were first built as part of a largely imperi-alist agenda around the nineteenth century, was to ‘‘enlighten’’ the general pub-lic about high culture and to celebrate and instil nationalist values (Bennett 1995).Since the late 1970s, however, curators have started to design exhibits that haveeducational value, promote community outreach and social activism, andencourage visitor participation and interaction. This new democratized and lessauthoritative model positions the museum as a medium (or, intermediary) of dia-logue and negotiation between civil society and government institutions asmuseums increasingly take on an activist role. According to Carter and Orange(2012), human rights is one of the most common themes represented and debatedin this growing sector now referred to as the ideas- or issues-based museum.These museums, such as The National September 11 Memorial Museum inNew York City, Cape Town’s District Six Museum, the United States HolocaustMemorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC, and Liverpool’s InternationalSlavery Museum engage with histories of violence and aim to incite social changeby emphasizing the human rights lessons to be learned from human atrocity. Thedevelopment of the CMHR has, from the very beginning, aimed to take on thisrole, as demonstrated in the following letter, posted in 2010 on the official CMHRwebsite and addressed to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC):

[The CMHR] will encourage visitors to think critically and feel passionately about humanrights issues and commit themselves to the ongoing task of creating a human rightssociety. A look at historical and current violations of human dignity, as well as historicaland current human rights successes, play a crucial role in galvanizing commitment tohuman rights today. The CMHR’s goal is that each visitor leaves the Museum with a clearvision of how they can turn this commitment to human rights into action. (CMHR 2010)

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The rise of issues and ideas museums has also gone hand-in-hand with thedevelopment of digital technologies (Wilson 2011; Goff 2010; Solanilla 2008; Parry2007; Bearman 1992). From the same letter cited above, the CMHR emphasizeshow it will use new technology to further its vision of human rights educationand activism: ‘‘In keeping with an ‘idea museum’, the CMHR exhibits will relyheavily on technology, in order to ensure that they are never static but in continu-ous evolution, much like the evolution of human rights in Canada and aroundthe world’’ (2010). As already mentioned, the relationship between museumsand digital technologies has also meant that museums are no longer as firmlyrooted in or connected to one physical place; rather, ‘‘new practices of mobilityhave contributed to the dispersal of place in the modern museum’’ (Bautistaand Balsamo 2011, 1).

Simultaneously, we can also categorize the CMHR according to Paul Williams’(2008) definition of the memorial museum: a public institution that both representsand defines how and what a nation is to remember, but with a dedicated focus ona ‘‘historic event commemorating mass suffering of some [kind]’’ (8). Althoughmuseum organizers have insisted that the CMHR ‘‘is not here to memorializepast events . . . This is about education through a human-rights lens,’’ it does solargely by representing and evoking historical events of injustice and the humanrights lessons the public might learn from them (Stuart Murray cited in O’Brien,2011). The CMHR’s official website, for example, states that the museum will‘‘play an essential role in preserving and promoting our heritage at home andabroad; [and will contribute] to the collective memory and sense of identity ofall Canadians’’ (CMHR 2012a).

The CMHR thus offers us the opportunity to examine, in a Canadian contextand from the viewpoint of both museum and memory studies, how contempor-ary cultural–historical institutions negotiate multiple imperatives: to promotesocial activism and human rights, and to examine or commemorate human rightstransgressions (Moses 2012). In the remainder of this article I look on and beyondthe physical walls of the CMHR to consider the myriad and interconnectedspaces in which the CMHR, as well as civil society protestors, address difficultknowledge in the context of how Canadian society remembers violent pastsand addresses human rights education. This networked, distributed, and multi-directional approach gives us a new way of interpreting how difficult knowledgeis negotiated and enacted in a variety of sociocultural and political spaces, and bya diverse range of social actors. Framing the CMHR as one node in a broader net-work of related sites, I propose three relevant spaces of representation that arecomplementary to the physical space in which museum planning traditionallyoccurs (or, is assumed to occur): discursive space, multidirectional space, anddigital space.

DISCURSIVE SPACE: DEBATING SINGULARITY AT THE CMHR

That the planning and operation of cultural institutions are typically preceded bylengthy debate, disagreement and negotiation is already proof that the conver-sation—and thus, production of knowledge, culture and memory—begins long

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before the final brick or stone is laid into place and the doors are opened to thepublic. The discursive space in which a monument or museum’s physical con-struction is deliberated and negotiated occurs in sites that include the massmedia, public debates, petitions, and government speeches and protocols. Thepublic debates that precede the material existence of a memorial site or museumare a significant form of discourse and commemoration in their own right (Young1993; see also Carrier 2005).

In the history of the CMHR’s coming-into-being, there has been no shortage ofdebate in the public and political spheres of Canadian society regarding the pur-pose, content, architecture, location, cost, and funding sources of this new nationalinstitution. Each of these issues relate to broader national concerns such as theCanadian government’s failure to adequately recognize its treatment of theAboriginal population as an act of genocide; what human rights means and shouldmean in the Canadian multicultural context; and, which histories of violenceCanada is responsible for addressing. Despite this range of issues, mainstreamCanadian media have disproportionately focused on conflicts related to a so-calledvictim competition between different community groups while also favoring cer-tain voices over others. For example, mainstream media sources have given anuneven amount of attention to claims coming from Ukrainian Canadian organiza-tions whereas Indigenous issues, by contrast, have been largely omitted frommedia reporting and public discourse beyond local coverage (Moses 2014, 24–25;Hankivsky and Dhamoon 2013, 905). This imbalanced media coverage both reflectsand reinforces the power dynamics that structure the development of the CMHR.

The CMHR was first proposed as a private initiative by Canadian mediamogul Israel Asper in 2003 and then formally approved by the Harper Govern-ment in 2007. Designated a crown corporation in 2008 in accordance with theamended Museums Act, the CMHR opened in Winnipeg, Manitoba in September2014. The origins of this project—and protest against it—can be traced back to1998 when the Canadian Jewish Council (CJC) first proposed a Holocaust galleryin the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. Ukrainian Canadian leaders (from theUCCLA in particular) quickly opposed this idea and suggested instead the con-struction of a separate genocide museum that would focus on all victims ofNational Socialism (Moses 2012). In the years since, disapproval hasaccompanied each step of the CMHR’s planning as a diverse range of communi-ties have expressed concern that their histories of injustice will not be included orplaced centrally enough in the museum’s permanent exhibition (Basen 2011). Aswith the postcard campaign that introduces this article, many of these debateswere sparked by plans that would situate the Holocaust at the center of themuseum’s (human rights) narrative. In their analysis of victim competition atthe CMHR, political theorists Hankvisky and Dhamoon (2013) explain, ‘‘theemergent debates and controversies in regards to CMHR’s content and how itwill define the museum can be distilled into one key issue . . . the primacy ofthe Holocaust’’ (902). These debates raise questions as to which histories of viol-ence are relevant for inclusion in (or, omission from) the national narrative(including media representation), who determines this, and how this takes place.

As noted, one of the points of disputes to receive the most media attentionhas concerned the centrality of the Holocaust in the museum’s human rights

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narrative. According to media reports, members of Canada’s Ukrainian popu-lation have most vocally opposed this proposal (again though, the question of‘‘most vocal’’ is partially a reflection of who is given voice. Several Indigenouscommunities and their allies, such as the CGE mentioned above, have also criti-cized the museum’s plan to prioritize the Holocaust). Throughout the museum’sdevelopment, the UCC and the UCCLA each launched separate campaigns tosecure more thorough documentation of the famine–genocide of Ukrainiansin 1932–1933 (sometimes referred to as the Holodomor) and the internment ofCanadian Ukrainians during World War I.4 The UCCLA—the smaller of thetwo community organizations—in particular has consistently requested thatinclusion of this history match plans for a permanent gallery devoted exclusivelyto the history of the Holocaust.5 The CMHR’s official stance is that the Holocaustis the foundation of contemporary human rights discourse and thus, justifies theprominent positioning of the Holocaust in the museum’s galleries. This is statedon a panel in the museum’s ‘‘Turning Points for Humanity’’ gallery: ‘‘TheUniversal Declaration of Human Rights is the world’s most important documentabout global human rights. Adopted in 1948 . . . the Declaration was partly aresponse to the horrors of the Second World War, especially the Holocaust’’(CMHR 2015).

Attempts at challenging this master narrative, as some Ukrainian as well asother community leaders have attempted to do, is a form of difficult knowledgethat shaped (and continues to shape) the decision-making process of what themuseum would include in its permanent exhibition displays. These debates,although divisive, also indicate that the museum’s main objective—‘‘to enhancethe public’s understanding of human rights, to promote respect for others and toencourage reflection and dialogue’’—has been circulating and generating abun-dant reactions in discursive space for as long as the idea of the museum has beenaround.6 And likely, such debates will continue throughout the life-course of themuseum.

A March 2014 article in the Winnipeg-based queer magazine Outwords high-lights the value of public discourse that the CMHR has generated and should,ideally, continue to generate: ‘‘Regardless of the controversy, the finished pro-duct on display at the museum’s galleries will reflect a competing and dynamicseries of visions . . . So whether you’ll be lining up to get inside or protestingout-front come September, the important thing is that you show up’’ (McEnery2014). This sentiment is reiterated by the museum’s former CEO, Stuart Murraywho, during his tenure, contended, ‘‘People may disagree [with the CMHR], butthat’s what we’re trying to encourage . . . We want to be able to take that passion[about human rights] and turn it into a passionate conversation. As long asthere’s a conversation, good things can happen’’ (cited in Butler 2014). The extentto which museum administrators will in fact allow and create space for suchforms of ‘‘perpetual irresolution’’—what James Young (1993) sees as the ‘‘surestengagement with memory’’ (21) in museum narratives—remains to be seen. Oneearly assessment of the CMHR’s actual role in generating public debate, pub-lished in The Winnipeg Free Press three months following the museum’s opening,is sceptical of this prospect. The CMHR opening, writes Mary Agnes Welch(2014), ‘‘has been met by something worse than outrage: Indifference.’’

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More time is needed, however, in order to thoroughly evaluate the influence ofthe CMHR in inciting and developing public debate about social and politicalissues related to human rights. Some key questions to consider as the CMHRbecomes more permanently embedded into the Winnipeg=Canadian landscape:Will the museum in fact find ways to engage in ongoing dialogue and debateregarding the CMHR itself and human rights issues? How and where will thesediscourses take shape, and whose voices will be given space to articulate thesematters? What will happen with this ‘‘discursive archive’’ of protest and debatefollowing the museum’s opening? Will the CMHR make any attempts at incor-porating its own (fraught) development into its final exhibits? To what extent willthe museum be transparent regarding this history (e.g., will an institutionalarchive be made available to researchers and other interested members of thepublic including critique against it—as an institution?).

MULTIDIRECTIONAL SPACES: LOCAL, NATIONAL AND TRANSNATIONALEXCHANGES

The ideas and narratives disseminated by the CMHR—and reactions to them—also take shape in ‘‘multidirectional space,’’ a reformulation of Rothberg’s(2009) theory of multidirectional memory, which emphasizes how historical nar-ratives take shape as a process of influence and exchange or cross-referencingwith other historical narratives. When talking about multidirectional space then,we can think of how the construction of different cultural–historical institutionsinfluence one another be it by way of content, design=architecture, or the publicdiscourse that develops about these places. This concept provides a framework inwhich to consider the multiple spaces in which both dominant and more margin-alized=ignored memories or other narratives influence each other and take shapein a continual process of communication and exchange in local as well as moreglobal contexts.

The initial idea of the CMHR emerged in connection to the USHMM inWashington, DC. In the late 1990s, the Asper Foundation, the charitable organi-zation run by the Asper family was, among other things, sponsoring yearly tripsfor Canadian high school students to the USHMM. Subsequent to joining one ofthese trips, Gail Asper, now president of the Asper Foundation, told her father,then-CEO Israeli Asper that ‘‘it bothered her that kids were learning about U.S.history and U.S. human rights stories rather than Canadian ones. She wouldrather send students to Ottawa than Washington, but there was no museum inCanada that fit their needs’’ (Knelman 2011). This story of how the Asper familywas influenced by a visit to the USHMM as well as to the Library of Congress inWashington is part of the CMHR founding myth.

This kind of influence between cultural institutions is common and highlightshow memory narratives ‘‘communicate’’ with one another. In her study ofmonument-building in post-Apartheid South Africa, Marschall (2006) describeshow development and planning commonly takes place at the point of influencebetween different sites—how ‘‘public monuments and memorials are informedby past and present trends in international practices of commemoration’’ (165).

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Similarly, Alice Greenwald (2010), director of the newly opened NationalSeptember 11 Memorial Museum in New York City who also served as a techni-cal expert and consultant for the USHMM permanent exhibit from 1986 to 2001,and then as the Associate Director of Museum Programs from 2001 to 2006,explains the many ways in which planning committees and curators looked tothe USHMM as a model: ‘‘The paradigm established by the USHMM providesa key lesson for planning the National September 11 Memorial Museum. In itsintense particularity, the Holocaust Museum is able to speak to something biggerthan the history it represents’’ (118). Thinking through the CMHR’s origins anddevelopment in the context of multidirectional space emphasizes two potentiallyopposing ideas: First, this indicates the mutually informed components ofmuseum planning as new institutions look to older more established ones as amodel or template for its own makeup and organization. Second, however, thisalso suggests dominance of a Holocaust discourse—as represented by the influ-ence of the USHMM—on new institutions such as the CMHR (or the 9=11Memorial Museum). This should prompt us to consider the extent to whichCMHR content is a product of existing narratives and representations of histori-cal violence more so than a reaction to public debate and interventions. Whatthen is the multidirectional potential of the CMHR? That is, as the museumbecomes more established, is it possible that it will, in return, have influenceon older and more prominent institutions such as the USHMM? In addition tothe initial influence that one cultural institution has on another, it is also worthconsidering the kinds of professional alliances that might form between theCMHR and other ideas museums, issues museums, or memorial museums orrelevant institutions in Canada and internationally.

Writing about the ‘‘oppression Olympics’’ that have taken place throughoutthe planning of the CMHR, authors Hankivsky and Dhamoon (2013) suggestthe possibility for ‘‘inessential solidarities’’ to form between victim groups—thatis, solidarities that are ‘‘based on common interests among diverse communities,not common identities’’—through the creation of networking opportunitiesbetween the museum and community groups and organizations (912–13). TheCMHR is in the process of forging a number of these kinds of relationships herein Canada as well as abroad in regard to both commemorative and educationalactivities concerning human rights—albeit primarily with mainstream insti-tutional rather than grassroots or community groups at this point.

For instance, in July 2012, the CMHR set up a partnership with Ukraine’sNational Museum, the Memorial in Commemoration of Famines’ Victims inKyiv. In a press statement, Stuart Murray claims that, ‘‘This partnership will helpbring the story of the Holodomor to a wider audience, to the benefit of genera-tions to come’’ (‘‘CMHR Deals’’ 2012). In turn, the CEO of the Kyiv organizationhas responded with a similar statement: ‘‘International cooperation with theCMHR will facilitate the comprehensive study of famine as a phenomenon thatwill prevent such tragedies in the future’’ (‘‘CMHR Deals’’ 2012). As a secondexample, in October 2013, Murray and Hayk Demoyan, director of the ArmenianGenocide Museum Institute of the National Academy of Sciences signed a Mem-orandum of Understanding at a meeting in Winnipeg that commits to anexchange of knowledge and expertise, educational materials, and exhibitions

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on human rights issues (CMHR 2013a; see also ‘‘Armenian’’ 2013). Thiscollaboration—or, ‘‘networking’’ of institutions—is being facilitated by TheInternational Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (a Division ofthe Zoryan Institute of Canada), located in Toronto and thereby, links togetherthree different cities—Winnipeg, Toronto, and Yerevan—across two countries.Third, around the same time, the CMHR also established an agreement withthe Government of Manitoba’s Ministry of Education. This is the first and onlypartnership to exist in Canada between a provincial education department anda national museum. Then-Education Minister Nancy Allen commented on thevalue of this agreement by emphasizing the pedagogical benefits to be antici-pated from this newly founded alliance. She was quoted on the CMHR’s websiteas stating, ‘‘this unique collaboration . . . is an important expression of our sharedvision to turn this city and province into a national centre of excellence in humanrights learning and research’’ (CMHR 2014a). And finally, in early June 2014, theCMHR signed an agreement with the International Human Rights Institute forPeace in Caen, France. A similar vision of increased education and publicawareness is the expected outcome of this newest partnership (Wazny 2014).

These are a few examples that suggest ways in which the CMHR is anetworked and distributed museum and definitively not a stand-aloneinstitution; rather it has built into its origins and ongoing development importantconnections to other cultural institutions in Canada and abroad that addresssimilar historical narratives of violence and victimization, and the broaderhuman rights lessons to be gleaned from them. Now that the museum hasopened, how will the relationship further develop between these institutionsand the CMHR, and how effective will they be in promoting or challengingthe museum’s intended human rights message(s)? A significant question thatremains is whether such alliances—especially the ones with memorial institutesin Ukraine and Armenia—can foster new and productive dialogues amongCanadian community leaders and members who have previously been criticalof the ostensible hierarchy of suffering being reproduced through the plannedcontent of the CMHR’s exhibition. We might also consider how these inter-national affiliations will impact local, grassroots and alternative groups or orga-nizations seeking out their own alliances with the CMHR.

Although I have been arguing that meaning-making in the museum takesplace in spaces well beyond its physical walls and often through transnationallinkages, the positioning of a museum and its local connections neverthelesscarry much importance and consequence—geographically, socially, politically,and economically (Bautista 2013; Knell 2011). In the case of the CMHR, this refersto the museum’s location in Winnipeg, Manitoba and its particular placement onIndigenous territory. As a city with a sizeable Indigenous population (it has thelargest concentration of Metis people in the country, Statistics Canada 2011) andthe site from where numerous Indigenous women have gone missing or havebeen found murdered (see Dean, this issue), a museum of human rights inWinnipeg carries a particular responsibility to document injustices that are occur-ring locally. In many ways, the museum has failed to do this (Dean, this issue).And, as mentioned earlier, Canada’s mainstream national media have also failedto address these shortcomings in its reporting on the museum.

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Viewed through the lens of multidirectionality, however, we might be able torecognize some important openings and possibilities in the relationship betweenthe CMHR and local grassroots organizations. One such example is thelong-standing but largely overlooked protests coming from Shoal Lake #40 FirstNation, a community of approximately 300 people near Kenora on the provincialborder between Manitoba and Ontario. Arguably, the presence of the CMHR hasacted as additional impetus to the community’s activism concerning humanrights violations over water access and safe road access (the community hasin fact been lobbying the federal government for safe road access and cleandrinking water for decades). Situated roughly 160 km east of Winnipeg, thiscommunity was artificially transformed into an island in 1919 when the city ofWinnipeg flooded it to divert the water supply to the city. As a result, the FirstNation does not have access to clean water and has been on a boil-water advisoryfor almost 20 years. The community is also cut off from the mainland due to anabsence of secure road access, such as a paved bridge. Nine deaths have beendocumented as individuals from the community have fallen through the ice inan attempt to cross over to the mainland during the winter months and in thespring thaw. To date, no compensation has been awarded to the communitynor have attempts been made to build a water treatment facility on site (Suzuki2014; Shoal Lake 40 2014d). According to a statement released by Amnesty Inter-national, ‘‘The situation at Shoal Lake [40] First Nation amounts to a denial offundamental human rights, including the right to livelihood, health and culture’’(Shoal Lake 40 2014a).

The CMHR is implicated in these violations not only because as a humanrights museum it presumably carries a responsibility to document this story oflocal and national human rights abuses but also because, as with all of Winnipeg,the museum makes use of the municipal water supply, which comes directlyfrom Shoal Lake. Moreover, the largest open space in the museum’s permanentexhibit—the Garden of Contemplation—makes use of water from Shoal Lake inits ‘‘serenity pools’’ scattered throughout this portion of the museum. The sourceof this water supply—and implicated human rights violations against the FirstNations community—is currently not mentioned anywhere in the CMHR’s exhi-bits. As a direct protest against the CMHR and in reaction to ongoing humanrights violations by local, provincial and federal governments, members of theShoal Lake community used the occasion of the CMHR opening weekend toset up a protest camp on the grounds outside of the museum as well as to launchthe Museum of Canadian Human Rights Violations (MCHRV)—a ‘‘livingmuseum’’ that consists of guided tours to the First Nations community (ShoalLake 40 2014b). Several components of the MCHRV project highlight the multi-directional link between the MCHRV and the CMHR, such as obvious parallelsbetween the names of the two museums and the date on which the MCHRVwas launched—September 15, 2014, five days prior to the official opening ofthe CMHR. The MCHRV also directly references the CMHR in the emblem it firstintroduced in a September 2014 press release.7 The emblem depicts the CMHRbuilding in one corner and the island of Shoal Lake 40 in the other and are con-nected to one another via a pipeline. This pipeline connection reflects the ShoalLake community’s main point of protest: the city of Winnipeg (symbolized here

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via the CMHR building) lives off of the water diverted from the Shoal Lake 40First Nation community. This image depicts the multidirectional connectionbetween two separate institutions: the MCHRV—a local grassroots protest move-ment—literally emerged from and, in opposition to, the CMHR—a federallyfunded national museum. The use of the CMHR in this emblem, as well as ononline platforms used by Shoal Lake 40 (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube), also helpsto reinforce the community’s specific message of human rights violations andwhat it is demanding from the museum, the city of Winnipeg, and from theFederal government.8

The Shoal Lake 40 protest and its MCHRV also highlight how a historicallymarginalized community exercises agency by way of and in reference to amainstream institution such as the CMHR. This marks the ‘‘other’’ dimensionof multidirectionality: despite power differentials, historically marginalizedgroups also have the ability to assert their own influence on more dominantgroups or institutions. Power in this case ‘‘appears not merely as hierarchicalor repressive (although it can be that), but also as productive and open torearticulation from below’’ (Rothberg 2014, 127). Although the CMHR has beenslow to respond to the demands made by Shoal Lake 40, dialogue has startedbetween the two entities regarding possible modifications to the CMHR exhibitand other CMHR activities that would document the human rights abuses atShoal Lake 40 (Paul 2014). In July 2014, staff members from the CMHR visitedShoal Lake 40 along with representatives of the City of Winnipeg and theProvince of Manitoba and a representative of Amnesty International (Porter2014). Clint Curle, Head of CMHR Stakeholder relations, explained that the goalsof this visit were ‘‘to gain a deeper understanding of the situation at Shoal LakeFirst Nation #40, contribute to a greater understanding of the Museum’s role,and continue to foster trust and goodwill between us’’ (cited in Shoal Lake 402014a). And, as reported in the Winnipeg Free Press, Shoal Lake 40 Chief, ErwinRedsky, has stated ‘‘We’re discussing how the museum will put our story out -. . . It’s the beginning of a relationship’’ (Paul 2014). By aligning its decades-longprotest with a high-profile institution such as the CMHR, we might also considerthe additional (media, government, public) attention brought to the injusticestaking place against Shoal Lake 40. As the MCHRV continues to run tours ofits ‘‘live museum,’’ we look to see how, and if at all, the CMHR will integratethe story of Shoal Lake 40 into its exhibit, and if it will continue the dialoguestarted with representatives of the Shoal Lake Band to any effect. It is worthnoticing here whether protest outside of the museum does indeed have thepotential to influence and change things within the museum and then, in turn(to cite one of the CMHR’s mandates) to transform ‘‘human rights into action’’(CMHR 2010).

DIGITAL SPACE

In the museum context, digital space has the capacity to disseminate informationto wider audiences and enable more user involvement (European NationalMuseums 2012). Web-based and other digital technologies extend the exhibit’s

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capacity beyond the walls of the museum, thereby ‘‘provid[ing] solutions toissues of space limitation’’ (Styliani et al. 2009, 520). For example, the expansionof exhibits into cyberspace might allow museums such as the CMHR to integratecommunities underrepresented in its physical space into its on-line content andcollections. Styliani et al. (2009) suggest various ways in which virtuality canfactor into museum planning such as incorporating sections of the collection indigital kiosks or computers scattered throughout the exhibition, or extendingexhibits onto the Internet where visitors can engage with collections without everhaving to set foot into the physical space of the museum.

The CMHR has shown commitment to virtual technologies in both realms.First, the museum makes use of digital technologies within the physical exhi-bition space. The exhibit includes a number of digital portals spread throughoutthe museum for displaying additional materials—such as LED or film projectionson the wall or on canvases hanging throughout the museum—many of whichencourage interaction with visitors. Second, and of greater interest here, evenbefore opening to the public, the museum had started sharing parts of its collec-tion and encouraging user interaction in a frequently-updated blog and on socialmedia sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, and YouTube.9 In thelead-up to the CMHR’s opening, it has mostly been using these social media sitesfor posting images of the museum’s architectural development, advertising jobopenings, and announcing new acquisitions and educational programming. Onits blog and on Facebook and Twitter specifically, the CMHR posts almost dailyannouncements of official days of observance that promote awareness of social,humanitarian or human rights issues such as Nelson Mandela Day, NunavutDay, Louis Riel Day, International Day of People With Disabilities, or BullyingAwareness Week. When it comes to actually making political statements ordisseminating information about contemporary human rights crises, the CMHR’sonline presence is however less visible. It is here that digital museum spacemanifests itself in a third way: grassroots activism and protest.

The role of digital technology in or connected to museums may also refer tohow civic actors and grassroots organizations make use of these technologiesas protest tools to disseminate counternarratives and propose new and alterna-tive representations of violent histories and human rights education. Theexample of Shoal Lake 40 community, discussed above, and its use of onlineplatforms is a case in point. Another example took place during the Israel–Gazaconflict in July and August of 2014. Although the CMHR remained silent on thisconflict across its social media sites, various human rights groups from aroundWinnipeg organized a rally ‘‘to call for an end to the military assault on Gazaas part of the Global Day of Action for the besieged Palestinian territory’’(‘‘Winnipeg Rally’’ 2014). Protesters used the physical grounds of the CMHRas the start and end points of the rally on July 19th, 2014, and they turned toFacebook to advertise and describe the event. The poster used on the Facebookevents page drew on the visual symbolism of the CMHR building, as it blendsin with the image of a woman carrying a child, a burning Gazan cityscape,and the Palestinian flag.10

The protest was widely reported on in the Canadian press—as weredescriptions of the CMHR building as the site of the protest; newspaper and

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online articles as well as TV news reports of the rally included photographs orfootage of the CMHR alongside the protesters.11 The leading photograph usedin a Global News article about the rally, for example, shows a group of protestersstanding in front of the museum; the caption beneath the photo describesthat ‘‘Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at the Museum for Human RightsSaturday to protest the escalating violence in Gaza’’ (Carter 2014, emphasisadded). Even though the CMHR did not publically endorse these rallies, mediareporting made it seem as if this institution was indeed formally involved.Following the protests, CMHR social media sites maintained their non-involvement, and did not make any reference to the rallies or the use of theCMHR grounds by human rights organizations. This overall silence regardingcurrent human rights abuses, Israel–Gaza being but one recent example,appears typical so far of the CMHR, rendering it curiously apolitical despitethe intrinsically political dimension of the human rights principles it claimsto uphold. As one commentator aptly noted on the CMHR Facebook page,‘‘How can a museum dedicated to Human Rights try to distance itself frompolitical opinions?’’ (CHMR 2014b). These protest activities, however, suggeststhat the public has the capacity to ‘‘extend’’ the space of the museum beyond itsphysical walls. The example of the Winnipeg Rally for Gaza shows how localhuman rights organizations and the general public—via online platforms,and the use of the museum as a physical and symbolic backdrop keenly notedby the media—managed to affix political meaning to the CMHR, irrespective ofthe museum’s seemingly apolitical stance or activities.

NEW SPACES OF DIFFICULT KNOWLEDGE

As spaces in which national identities are defined and represented (Knell 2011;Williams 2008) museums are important locations in which to observe how anation conceives of, acknowledges, and, ultimately, creates spaces of inclusionfor its members (MacDonald 2003; Sandell 2003). For this reason, inclusions aswell as omissions in nationally-funded exhibitions, commemorative or edu-cational spaces are important areas of analysis in order to understand the moraland political hierarchies of belonging that define the body politic. The stakes thenare quite high and explain, in part at least, why some community leaders andmembers are so keen on being ‘‘counted in’’ these national spaces. But does thatmean that a hierarchy of victimhood is an inevitable outcome of the difficultknowledge that frequently accompanies museums dealing with complex issuessuch as human rights and historical injustice? What if, as proposed throughoutthis article, the ‘‘space’’ of the museum is re-defined and expanded to includea broader and more complex constellation of sites and their accompanyingnarratives? How might moral and political hierarchies be understood and inter-preted differently, more complexly, and in more productive terms? Is there thepossibility that the space of the CMHR can be equally defined not only by contentassembled between its walls, but also according to those interrelated narrativesthat exist in the discursive, multidirectional and digital spaces of represen-tation—locally and transnationally?

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The framework proposed in this article invites us to research and make senseof the universal context in which histories of suffering and claims of socialjustice and their effects are represented, negotiated, debated and disseminatedto and by the public at large. The examples presented here suggest a shift inhow we might think of the ‘‘contentious effects’’ of representing and teachingabout violent histories. Namely, the process of engaging with the effects ofthese representations, be it by the public or by the museum itself, neither beginsnor ends in the physical spaces of the museum but becomes part of a net-worked, distributed, and multidirectional constellation of institutions andsocial actors. Having examined the CMHR as one node in an interrelatednetwork of related spaces and cultural institutions, this article has sought toprovide a more thorough model for interpreting how museums engage withand negotiate difficult knowledge, and how the public responds to andchallenges mainstream narratives of unjust pasts.

NOTES

1. An image of the postcard is available through the official website of the UCCLA (2011). TheUCCLA has used postcards in a variety of different lobby campaigns. An archive of thoserelated to the CMHR as well as other campaigns is also available through their official website(2011).

2. See Ball and Rudling (in press) and Chatterley (in press) for further analysis of how conflictspertaining to representation of the Holocaust have impacted development of the CMHR.

3. For further historical background on the conflictual Jewish–Ukrainian relations vis-a-visrecognition and commemoration of suffering in WWII and the Holocaust, see also Rudling(2011).

4. For more information about the ideological divide between Canada’s two main Ukrainian organi-zations—the UCCLA and the UCC—see Chatterley (in press), Ball and Rudling (in press), andHankivsky and Dhamoon (2013).

5. For a detailed overview of these conflicts, see Moses (2012, 2014) and Hankivsky and Dhamoon(2013).

6. The complete CMHR mission statement: ‘‘The purpose of the Canadian Museum for HumanRights is to explore the subject of human rights, with special but not exclusive reference toCanada, in order to enhance the public’s understanding of human rights, to promote respectfor others and to encourage reflection and dialogue’’ (CMHR 2012a).

7. The Shoal Lake 40 Press Release that first included this emblem is available through thecommunity’s official webpage (Shoal Lake 40 2014c) This emblem is now also used on theMCHRV’s website and Facebook page (which was also launched five days prior to the openingof the CMHR).

8. The dissemination of information by Shoal Lake 40 on virtual platforms such as Facebook andTwitter (#shoallake40) and a designated YouTube page extend the activism of the MCHRV intodigital space as well, the subject of the following and final section. The Shoal Lake 40 YouTubestation is available at the following link and includes a series of videos documenting water viola-tions in the community (Redsky Family’s Videos 2011).

9. The CMHR has its own YouTube channel, which includes mostly (bilingual) broadcasts of itsannual public meetings, advertisements for the museum (titled ‘‘Change is in your Hands’’),and short interview clips on topics ranging from ‘‘what should be in a human rights museum?’’to ‘‘persecution in Bosnia’’ and ‘‘homophobia in USA.’’ All videos are available with closed cap-tions and descriptive audio (CMHR 2014c).

10. The poster can be viewed on the Facebook event page (‘‘Winnipeg Rally’’ 2014).11. Some examples include: Jessica Botelho-Urbanski (2014), Ashley Carter (2014), and ‘‘Tempers

Flare’’ (2014).

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Carter, J. and Orange, J. (2012). Contentious Terrain: Defining a Human Rights Museology. MuseumManagement and Curatorship, 27, 111–127.

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Canadian Museum for Human Rights. (2013a). CMHR and Armenian Genocide Museum InstituteSign Memorandum of Understanding. Retrieved from www.humanrights.ca/about-museum/news/canadian-museum-human-rights-and-armenian-genocide-museum-institute-sign

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Dean, A. (this issue). The CMHR and the Ongoing Crisis of Murdered or Missing Indigenous Women:Do Museums Have a Responsibility to Care? The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and CulturalStudies, 37(2–3), 147–165.

De Cesari, C. and Rigney, A. (2014). Transnational Memory: Circulation, Articulation, Scales. Berlin,Germany: De Gruyter.

Diner, D. (2007). Gegenlaufige Gedachtnisse: Uber Geltung und Wirkung des Holocaust. Gottingen,Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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Failler, A. (this issue). Hope Without Consolation: Prospects for Critical Learning at the CanadianMuseum for Human Rights. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 37(2–3), 227–250.

Goff, A. (2010). Virtual Experiments: Reflections on the Museum in the Virtual Realm. University ofMichigan Working Papers in Museum Studies, 2, 1–8.

Greenwald, A. (2010). ‘‘Passion on All Sides’’: Lessons for Planning the National September 11Memorial Museum. Curator, 53, 117–125.

Hankivksy, O. and Dhamoon, R. (2013). Which Genocide Matters the Most? An IntersectionalityAnalysis of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 46,899–920.

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