Museums as Sites for Historical Understanding, Peace, and Social Justice: Views From Canada

The articles that constitute this special issue examine the role of museums in promoting peace and social justice through developing historical understanding and historical consciousness. By telling stories about the past for an audience in the present, history museums operate in the belief that knowing what has happened in the past helps us understand who we are, and for some this is a first step in the long process of achieving social justice and perhaps even resolving conflict. By bringing difficult subjects, traumatic experiences, and injustices into the open, by making them visible, and by finding ways in which visitors can critically engage with them, these museums play an essential role in contemporary society.

Introduction

Introduction to Special Issue on Museums, and Editor's Thanks and Farewell
Pages 319–324
Opotow, Susan

Introduction to the Special Issue

Museums as Sites for Historical Understanding, Peace, and Social Justice: Views From Canada
Pages 325–337
Dean, David

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Commemorating Human Rights: Exploring Origins, Episodes, and Historicity in Constructing a Human Rights Timeline
Pages 338–348
Ibhawoh, Bonny

Telling Stories, Raising Awareness, Creating Opportunities for Change: Exhibition Proposals for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights
Pages 349–352
Dean, David

Murdoch v. Murdoch: The Possibilities and Challenges of Gaming in the Museum
Pages 353–357
Beking, Angela

Leilani Muir: Eugenics on Trial in Canada
Pages 358–361
Fagen, Erica

Eugenics and Human Rights in Canada: The Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act of 1928
Pages 362–366
McCavitt, Candice M.

Robert Dziekanski: Exploring Injustice Through Narratives of Activism
Pages 367–372
Luchak, Valerie

The Duplessis Orphans at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights: Healing Through Representation
Pages 373–377
Campbell, Victoria

The British Home Children
Pages 378–382
Lavelle, Lara

The Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada
Pages 383–387
MacDonald, Emily

Representing Anti-Semitism in a Canadian National Museum: The Riot at Christie Pits
Pages 388–392
Whitehouse, Christine S.

The SS St. Louis and the Importance of Reconciliation
Pages 393–398
Long Mullins, Robin

The Canadian War Museum

Rewards and Challenges of Exhibiting Peace at the Canadian War Museum
Pages 399–407
Strauss, Jill

The Canadian Museum of Civilization

The Flexible Heterotopia: Indian Residential Schools and the Canadian Museum of Civilization
Pages 408–420
Brady, Miranda J.

Book Reviews

Building Peace Across the Educational Curriculum: A Review of Peace Education: How We Come to Love and Hate War
Pages 421–422
Hayes, Sherrill W.

Peace Psychologists and the Need to Confront Reality: A Review of Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield
Pages 423–424
Bond, Trudy

Muslim Anti-Semitism: The By-Product of Existential Fear: A Review of The Sons of Pigs and Apes: Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence
Pages 425–426
Cohen, Florette

Why Peace? The Taming of the Aggressive Instinct and the Evolution of the Capacity for Cooperation. A Review of The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
Pages 427–429
Mahoney, Caitlin O.

A Fresh Look at the Field of Peace and Conflict Studies: A Review of Critical Issues in Peace and Conflict Studies: Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy
Pages 430–431
Rank, Carol

Afterward

Reflections on Peace and Conflict: An Outsider Inside Peace Psychology
Pages 432–440
Luke, Timothy J.