The representation of enslavement in Ghana remains largely absent from public discourse, with limited engagement from educational and media institutions. This silence places museums at the centre of slavery interpretation, where narratives are shaped, contested, and negotiated. The transnational and postmemorial nature of slavery, combined with temporal distance and dispersed descendants, complicates how this past is interpreted. These issues intersect with heritage tourism and national identity construction, facilitating selective remembering and marginalising certain stakeholders and memories.
This study examines how enslavement in Ghana is represented in museums—Cape Coast Castle, Elmina Castle, and Ussher Fort. Using a qualitative, multi-sited case study, it engages museum officials, local communities, traditional authorities, African diaspora, and visitors through interviews and focus groups.
By centring Ghanaian and diaspora perspectives, the study contributes to debates on heritage, identity conflict, and memory politics, offering insights to support inclusive museum practice and deeper national engagement with enslaved pasts.

This paper explores the ways in which museums can employ memory of past violence to encourage change in the present. My research considers the movements of memory and emotion which create connections between past and present at America’s Black History Museum (ABHM) and the Museum of Free Derry (MoFD). Exploring very different histories of violence and injustice these museums both developed through lived experience of these histories with the aim of creating positive change. Bringing concepts of memory together with peace theory and scholarship examining the potential for empathy to encourage ‘pro-social’ behaviour, I suggest approaches employed at MoFD and ABHM perform a form of activist-peace memory. This encourages visitors to create connections between the past explored and contemporary legacies of inequality and injustice. These connections promote reflection on implication and responsibility to challenge contemporary systems of violence, with potential to transform museums into sites of peace activism.

Growing awareness of racial injustices in Aotearoa has prompted the Anglican Church to confront its colonial past. This paper asked how the unpacking of difficult colonial history influences conservation approaches for Anglican church heritage in Aotearoa. The research objective was to offer conservation recommendations for the interpretation and enhancement of Anglican churches in Aotearoa. A historical survey traces paradigm shifts in the Anglican Church’s approach to biculturalism and contextualisation. Analysis of four church case studies connected to difficult colonial history highlight the disconnect between intangible and tangible responses to this history. A literature review provides the theoretical background of difficult heritage, its implications for Aotearoa’s colonial heritage, and conservation approaches. Findings revealed that while intangible responses to colonial history emerge naturally, there were a range of barriers to tangible expression. Conservation recommendations include expanding heritage understanding beyond Western frameworks, bridging intangible and tangible expressions through layered interventions and land contextualisation.

This research challenges traditional understandings of heritage in the Latin American context. It explores the difficulties heritagization processes face in fostering connections among people and a “difficult” past. Focusing on Chile, the paper examines the relatively recent heritagization of Sites of Conscience commemorating human rights violations during the military dictatorship (1973–1989), which hold potential for supporting reconciliation. The findings highlight the need for a distinctive approach to heritagization policy —one that recognizes the additional layer of conflict embedded in victims’ pain and suffering, as well as the challenges faced by ideologically opposed groups in negotiating a shared narrative.