Our Colonial Inheritance

What does it mean to inherit from a colonial past? The semi-permanent exhibition 'Our Colonial Inheritance' in the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam explores the complex ways in which colonial pasts continue to shape our present, examining the many entanglements of colonial knowledge systems and infrastructures within our everyday life today.

This book is a furtherance of our ongoing exploration of this theme. Throughout the publication we move away from the question of a historical legacy, and instead focus on the collective inheritance in the present. This is a crucial step for us to be able to talk to each other about the future.

While our 'colonial inheritance' may mean something different to everyone, it is also a collective experience in the here and now. What steps can we take together to move towards a more just world? How do we collectively create a better future? And what role can a museum play in this?

These are all questions that informed the contributions in this book through essays, conversations, and object lessons. Over 30 scholars, artists and museum professionals describe what it means to inherit the (infra)structures of the colonial past, its categories, its relations, and even its objects. This publication asks us, and its readers, how we deal with such bequests.