Curating conflict-related sexual violence: museological visibilities at the Imperial War Museum

O'Mahony, Meg (2024) Curating conflict-related sexual violence: museological visibilities at the Imperial War Museum. Memory Studies. ISSN 1750-6980

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Abstract

While often under-researched, mis-catalogued, and obscured from public display, conflict-related sexual violence is acutely entangled in the story of conflict that the Imperial War Museum tells its visitors, beyond the dichotomous characterisation of present/absent, hidden/revealed or remembered/forgotten. This article outlines and characterises ways in which the Imperial War Museum curates conflict-related sexual violence, illustrating how this equates to gendered and gendering arbitrations on what is appropriate, representative, and moreover what counts as conflict-related sexual violence and as the material and visual culture of war. Curatorial practices are found to both reflect and actively (re)produce patterns of representation in sexual violence discourse, through a prism of visual hierarchies inherent to modern museumification and the Museum’s titular imperial legacy. Insights from this case can help guide ambitions of a more activist, feminist curatorial practice, one invested in disrupting harmful patterns and centring what is marginal.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Author
Divisions:	International Relations
Subjects:	A General Works > AM Museums (General). Collectors and collecting (General) H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
Date Deposited:	11 Oct 2024 12:03
Last Modified:	28 Oct 2025 17:04
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/125693

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