We Are Coming Home: Repatriation and the Restoration of Blackfoot Cultural Confidence, edited by Gerald T. Conaty. 280 pp. Athabasca University Press, Edmonton, AB. 2015. ISBN-13: 978-1771990172.

Abstract

of this work. From Museum Critique to Critical Museum is simultaneously thoughtful and challenging, sometimes shocking, but well-reasoned and respectful. The ideas within it will be difficult for many museums to adopt, but they are at the very least worthy of our consideration. Regardless of one’s stance on social issues, no honest museum professional can dispute the authors’ main point: that any museum’s aura of neutrality is at best a façade and that museums stand to better serve the public when they are honest with themselves and their patrons about their own limitations and biases and are prepared to reconsider them. This work, while unorthodox, deserves a place on the shelf of every museum professional who holds serving the public as effectively and ethically as possible as an overriding objective.