A History of Participation in Museums and Archives

Abstract

Traversing disciplines, A History of Participation in Museums and Archives provides a framework for understanding how participatory modes in natural, cultural, and scientific heritage institutions intersect with practices in citizen science and citizen humanities.Drawing on perspectives in cultural history, science and technology studies, and media and communication theory, the book explores how museums and archives make science and cultural heritage relevant to people's everyday lives, while soliciting their assistance and participation in research and citizen projects. More specifically, the book critically examines how different forms of engagement are constructed, how concepts of democratization are framed and enacted, and how epistemic practices in science and the humanities are transformed through socio-technological infrastructures. Tracking these central themes across disciplines and research from Europe, Canada, Australia, and the United States, the book simultaneously considers their relevance for museum and heritage studies.A History of Participation in Museums and Archives should be essential reading for a broad academic audience, including scholars and students in museum and heritage studies, digital humanities, and the public communication of science and technology. It should also be of great interest to museum professionals working to foster public engagement through collaboration with networks and local community groups.

On a digital journey into yesterday's future: Zeit.shift – preserving Tyrol's cultural text heritage

“…By providing opportunities to discover interesting information in the newspaper texts about everyday life in Tyrol 100 years ago and about any other relevant topic of interest, the project conveys the value of historical text sources. This puts the focus of the project in the context of "Cultural Heritage", an area that has enjoyed increasing popularity in recent years [3].…”

Too Low Motivation, Too High Authority? Digital Media Support for Co-Curation in Local Cultural Heritage Communities

“…Progressive education movements in the 1920s and social reforms in the 1970s led also to considerations of how to involve audiences in central tasks of the museum such as collecting, preserving, researching, exhibiting and mediating narratives, practices and artifacts that are valued as cultural heritage [1]. A shift in society as a whole towards democratic participation set off again a "participatory turn" in museums at the beginning of the 2010s [2]. Participatory activities aim not only to achieve a higher level of audience engagement with collections or exhibitions, but also to promote previously underrepresented narratives or even "counter histories".…”

Experimental museology: institutions, representations, users,

“…Palmyre Pierroux, Birgitte Sauge, and Rolf Steier Collaboration between partners in universities and museums is increasingly viewed as an important means of demonstrating the societal relevance of both research and practice in the GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives and museums). Recent studies have shown the significance of university-museum research collaborations in the context of advancing visitors' cognitive development in museum settings (Sobel & Lipson, 2016), fostering the democratisation of knowledge through citizen projects in archives (Hetland et al, 2020), and producing novel experiences of art, science and cultural heritage through the co-design of innovative exhibition technologies in galleries (Drotner et al, 2019;Kenderdine, 2020). Approaches to modelling and implementing such partnerships has thus emerged as a topic in museum studies, with experimental museology conceptualised as mutually beneficial alignments between professional practices and academic discourses, balancing both museum curators and university researchers' interests and contributions.…”