Abstract This article uses visitor research to explore public attitudes to the British Museum and perceptions of its relationship to the history of the British Empire. Firstly, it provides an analysis of direct messages received by the Museum over a twelve month period via letters, emails and comments on social media platforms. Secondly, it draws on short interviews undertaken with visitors upon arrival at the Museum before entry. Thirdly, it draws on formative and summative evaluation for two recent British Museum special exhibitions that explicitly addressed imperial and colonial histories, ‘Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilization’ (23 April – 2 August 2015) and South Africa: The Art of a Nation’ (27 October 2016–26 February 2017). Finally, it draws on focus groups (April 2018) held to explore perceptions of the Museum held by culturally active non-visitors. Collectively this insight highlights the Museum’s vast potential to inform contemporary debates about empire by developing new approaches to displaying and interpreting its collection.

中文翻译：

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“殖民主义的堡垒”

摘要 本文使用游客研究来探讨公众对大英博物馆的态度以及对其与大英帝国历史关系的看法。首先，它分析了博物馆在十二个月内通过信件、电子邮件和社交媒体平台上的评论收到的直接信息。其次，它借鉴了在进入博物馆前与参观者进行的简短访谈。第三，它借鉴了大英博物馆最近两次明确阐述帝国和殖民历史的特别展览的形成性和总结性评估，“澳大利亚土著：持久的文明”（2015 年 4 月 23 日至 8 月 2 日）和南非：国家的艺术（ 2016 年 10 月 27 日至 2017 年 2 月 26 日）。最后，它借鉴了焦点小组（2018 年 4 月），旨在探索文化活跃的非参观者对博物馆的看法。总的来说，这种洞察力突出了博物馆通过开发展示和解释其藏品的新方法来为当代关于帝国的辩论提供信息的巨大潜力。