Colonial states museumized sacred sites to legitimize themselves as guardians of tradition

Evidence

The third reason takes us deeper, and closer to the map. We have seen earlier, in our discussion of the ‘historical map,’ how colonial regimes began attaching themself to antiquity as much as conquest, originally for quite straightforward Machiavellian–legalistic reasons. As time passed, however, there was less and less openly brutal talk about right of conquest, and more and more effort to create alternative legitimacies. More and more Europeans were being born in Southeast Asia, and being tempted to make it their home. Monumental archaeology, increasingly linked to tourism, allowed the state to appear as the guardian of a generalized, but also local, Tradition. The old sacred sites were to be incorporated into the map of the colony, and their ancient prestige (which, if this had disappeared, as it often had, the state would attempt to revive) draped around the mappers. This paradoxical situation is nicely illustrated by the fact that the reconstructed monuments often had smartly laid-out lawns around them, and always explanatory tablets, complete with datings, planted here and there. Moreover, they were to be kept empty of people, except for perambulatory tourists (no religious ceremonies or pilgrimages, so far as possible). Museumized this way, they were repositioned as regalia for a secular colonial state. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 673

Categorization

• DEFINE: ‘Museumizing’ as a mechanism: sites stripped of living religious practice and repositioned as secular state regalia — a core concept for the scaffolding toolkit.
• XREF: The secularization/repositioning of sacred sites parallels how biopolitics and necropolitics frame how states manage populations and their histories; connects to the field’s treatment of state power over cultural memory. — connects to: Colonial desires transformed tangible wealth into myths and mystical significance — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 586; Monument restoration served as colonial propaganda proclaiming native incapacity for self-rule — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 672; Postcolonial museums inherit the political functions of colonial archaeology — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 669 (+6 more)

Related

• Colonial monument restoration drained sacred sites of living religious use (similarity 0.88)
• Monument restoration served as colonial propaganda proclaiming native incapacity for self-rule (similarity 0.84)
• Colonial archaeology functioned as conservative education to block native schooling (similarity 0.79)
• Postcolonial museums inherit the political functions of colonial archaeology (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial archaeology gave postcolonial states an inherited depth of field. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Postcolonial museums inherit the political functions of colonial archaeology #corroborates (0.90) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 669
• Colonial officials rationalized domination by claiming trusteeship over the colonized #corroborates (0.85)
• Colonial archaeology gave postcolonial states an inherited depth of field. #corroborates (0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 680
• Colonial domination distorts the colonized’s relationship with their own culture and traditions #expands (0.80) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 421
• History once served to sing the praises and legitimize the State’s sovereignty #corroborates (0.80)
• Colonizers use the colonized’s own spirituality to deny them material claims #corroborates (0.75) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 144