“If it’s happening, I wasn’t there”: South Asian Perspectives on Museums as Cultural Information Sources

Reza, Alia

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132991 Copy

Description

Title

“If it’s happening, I wasn’t there”: South Asian Perspectives on Museums as Cultural Information Sources

Author(s)

Reza, Alia

Issue Date

2026-03-12

Keyword(s)

• Museums
• Information
• South Asian communities
• Cultural institutions
• Immigrant communities

Abstract

Introduction. Museums are vital to distributing and documenting cultural heritage information, but traditionally exclude immigrants and marginalized groups from their programming and curation. Related Work. This study uses a postcolonial lens to discuss museums’ responsibility to serve marginalized communities. Postcolonial scholars argue museums should be spaces for discussing impacts of colonial historic erasure. Methods. The study explores the views of South Asians in the Washington DC area on museums as cultural information sources. Thirty-one participants engaged in 10 focus groups where they created museum diagrams and discussed their opinions and experiences with museums. All data was qualitatively coded using NVivo. Results. Participants view museums as acceptable general information sources, but do not trust them to represent their own cultural heritage and they often eschew South Asian stories or tell them erroneously. Discussion. Museums promise to bring value to and serve society, but participants do not perceive that value because of a lack of trust in museums rooted in museums’ traditional colonial practices. Conclusions & Future Work. Future work examines information structures participants trust to tell their stories, furthering our understanding of how participants seek and document cultural information so museums can fulfill their promises of service for these communities.

Publisher

iSchools

Series/Report Name or Number

iConference 2026 Proceedings

Type of Resource

Other

Genre of Resource

Conference Poster

Language

eng

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132991

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2026 is held by Alia Reza. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.

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