Description
Discussions of the future are interconnected with how the past is made sense of. Museums play a critical role in constituting and communicating meanings about historical issues and connecting them to contemporary and future concerns. In this paper, we examine the memorialisations of resistance movements, especially resistance to authoritarianism, as exemplified at the Museum of Aljube Resistance and Freedom in Lisbon, Portugal. Utilizing multiple autoethnographic perspectives of the authors as museum visitors, along with analysis of documents that outline the formation and establishment of the museum, and the museum’s social media presence, we outline how the museum makes sense of violence, resistance, authoritarianism, and war. Our paper makes two main arguments: one, a methodological argument on the role of autoethnography to understand meanings of violence and war, based on the authors' experiences of visiting the museum both as newcomers to and familiar with Portuguese history, respectively. Two, a theoretical argument regarding tensions about representing historical resistance movements and their uses of violence. We conclude that, in order to present a human rights-centric account of resistance, the museum has avoided grappling with violent resistance as a method of effecting change and challenging authoritarianism.
