In her explanation of discourses analysis methods, Rose made a distinction between the type of analysis that focused on the contents of an archive and the type that explores the effects of “archivalisation” on texts. The second kind of discourse analysis is more concerned with the institutions and how they produce human subjects. It chooses not to see the institutions which house and create knowledge as neutral “transparent windows” (2001, pg. 165) but rather to understand how institutions produce regimes of truth. In Rose’s on words, this method of discourse analysis “shifts attention away from the details of individual images and towards the processes of their production and use” (pg. 167).
Referencing Foucault’s work in Discipline and Punish, Rose explains that there are two ways in which institutions exert their power – institutional apparatus and institutional technologies. An institutional apparatus is the forms of power/ knowledge which make up the institutions like its architecture or its rules and regulations. Institutional technologies are more disparate and can be thought of as the tools used to practise the power/knowledge referenced above.
I chose to study the Tropenmuseum as my example for this task. The Tropenmuseum is a “museum about people” in the east of Amsterdam. Formerly the colonial museum, it became part of the Royal Tropical Institute when Indonesia became an independent state after years of Dutch rule. The ethnographic museum has a focus on non-Western cultures. Its permanent exhibitions are divided according to geographical region such as “Africa” and “Southeast Asia”. The museum has a team of curators, a large building and an extensive collection of material artefacts: these are all institutional apparatuses that allow the museum to claim objectivity or truth in its assertions.
Displays are a combination of both artefacts behind a glass case and text (in the form of panels or captions). This pairing leads the viewer to assume congruence between the two technologies while matching the text to the object. Furthermore, the placement of artefacts behind glass so that the audience may not touch them contributes to the sense of authority that the museum has over its visitors. The visitors are not to be trusted with the handling of objects, only museum staff with the proper training have that privilege.