Printer-friendly version
Send to friend
Suffragette leaders Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst
As a way to conclude this month’s discussion on The Power of Place: How Sites of Conscience Inspire Civic Engagement, I want to offer some suggestions for folks who, like me, may not have much to do with museums in their daily lives. I mean, there’s a limited number of us who are going to join the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience, right? So what are some of the ways the rest of us can make our activism more powerful using historical sites and history-based tactics?
Here are a few ideas that any group, any individual can use to promote human rights and a social change agenda with the help of history. Somewhere in between simply touring a museum, or starting one yourself, there’s a whole range of things you can do to make History work for you.
Move your meeting to a historical site. Although this may sound strange, some official historical sites and museums are open to welcoming small meetings and assemblies. Call them up and find out. How could this environment be used to situate your organization’s mission and activities on the long arc of history? A clear sense of your place in relation to progress over years, decades and centuries will help energize your troops.
Hold an event at a place of significance. Alternatively, you can organize a public event in a historical location to draw attention to the links between the present situation and other events of record. Remember, not all historical sites are officially recognized or set up. Working on women’s rights? How about holding your next event in a place that once formally forbid women to enter. It could be in a golf club, a university faculty once reserved for men, or even at old city hall or parliament where once no woman was to be found! You get the idea. Try to pick a site that symbolizes a victory. Even if it was achieved decades ago, it will show success is possible. Use places of triumph to pump up people’s enthusiasm.
Go on a magical history tour. Many cities around the world are now fortunate enough to have groups offering alternative, popular education tours of their city. If there are no such local tour, you can easily set one up around socially significant landmarks. On such tours, one finds out about key struggles for human and social rights, what were the living conditions of workers and the underprivileged, the major sites of conflict, and so on. This is a great way to welcome and orient international guests, or even to ground your local members back into local reality before, or during an annual assembly.
Apply the TKC (Tenement Kitchen Concept). Liz Ŝevčenko explains in her notebook how difficult discussions about labour practices in the garment industry were held, with breakthrough results, at the Tenement Museum in New York City. Trained facilitators took industry, labour and other reps together on a tour of the old apartment building to show them the individual lives of garment workers from nearly a century ago. With help, no doubt, from the 7 wonders of powerful places, they sat together in one of the tenement’s kitchen and held landmark discussions towards alleviating sweatshop conditions in the industry. Think about it for a second. What interesting site could you use to host a tricky stakeholders meeting? Or, if you are lucky enough to live near a Museum of Conscience, see if they would host your next strategy session.
Create an emergency shelter. Okay, this one is far-fetched. See, if place matters, if where you are determines what you see and do, I figured: What if some organization that usually goes to big corporate hotels to hold meetings and conferences suddenly decided otherwise, even just once? What if, rather than go to the Hilton’s or the Sheraton’s, it hosted its guests in, say, temporary refugee camps, or prison-style bunk beds, or emergency shelter-type conditions. Can you imagine recreating for attendees some of the historical conditions? Picture this: we do human rights work with refugees, so we set up temporary refugee tents in a park downtown and hold our meeting there! With proper compensation, we could even ask the local kitchen soup to feed our guests (off peak hours, of course). I’d bet the experience of harsher accommodation and living conditions would instil a new sense of realism or urgency to our deliberations. What if the pile of money thus saved went to the work, to help real refugees, etc. Eh, so what do you say? (What, are you laughing? But I’m serious!)
Bring in an exhibit. Some museums or historical societies have small, travelling exhibits. Others may be willing to showcase some of their artifacts. Bring History into your offices and meetings through photo exhibits. Display history-inspired works of art in your office lobby or conference room.
Simple ways to remember. Many easy, engaging activities can invoke the power of History, or honour those that have come before us. Use them to power-charge your meetings. Start with a minute of silence dedicated to those who gave their lives to the cause. Read a meaningful passage from your own riveting history. Dedicate your gathering to the memory of a historical hero (and bring a picture). Include historical footage, sound recordings, or vintage photographs into your next presentations, board meeting, or funding pitch.
Using the power of History is sometimes as simple as remembering... to remember.
— Philippe Duhamel, interTactica.org
I’m sure there are many other ways you have seen history being used. Would you please share? Post a comment below. Thanks!
