Imperialist interpretive repertoires: Cultural investments and self-preservation (Mongolia, Royal British Columbia Museum)

An imperialist interpretive repertoire translates other cultures in derogatory terms with the purpose to preserve the imperialist's power. Journalists, museum advertisers, and movie makers use tropes of violence and invasion to describe the Mongolian subject in the 1995 exhibit "Empires Beyond the Great Wall: the Heritage of Genghis Khan" at Royal British Columbia Museum and in the movie The Shadow. Although these media have different forms of production and requirement, they all share an imperialist interpretive repertoire that creates orientalist presentations. These presentations have double standards that exaggerate the barbarism of Mongolian colonization and promote the civilizing agency of European colonization. The ideology and language available to naturalize and rationalise the biased power structure within these presentations encompass political and economic endorsements that control what we learn about other cultures and how these cultures are perceived and treated.