Epistemological violence in the museum: animals, colonial knowledge, and challenges to decoloniality

This article offers a novel intervention in decolonial museology by foregrounding animal representation and natural history collections as critical yet overlooked sites of epistemological violence in Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA). Drawing on interdisciplinary methods, including site visits, digital analysis, and theoretical frameworks from Critical Animal Studies, colonial historiography, and decolonial thought, it demonstrates how the RMCA’s post-renovation exhibitions continue to reproduce colonial logics through the curatorial treatment of animal bodies. By extending decolonial critique beyond anthropocentric frameworks, this article challenges prevailing approaches to institutional decolonization and expands the conversation to include multispecies colonial entanglements.