Family, memory and emotion in the museum

Studies of the museum increasingly highlight the significant role of emotion in conveying information and shaping its reception by audiences. Representations of the family as an ‘emotional unit’ provide a key resource for museums in this process, where naturalised displays of familial affective connections can be used to reinforce particular messages to visitors, notably around the make-up of the nation. Yet, both the family and its emotions are historically-contingent products, not universals. Thus this use of emotion reinforces particular types of historical knowledge and not others. This articles explores this through a discussion of displays of the emotional family in museums across Europe, the US and Australasia.