Cultural Studies scholar Dr. Marsha Pearce of Trinidad and Tobago has been named one of the 2024 British Academy Global Professors, securing a £881,950 award for her pioneering project, Trembling Abode: Reimagining the Museum as Home for Global Majority Artists.
The four-year appointment will see her join the Fitzwilliam Museum and the University of Cambridge, where she will lead innovative research into belonging, agency, and institutional transformation in the museum world.
The project confronts the pressing question: what makes a museum a home? In an era when institutions are grappling with their colonial legacies and calls for restorative justice, Dr. Pearce aims to move beyond museums as static “houses of objects” and instead position them as active spaces of social engagement and inclusion—particularly for Global Majority artists who remain sidelined in mainstream cultural institutions.
“It is an honour to have support for my research through this prestigious award,” said Pearce. “My project is proposed at this critical time of a dismantling of diversity and inclusion initiatives at cultural institutions, and recent government funding approval to fix the physical infrastructure of English museums – in a sense, ‘putting their houses in order.’ But what makes a museum a home? How might we attend to issues of belonging and representation, confront entrenched power inequities, and recast what it means to inhabit spaces against the grain of settler colonial connotations? I am excited to join the University of Cambridge community and to collaborate with the Fitzwilliam Museum to explore these questions. I look forward to bringing Caribbean perspectives to a dynamic exchange.”
Dr. Marsha Pearce is known for her thought-provoking work across contemporary art, mass media, museum studies, and spatial politics. She holds a BA in Visual Arts and a PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine Campus, and has long contributed to reshaping how Caribbean culture is interpreted and engaged with on the global stage.
The British Academy’s Global Professorships support internationally recognized scholars in pursuing cutting-edge research projects in the UK, promoting international collaboration and academic enrichment. Pearce’s selection underscores the importance of amplifying voices from the Global Majority in reimagining cultural institutions for a more inclusive future.
The full list of Global Professorship recipients for 2024 is available on the British Academy’s website.
