Museums and Public Memory under Post-Truth Politics

By Ann-Sophie Van Baeveghem

Ann-Sophie Van Baeveghem is a teaching assistant with the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies (GIES).

This contribution examines how post-truth politics, exemplified by the first year of the second Trump presidency, intensifies contestation over truth, authority, and legitimacy in public memory. Approaching museums as infrastructures of memory, it argues that declining trust in expertise and institutions destabilizes traditional claims to neutrality and objectivity. Under these conditions, curatorial decisions become increasingly politicized and visible, particularly in relation to colonial and contested histories. The paper situates museums as political and ethical actors and explores how reflexivity, transparency, and accountability can enable them to function as democratic spaces amid epistemic uncertainty.

Introduction

The first year of the renewed Trump presidency has been characterized by the worrisome normalization of a political style that repeatedly challenges truth, expertise, and institutional authority. Officially produced data are persistently questioned through claims of manipulation, while factual claims unfavourable to the administration’s political interests are dismissed as hoaxes. Professional knowledge is framed as elitist, with scientists, historians, civil servants, and journalists depicted as members of a detached establishment pursuing hidden agendas. Institutions are continuously portrayed as politically biased and ideological actors rather than as legitimate and trustworthy public bodies. These disputes are epistemological in nature: they centre on who is entitled to determine what does and does not count as valid knowledge. Under this Trump administration, such dynamics directly undermine institutions that rely on mediated forms of authority. This includes museums as they depend on institutional trust, specialized curatorial knowledge, and the legitimacy of careful selection rather than arbitrary choice. It is precisely these foundations that are attacked by post-truth politics. Museums can no longer assume that the narratives they present will be received as credible. Appeals to neutrality cease to function as a safeguard against political contestation, and curatorial silences or selective emphases are at risk of being read as deliberate ideological positioning. In this environment, the authority of museums is not simply challenged from the outside, but redefined by broader struggles over knowledge, legitimacy, and power in public life. These developments directly influence practices of public memory. Remembering has never been a neutral or purely descriptive activity as it involves decisions on selection, emphasis, and omission. Under post-truth conditions, however, the authority to make these decisions becomes more openly contested. The issue is no longer limited to which histories are remembered but extends to who is deemed legitimate to define credible historical knowledge in the first place. Memory thus becomes a site of intensified political struggle, shaped by competing claims to authority, responsibility, and visibility.

Museums have long been positioned as trustworthy mediators of the past, drawing legitimacy from institutional credibility, professional knowledge, and claims to objectivity (Clifford 1999). Yet scholarship in memory studies and critical museology has long demonstrated that museums are embedded within power relations and actively contribute to the production of historical meaning through curatorial decisions, institutional frameworks, and representational strategies (Bennett 1995, Macdonald 2013). Curatorial choices influence which histories are acknowledged or highlighted, and which remain marginalized or underexposed. As a result, museum praxis reproduces existing hierarchies of knowledge and belonging. Approaching museums as political and ethical institutions allows for a more explicit analysis of these dynamics. Research on the coloniality of memory has shown how museums have historically normalized Eurocentric perspectives while marginalizing colonial violence, racialized histories, and alternative epistemologies (Mignolo & Walsh 2018, Ndlovu Gatsheni 2015, Sierp 2020). Under post-truth conditions, such patterns of selective remembering intersect with growing scepticism towards institutional authority and an increased tendency to read curatorial decisions in an ideological way. The current Trump administration functions here not as a singular cause, but as a context in which the tensions surrounding authority, credibility, and responsibility in public memory become particularly visible.

Negotiating the past: museums and public memory under post-truth conditions

Memory and authority in a post-truth context

Post-truth conditions reshape the contemporary politics of remembering by altering the epistemic frameworks through which historical knowledge is produced, authorized, and contested. Instead of indicating the disappearance of truth, post-truth politics is characterized by the erosion of shared criteria for evaluating truth claims in the public debate (Enroth 2023). Under these conditions, disagreements about history are increasingly shaped by emotional resonance, political identification, and selective narration, rather than solely by documented evidence or factual accuracy. The first year of the renewed Trump presidency exemplifies this dynamic by normalizing a political style in which institutional authority is openly challenged, and historical claims are mobilized without the expectation of justification or correction. Remembering necessarily involves selection and exclusion. However, under post-truth conditions, the authority to make such selections becomes more openly contested. When institutional trust declines and expertise is framed as ideological positioning, the legitimacy of historical knowledge itself becomes unstable. This instability alters the conditions under which dominant narratives are defended or challenged. Post-truth politics does not introduce selectivity into memory practices. It draws attention to the selective character of public memory and intensifies disputes over how and by whom that selectivity is exercised (de Saint-Laurent et al 2017). Therefore, the contemporary politics of remembering is primarily concerned with struggles over epistemic authority, rather than disagreements over factual accuracy.

The current Trump administration illustrates how historical narratives may be selectively invoked, reframed, or dismissed depending on political utility, while unfavourable interpretations are delegitimised as biased or manipulative. Such dynamics resonate with scholarship in memory studies that emphasizes the institutional nature of remembering and inherent power dynamic that is at play in shaping what becomes publicly recognised as history (Macdonald 2013, Sierp 2020). Under post-truth conditions, these power relations become increasingly explicit as the institutional mechanisms that once stabilised historical narratives lose their taken-for-granted legitimacy. In turn, these developments have implications for contested and violent pasts. Research on the coloniality of memory shows how selective historiography and representational silences have historically marginalized colonial violence and racialised experiences, while favouring Eurocentric narratives (Mignolo & Walsh 2018). Post-truth politics intensifies these dynamics by weakening the institutional frameworks through which historical interpretation was previously mediated. Memory thus becomes an increasingly politicised field, in which authority, legitimacy, and responsibility are continuously renegotiated.

Museums as infrastructures of memory

Museums operate as active infrastructures of memory as they shape how the public encounters and thus remembers the past. Curatorial decisions on inclusion and omission influence whose histories are recognised and whose are marginalized. These decisions are embedded within broader institutional, political, and cultural structures, which distribute visibility, legitimacy, and authority unevenly (Hooper-Greenhill 2000, Macdonald 1998). Under the current U.S. administration, the selective logic of memory becomes more contested and politically visible. Museums thus do not merely reflect memory regimes but actively participate in producing and stabilising them. This dynamic is particularly evident in relation to colonial, racialized, and exclusionary histories. Institutional practices have historically normalized Eurocentric perspectives while marginalizing the experiences, knowledge systems, and agency of colonized and racialized communities (Mignolo 2011, Sierp 2020). Silences are not neutral absences but mechanisms through which harm is reproduced and accountability deferred. Addressing these legacies requires recognizing the epistemic hierarchies that museums produce and their ongoing impact on public understandings of the past. In the current Trumpian political climate, characterized by heightened institutional distrust, this issue becomes even more urgent.

Engaging with contested histories also exposes the labor, authority, and governance that are central to museum praxis. Reflexive curatorial work, including decisions about what is displayed, contextualized, or withheld, carries political and ethical weight. Institutions may adopt the language of decolonization without transforming underlying structures, resulting in colonial complicity (Spivak 2013). Critical museology emphasizes that such performative gestures risk preserving the hierarchies they appear to challenge (Lidchi 2006, Mason 2008). Funding, governance, and public expectations further constrain what museums can critically engage, highlighting their entanglement with political and social infrastructures (Bennett 1995). For museums to be recognised as political and ethical actors, the actual implications of curatorial decisions must be acknowledged. Abandoning claims to neutrality does not mean taking a political side but acknowledging the expertise that is required to shape how the public understands the past. In the context of post-truth politics exemplified by the Trump administration, transparent and accountable curatorial choices allow museums to function as sites where democratic capacities are cultivated, where the public can encounter complexity, navigate competing interpretations, and reflect on the power relations that inevitably structure historical knowledge.

Reimagining museums in a post-truth context

Despite its destabilising effects, post-truth politics also opens conceptual and practical possibilities for reimagining the role of museums within democratic life. When institutional authority is no longer the default, as has been the case during this first year of Trump’s second term, museums are compelled to clearly articulate their epistemic commitments and ethical responsibilities that guide their work. This allows for reflection on how memory institutions can operate with transparency, accountability, and responsiveness in times of contested truth (Lonetree 2012). This resonates with decolonial calls for epistemic disobedience and delinking practices (Mignolo 2009), which encourage unsettling inherited hierarchies of knowledge and creating space for multidirectional memory (Rothberg 2009) and plural understandings of the past. Central to this shift is the move from presenting truth as authority to practicing truthfulness. Museums can highlight the interpretive labor involved in producing historical narratives, acknowledging uncertainty, positionality, and the partiality of institutional perspectives. In addition, reflexivity can be perceived as a strength rather than a threat to legitimacy. It can become a way to signal commitment to honesty, critical engagement, and ethical responsibility. This approach reconfigures the museum’s educational role, aligning it with the needs of democratic fragility in a climate of post-truth politics (Simpson 2016). 

It is equally important for museums to rethink and redefine their relationship with the public. Museums are not authoritarian spaces, conveying a top-down message to passive recipients. Instead, visitors are active participants who are capable of critical engagement, interpretive agency, and disagreement. This shift builds on the idea of the museum as a forum rather than a temple (Cameron 1972), extending it to a site of political negotiation and epistemic contestation. Such practices can support civic literacy and strengthen democratic capacities, particularly when institutional authority is widely questioned. At the same time, reflexivity carries limits and risks. Without structural change, meaning redistribution of curatorial authority, sustained engagement with marginalized communities, and attention to colonial legacies, reflexivity risks becoming symbolic rather than transformative (Weiser 2020). Yet, when paired with concrete institutional reforms, museums can function as democratic infrastructures. As spaces where different narratives can coexist, where ethical reflection is encouraged, and contested histories are navigated. Under post-truth conditions, the future of public memory could depend on whether museums embrace this dual commitment to reflexivity and accountability.

Conclusion

Thus far, Trump’s second presidency has intensified dynamics that were already reshaping the epistemic foundations of public life. It has revealed sustained disagreement over factual information, the use of emotion to influence opinion, and repeated attacks on public institutions, all of which complicate how historical knowledge is received and evaluated. Museums currently operate in a context where claims to neutrality and objectivity no longer guarantee trust but are at risk of being interpreted as detachment or ideological concealment. In this post-truth climate, museum praxis and the framing of historical narratives become more visible and contested. Curatorial labor no longer takes place behind the scenes: it is subject to public and political scrutiny. Within this environment, the ethical responsibilities of museums are heightened. As infrastructures of memory, they shape how publics encounter, make sense of, and contest the past. Curatorial decisions distribute visibility and legitimacy, determining which histories are acknowledged and which remain marginalized. The persistence of coloniality of memory, manifested through selective historiography, silences, and epistemic hierarchies, proves that institutional practices continue to reproduce uneven power dynamics (Mignolo & Walsh 2018, Sierp 2020). Addressing these legacies is crucial for maintaining credibility in a political climate where authority is openly challenged.

The challenges of post-truth politics make the work of museums more urgent and socially significant. Their responsibilities are layered: governance structures may need adaption, engagement with marginalized communities is essential, and challenging histories must be confronted. Together with reflexivity, these steps allow museums to support plural perspectives, encourage critical engagement, and strengthen their role as democratic spaces. Ultimately, the future of public memory in a Trumpian post-truth context is shaped by the extent to which museums acknowledge and navigate their political and ethical responsibilities. Moving beyond strict neutrality can be seen as an opportunity, a tangible chance to reimagine institutional responsibility and navigate the complexities of contested histories with accountability, transparency, and curatorial care.

References

Cameron, D. F. (1972). The museum: A temple or the forum. Cahiers d'Histoire Mondiale, 14(1), 189.

Clifford, J. (1999). Museums as contact zones. Representing the nation: a reader: histories, heritage and museums, 435-57.

de Saint-Laurent, C., Brescó de Luna, I., Awad, S. H., & Wagoner, B. (2017). Collective memory and social sciences in the post-truth era. Culture & Psychology, 23(2), 147-55.

Enroth, H. (2023). Crisis of authority: The truth of post-truth. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 36(2), 179-95.

Hooper Greenhill, E. (2000). Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture. Routledge.

Lidchi, H. (2006). The Poetics and Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures. In S. Macdonald (Ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies (193–211). Blackwell Publishing.

Lonetree, A. (2012). Decolonizing museums: Representing Native America in national and tribal museums. Univ of North Carolina Press.

Macdonald, S. (1998). The Politics of Display. Routledge.

Macdonald, S. (2013). Memorylands: Heritage and identity in Europe today. Routledge.

Mason, R. (2008). The Role of Museums in the 21st Century: A Framework for Understanding. Museum Management and Curatorship, 23(4), 423-32.

Mignolo, W. D. (2009). Epistemic disobedience, independent thought and decolonial freedom. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(7-8), 159-81.

Mignolo, W. D. (2011). The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Duke University Press.

Mignolo, W. D., & Walsh, C. E. (2018). On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Duke University Press.

Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2015). Decoloniality in Africa: A continuing search for a new world order. Australasian Review of African Studies, 36(2), 22-50.

Rothberg, M. (2009). Multidirectional memory: remembering the Holocaust in the age of decolonization. Stanford University Press.

Simpson, M. G. (2016). Decolonization and the Role of Museums: Shifting Narratives and Practices. Museum and Society, 14(1), 1-19.

Sierp, A. (2020). EU memory politics and Europe’s forgotten colonial past. Interventions, 22(6), 686-702.

Spivak, G. C. (2013). An aesthetic education in the era of globalization. Harvard University Press.

Weiser, M. E. (2020). Rhetorical Museology. ICOFOM Study Series, 48(1), 207-21.