approaches pertaining to the 19th century. Some museums convey reflexive and critical narratives, while others enact as "mass mediums" oriented toward international tourist networks. These institutions tend to display spectacular exhibition designs and grant little space for complex narratives and critical messages. Scholars have identified a recent transformation in the way museums define their functions and produce their programming strategies as these have become spaces for encounters and meaningful experiences. For instance, in The Metamorphosis of the Museal: From Exhibitionary to Experiential Complex and Beyond, Andreas Huyssen observes the museum, formerly conceived as "a container of the past and its accumulated objects” is now conceived as “a site of activity and experience in and for an ever-expanding present.” Critical museology Overview of the field Critical museology has emerged as a key discourse in contemporary museology. It is a broad field of study that engages critically with museums, calling into question the foundational assumptions of the field. This demonstrates critical museology’s close connection to New Museology, which also challenges foundational assumptions in museology. Critical museology may also extend beyond the traditional museum to include cultural centres, heritage sites, memorials, art galleries, and so on. Development of the field Given that museums are historically linked to colonialism, imperialism, and European missionary work, they have a morally and politically problematic past. While some of the objects museums hold were purchased – though not always fairly and often to the exclusive benefit of the collector – a large proportion of museum collections were taken as spoils of war, or otherwise removed without the consent of the people or community that owned them. Museums, along with their collections – and collectors – played a key role in establishing and reiterating the dominance of colonial Europe and narratives of cultural superiority. Critical museology was developed through questioning the foundational assumptions of museum studies and museums, including their history, architecture, display, programming, and the provenance of their objects. Recent work has also analyzed exhibition design to show how the diverse media combined in exhibitions communicate and shape visitors' interpretations and values. While anthropologists and the field of anthropology were actively engaged in problematic collecting practices for two centuries, anthropologists have also been central to the emergence of critical museology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This has included reconstructing and analyzing those collection histories and the relationships that grew around them, as in the Pitt