By Professor David Murphy, Department of Humanities at the University of Strathclyde.

In May 2026, Churnjeet Mahn, Arunima Bhattacharya and I launched a report that emerged from our AHRC-funded project ‘White Thinking’ and the failed promise of diversity in Scottish heritage. We all had extensive experience of working on anti-racism initiatives, including in the heritage sector, and we had all worked with willing partners committed to promoting an EDI agenda. None of us could shake the feeling, however, that each new project in the heritage sector felt like starting from scratch, as though earlier ‘successful’ projects had left little or no legacy either within the institutions in which they had been based or across the wider sector.

The Black Lives Matter movement had given fresh impetus to diversity initiatives from 2020 onwards. However, the global, right-wing backlash against EDI, which has gathered pace since Donald Trump’s return to power in 2025, has the potential to reverse the limited progress that had been made. This was the troubled context within which the project unfolded.

The project brought together academics, activists, anti-racist community organisations, and Scottish heritage organisations – from large municipal institutions like Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow to much smaller institutions, such as the David Livingstone Birthplace Museum in Blantyre – to work on a series of discrete initiatives. What bound them together was the desire to understand why diversity has failed to ‘stick’ within the sector. So, what did we find?

Our main conclusion was that Scotland does not lack anti-racist heritage activity or dynamic, knowledgeable and motivated individuals: what it lacks are the systems, funding, leadership and institutional memory to make that work cumulative and lasting. Anti-racist heritage work is too often short-term, project-based, dependent on individual champions, and repeatedly ‘rediscovered’ rather than sustained.

There are multiple structural barriers that prevent this work from becoming embedded: short-term funding, limited staff capacity, institutional silos, the pressure to present initiatives as new or pioneering, and the risk that community partnerships become a way for institutions to demonstrate authenticity without creating deeper change.

So far, so negative. We also discovered, however, that people genuinely can make a difference. This might seem like a somewhat flimsy response in the face of the structural barriers outlined above, but creating spaces for motivated individuals to engage in dialogue around anti-racism work is essential if we are to create positive change.

The role of Lilian Thuram – the French World Cup winner who, after his retirement, launched a foundation for education against racism – in facilitating dialogue across all levels of the heritage sector (from managers to curators to educational staff) was central to this process. His contribution demonstrated the power of inspirational role models from outside the heritage sector to ask difficult questions and connect with new audiences.

We recognise the uniqueness of Lilian Thuram as a celebrity, but what can be replicated by other projects is his fundamental commitment to open and respectful dialogue and to finding a language that makes museums relevant to wider audiences.

In today’s political climate, spaces for reflection and learning are essential to sustain anti-racist work. While ‘white thinking’ might seem like an abstract concept, recent violence – from racist attacks in Glasgow to the targeting of migrants’ homes in Belfast – shows that supremacist ideas remain active. Interpreting such violence as ‘justified fears’ reflects the persistence of what Lilian Thuram would call ‘white thinking’.

Our project on white thinking in heritage institutions was just a small part of the wider anti-racist struggle to overcome beliefs in white supremacy, which continue to exercise a hold on people’s imaginations with very dangerous consequences for society.

Tackling such beliefs is not a task solely for people of colour and their allies but something that must be addressed more widely if we wish to create a better informed, more equal and morally robust society.