Abstract
Memory Museums commemorate traumatic historic events to help prevent their repetition and contribute to reconciliation. Qualitative research on their visitors’ experience is scarce. This chapter explores the ‘visitor’s gaze’ in the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile as presented in its 2015–2016 visitor book; their voluntary and anonymous nature, and the fact that people write immediately after their experience, allow for the production of complex discourses that were examined using discourse analysis. The entries revealed that visitors engaged positively with the narrative and space of the Museum. Reflective comments and emotions emphasised the importance of places of memory for remembering, healing, and learning. The fact that the Museum includes large sections on resistance and struggle seems to contribute to this highly positive take.
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Notes
- 1.
For an overview of the literature on museum visitor studies, see Hooper-Greenhill (2006).
- 2.
As in Sample 6, identifiers are not included out of respect for the writers.
- 3.
Victims and human rights professionals were against this contextualisation, arguing that no context justifies the violation of human rights, and that the museum’s function is to show what happened with irrefutable evidence, to promote the social commitment that these violations are not repeated, under any circumstance (see Javiera Parada’s letter (27/06/2012) and Enrique Palet’s letter (25/06/2012) to the newspaper El Mercurio).
- 4.
Personnel from Audience Studies at the MMDH confirmed the identification of a number of visitors who have a memory as salvation and therefore criticise the museum’s perspective. (Beatriz Águila, Pers. comm. 19 May 2018).
- 5.
Exhibits on contemporary issues on human rights have their own visitor book placed outside the exhibiting room. However, a number of comments reflected on the fragility of human rights and the importance of raising awareness on young people on social issues, especially in connection with the indigenous Mapuche people.
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Acknowledgements
My sincere gratitude to the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos and its personnel: Jo Siemon, Head of Education and Outreach, manager of oral archives Walter Roblero, Beatriz Águila, and María Luisa Ortiz, Head of Collections and Research. Thank you to my colleagues of the SLC Memory and Trauma Research Group.
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Rojas-Lizana, S. (2020). The Visitor’s Gaze in the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile. In: Hubbell, A.L., Akagawa, N., Rojas-Lizana, S., Pohlman, A. (eds) Places of Traumatic Memory. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52056-4_5
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