Whose History

Museum-making and struggles over ethnicity and representation in the Sunbelt

Bibliographic Data

ID2360590
AuthorsK A Yelvington (0000-0003-1721-2571, University of South Florida, Tampa,, corresponding author), Neill G Goslin (University of South Florida, Tampa,), Wendy Arriaga (University of South Florida, Tampa,)
Year2002
Volume22
Issue3
Pages343-379
Publication date2002-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritique of Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-275X • E-ISSN: 1460-3721
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0308275x02022003762
OpenAlexW1973886871
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited73

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

Aesthetics · Art · Ethnography · Identity (music · Media studies · Political science · Redevelopment · Rhetoric · Sociology · Theme (computing · White (mutation · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law