The End of the Museum

Culture, Colonialism and Liberation

Kevin Coffee

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Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Routledge
08 August 2025

Museums & museology; Colonialism & imperialism; National liberation & independence, post-colonialism; Social work; Organisational theory & behaviour

This provocative book challenges frequently voiced assertions regarding museums as necessary and valued modern institutions. It raises fundamental, existential questions about contemporary museums as products of the modern colonial world order.

Drawing on practical examples of collecting and exhibiting, theoretical research, and critique from diverse countries across the globe, including Chile, India, Korea, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Palestine, Portugal, Sri Lanka and the United States, this book moves beyond the conventional Eurocentric museological framework. This book synthesizes contemporary critiques of museums, while arguing that societies need the sociocultural examinations that museums are capable of facilitating and that radical transformations of ""the museum"" are fraught with difficulty, but also possible and necessary. Ultimately, Coffee argues that museums can only be future orientated if they are transformed into agents of social justice and inclusion, divestors of illicit collections, and proponents of a liberatory ethic, opposing neo-colonialism in all of its forms. During that transformative process, as this book demonstrates, museum practice and museum theory must also be transformed.

The End of the Museum: Culture, Colonialism, and Liberation will appeal to students, researchers, and practitioners interested in a critical examination of museum work and theory.

By: Kevin Coffee
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781032792781
ISBN 10: 1032792787
Pages: 220
Publication Date: 08 August 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Kevin Coffee is a public museologist who has worked with cultural organizations for more than 40 years, including the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Chicago Academy of Sciences, and the US National Park Service. During that time, he has led and advised scores of organizations and projects in North America, Europe, and Asia. His work engages culture creators and museum users in developing new forms of inclusive and dialogical exhibitions, programs, landscapes, and museums. He resides in the United States.

Reviews for The End of the Museum: Culture, Colonialism and Liberation

""Kevin Coffee makes a convincing case of what museums traditionally have been and often still are, repositories of and serving the interest of elite culture and opposes it with what museums should be, in a dialectic relationship with the societies they serve, in particular underrepresented and subaltern parts of that societies. A must-read for every museum-practitioner that wants to live up to the promise of the museum having an important social function."" ~ Tom van der Molen, curator, Amsterdam Museum ""For those individuals who have devoted their working life to museums, this book may be painful. The discomfort emanates from Coffee’s highly-informed analysis of the museum world’s birthright, grounded as it is in imperialism, extraction, elitism and, more recently, the commercialization of culture. Coffee is a veteran scholar/practitioner and rigorously challenges the traditional museum practices and assumptions underlying this legacy, knowing full well that the continuation of museums will require unprecedented courage, vulnerability and foresight. This book is for all those who remain committed to museum work while also experiencing the intensifying uncertainty. Coffee demonstrates that the future of museums is unclear and there is much to do as a result."" ~ Robert R. Janes, former museum director, author, editor, and Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester (UK).