MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies

Fees for entry in 2027 have not yet been set. For reference, the fees for the academic year beginning September 2026 were as follows:

• MA (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £14,700
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £29,900
• MA (part-time)
  UK students (per annum): £7,350
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £14,950

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

International student CAS deposit

Self-funded international applicants are required to pay a deposit of £2500 towards their tuition fees before a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS) is issued. Some applicants will be required to pay a higher deposit. More information on tuition fee deposits .

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

We know that student finance can be complicated. The links below provide further information to help guide you.

• Learn more about - student finance options for UK students.
• Learn more about - fees and finance for international students .
• Graduates of The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University can receive a 10% discount on their master's degree tuition fees as part of our Manchester Alumni Loyalty Discount scheme.

In May 2020, following the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, #BlackLivesMatter demanded acknowledgment and accountability for the devaluation and dehumanization of Black lives at the hands of the police. As a global network of protests grew, other institutions also modelled on White, male and heteronormative principles where called on to recognise the inherent bias and institutional racism within their systems. This call included museums. Many issued statements that acknowledged their ties to colonialism and slavery with the admission that they needed to do better; they needed to become anti-racist in their practice and to decolonize the museum. But what does that actually mean? Over the course of this module we will consider what decolonization and anti-racism looks like in the museum drawing on the scholarship and activism of Indigenous Peoples, Racialised Peoples, and People of Colour. We will encounter the contemporary issues facing museums and ask if it is in fact ever possible to decolonize the museum? Through lectures, seminars, discussions with museum professionals and fieldwork this course will equip you with a range of critical, theoretical and practical approaches related to the subject. It will specifically focus on how this approach can challenge accepted practices for collecting, interpreting, researching and exhibiting in anthropology and colonial-era museums. We will question the origins of these museums and their harmful and contested collections before turning to consider their present-day potential. The core question for this module is how can decolonial scholarship and activism influence societal, cultural and political change by raising questions over global inequalities, colonial amnesia and the (mis)representation of silenced histories in museums. 

The course is designed to:

1. Develop a critical understanding of the theory and practice that underpins acts of museum decolonization.  
2. Offer an overview of the skills, requirements and challenges needed when developing decolonizing research agendas and practices in museums.  
3. Provide a thorough knowledge of the intellectual and ethical issues involved in the decolonization of museums.  
4. Provide practical knowledge and experience of decolonizing practices in museums and galleries.

Weekly one-hour lectures and two-hour seminars with directed learning and presentations to be prepared from week to week, including presentations by guest lectures and site visits. Students will be directed to conduct fieldwork in preparation for the class in specific weeks. Teaching and Learning Methods include:

• Lectures and seminars
• Individual and group fieldwork
• Reading, discussion
• Discussion with museum professionals
• Individual research
• Practical workshops
• Developing a collaborative on-line resource

The course will have a Canvas site with all elements of the minimum specification including: 
1. Aims, Objectives, Timetable and Mode of Assessment 
2. Course Materials 
3. Reading lists 
4. Guidance on assessment

On successful completion of this course you should be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The institutional and professional contexts within which museum decolonization develops.  
• The role of the museum (historically and in the present) in producing colonial/imperial, biased and racist ideologies through practices of collecting, display and interpretation.
• The specific issues of appropriation and representation arising from Western/Imperial curation of Indigenous material culture in both colonial/imperial and post-colonial/imperial contexts.
• The theory and practice of museum decolonization.  
• How to apply an understanding of decolonial thinking and post-colonial studies to museum theory and practice.  

• Undertake self-directed learning and skills acquisition
• Conduct independent, critical fieldwork
• Develop appropriate methodological and analytical skills
• Apply skills and ideas learned in one institutional context to another, while remaining aware of the complexity of the issues 

• Initiate practical and creative solutions to specific criteria.
• Communicate complex research findings through clear written and verbal articulation, supported by appropriate technological tools. 

• Retrieve, select and critically evaluate information from a variety of sources, including museums, libraries, archives, and the internet.
• Communicate information and ideas effectively in a professional, as well as an academic, environment.
• Engage in debates on contested and difficult subject matter with sensitivity and awareness.
• Critically evaluate personal performance through monitoring and analytical reflection.
• Demonstrate independent learning ability suitable for continuing study and professional development. 

 

ASSESSMENT METHODS

Assessment task (all assessments must be completed in English)	Formative or Summative	Length	Weighting within unit (if summative)
Individual Podcast	Summative	15 minutes	30%
Essay 30 credits	Summative	3,000 words	70%

 

RE-SIT ASSESSMENT

Essay, 3000 words

Feedback method	Formative or Summative
Essay Proposal surgery and written comments	Formative
Academic advisor meeting	Formative
Turnitin	Summative

Abungu, G. O. (2019). Museums: Geopolitics, Decolonisation, Globalisation and Migration. Museum International, 71(1-2), 62-71.

 

Bunning, K. (2020) Negotiating Race and Rights in the Museum. Routledge.

 

Bodenstein, Felicity and Camilla Pagani (2014) ‘Decolonising National Museums of Ethnography in Europe: Exposing and Reshaping Colonial Heritage (2000-2012)’ in Iain Chambers et al (eds.) The Postcolonial Museum: The Arts of Memory and the Pressures of History (London: Routledge), pp. 39-50.

 

Brulon Soares, B., & Leshchenko, A. (2018). ‘Museology in Colonial Contexts: A ¿all for Decolonisation of Museum Theory’. ICOFOM Study Series, (46), 61-79.

 

Crow, J. (2011). ‘The Mapuche Museum of Cañete (1968–2010): Decolonising the Gaze’. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 20(2), 161-178.

 

de Varine, H. (2005). ‘Ethics and heritage: decolonising museology’. ICOM news, 58(3), 3-3.

 

Emberley, J. (2006). (un)Housing Aboriginal Possessions in the Virtual Museum: Cultural Practices and Decolonization in civilization. ca and Reservation X. Journal of Visual Culture, 5(3), 387-410.

 

Giblin, J., Ramos, I., & Grout, N. (2019). Dismantling the Master’s House: Thoughts on Representing Empire and Decolonising Museums and Public Spaces in Practice An Introduction. Third Text, (4-5), 33.

 

Kidd, J., Cairns, S., Drago, A., & Ryall, A. (2016). Challenging history in the museum: International perspectives. Routledge.

 

Krep

Available on other programmes subject to capacity