Museums,Collections and Social Repair in Vietnam

Abstract

Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot, in his discussion on how the current global Westernized hegemony treats specific historical events, events chosen for their relevance to the text of Western dominance, has addressed absences (or silences as 'inherent in the creation of sources, the first moment of historical production' (Trouillot, 1995, p. 51). People and places that are designated 'Third World' often find their history has (or has been) 'disappeared'. He references complex historiographical occurrences of this process of historical production, whereby black and poor societies were not just physically ostracized, but in a sense mentally too as they basically 'disappeared' from the historical text. He states: 'History reveals itself only through the production of specific narratives. What matters most are the process and conditions of such narratives . ... Only through that overlap can we discover the differential exercise of power that makes some narratives possible and silences others.