Transcript Museum Research

Museology
The science and profession of museum
organization and management, contributes
to the development of museums as
locations where cultural and social
messages are:
– presented,
– questioned,
– challenged, and
– explored
Impact of Museology
• On museum management
• On the profession
• Opportunies and Chalenges
QUESTIONS
IDEAS/
THEORY
RESEARCH
METHODS
DISCOVERIES
IN THE FIELD
Basic Functions
RESEARCH
PRESERVATION
COMMUNICATION
KNOWLEDGE
MEMORIES
EDUCATION
COLLECTION
DISPLAY
EXHIBITION
Research
• Basic research to consist of original investigation
undertaken to acquire new knowledge, with the
primary purpose of contributing to the
conceptual development of the field or adding to
already accumulated, objective and systematic
knowledge.
• Applied research consists of original
investigation undertaken in order to acquire new
knowledge with the primary purpose of applying
knowledge to the solution of practical or
technical problems.
Research
• Museum Research
– research as a museum function;
– subject-matter oriented research belongs to
the so-called subject-matter disciplines, i.e.
the disciplines that have an interest in the
collections.
• Museological Research
– research of the museum and its functions;
– museological research follows from the
cognitive orientation, and
– purpose of museology as discipline.
Museum Research
• Research Work within the Museum:
– the handling of objects and collections:
• analysis, and
• description
– comparative evaluation of collections
– the preparation of exhibitions .
• Applied Research with regard to:
– conservation,
– restoration and
– exhibitions.
Museological Research
• Meta-Museological:
the relation between museology and other
academic disciplines in general;
• Institutional:
the relation between museology and subjectmatter disciplines within the museological field;
• Museographical:
the relation between museology and subjectmatter disciplines on the level of day-to-day
museum work.
Early Theory
Focused on critical ideological analyses of
museums perceived as social regulatory
establishments:
• Marxist critiques present museums as
purely political institutions of ruling-class
authority, representing and reinforcing the
tastes and values of the social elite
• Foucaldian ideas depict museums as sites
of power relations where the processes of
dominant interests are performed
Early Theory
• Proposed a conscious manipulation by
museum professionals to control and
influence a gullible, passive audience.
• The idea that museums exist to perpetuate
social hierarchies and to control the public
proved to be narrow-minded in light of
modern museum approaches to
community involvement and service
Early Theory
Pierre Bourdieu (1984) theorized that people who go
to museums have the most cultural capital, that is, the
education, taste, manners, and style, to understand
museum exhibits and to know how to behave in
museums:
– People who have acquired the cultural competence to
understand museums feel comfortable in a museum setting
and are most likely to visit museums.
– People without cultural capital are uncomfortable in
museums, confused, and often overwhelmed, and therefore
less likely to visit, he suggested.
His theory does not account for the current popularity of
museums among the public, or for the efforts of museologists to
include all aspects of the community in museum programs
Contemporary Theory
• Questions about the changing character of
museums.
• The evolution and evicacy of interpretative
method.
• The relationships between museum and
communities.
• How displays and texts influence visitor
experience.
Societal Role of Museums
• Identify, acquire, preserve, and exhibit unique,
collectible, or representative objects.
• Promote cultural, community, and familial
identity and understanding.
• Provide experiences where visitors can make
connections between content and ideas.
• Serve as memory institutions for a culture.
• Support formal and informal learning and
research.
• Serve as focal points for communities and
promote community interests.
Educational Role of Museums
• Museums were founded on the premise of
‘education for the uneducated masses’.
• Established to:
– raise the level of public understanding,
– elevate the spirit of its visitors,
– refine and uplift the common taste.
Interpretative
• Tell stories
• They are narratives, not list of facts
• Serves:
– to explain,
– guide,
– inform, or
– provoke visitors
Method (Furst)
Interpretive Methods
• beyond simple identification,
• encourage visitors to think about
exhibited artifacts in terms of:
– meaning,
– symbolism, and
– factual description
• rather than simply as objects
Museologists
• has the authority to speak for or to
represent a community
• museum professionals can only strive to
include and involve the various interest
groups who make up the “community.”
• strive to make their museums significant to
the surrounding community,
• to provide their communities with a service
more valuable than simple existence to
house collections
The New Museology
Focuses on the evolving mutual relationships between
museums and communities, rather than on museums
as sites of power relations:
– ways museums help to construct community identities by
responding to the desires and needs of the community are
explored as equal sides of a social equation
– the curator becomes someone who, in addition to being an
expert in ordering and organizing an exhibit of objects, also
is capable of using their technical skills in assisting groups
outside the museum environment to use museum resources
to understand their past
– museum professionals recognize the unique strengths,
weaknesses, and needs that characterize the community
and use this information to design programs for present and
future community requirements
Museum Displays and Exhibits
• Place a certain “construction upon history” that is
created, sometimes unwittingly, by the experiences,
education, cultural assumptions, and aspirations of
makers of the display.
• Uses and interpretations of the past seldom are “value
neutral”
• Political and social agendas shape the way sites and
objects are interpreted and define what is featured and
what is ignored
• This construct is not necessarily a negative attribute nor
does it automatically mean the display is untrue or
intentionally presents a false history
New Museologists
• Recognize that multiple texts exist in museum
settings and are an appropriate subject matter
for study.
• Ultimately, challenges in museum/community
relations are unavoidable.
• Rather than viewing challenges as problems,
museums can view challenges and critiques as
opportunities to “engage in conversations with
the shifting publics” who make up the museum
audience
Museums
• are regarded as powerful elements for
social discourse and
• as creative agencies that can offer and
encourage different interpretations of longheld notions about:
– art,
– culture, and
– history
Approach
• Positivist/post-positivist approach
which emphasizes scientific standards for reducing
researcher bias, regardless of whether qualitative or
quantitative data collection methods are used.
• Interpretivist research theory
is more akin to ethnography and focuses on generating a
multiple-voiced rich description of what’s going on in an
educational setting, in terms of both process and outcome.
• Critical theory
is the social activists’ approach to evaluation wherein the
primary criterion for success rests on the degree to which
the targeted social inequity has been redressed.
Orientation
• orientation on material objects - historical and
research orientation;
• orientation on man - sociological orientation;
• orientation on values and meanings - cultural
orientation.
Perspectives
• a historical perspective, which seeks to describe
and understand the cultural heritage of a certain
area and a certain place;
• a sociological perspective, which studies the
institutions and activities which have come into
being as the result of the notion of a cultural
heritage; and
• a communicative perspective, which applies to
the attempts to mediate the cultural heritage in
time and space
Topics
• reflect the basic parameters of the
museological field (object, activities, institute),
and
• their interrelationships, within their social
context, i.e. including structural form and
cultural content.
Basic Principles
• The collection is the totality of the
heritage.
• The building is the totality of the territory.
• The public is the totality of the population.
Museum Revolutions
• The first revolution has been referred to as
'museum modernization movement'.
• The break through of new thinking in both
periods was accompanied by a new 'rhetoric'.
• The new rhetoric of the second museum
revolution has been referred to as 'new
museology'.
The First Revolution
• The first museum revolution (in the period 1880/1920)
has been referred to as 'museum modernization
movement'.
• Key to this movement is the notion that many of the
practical problems are shared by all kinds of museums.
• New concepts were introduced in connection with a
strong educational orientation in museum work.
• New ideas concerning the concept of museums brought
about an increasing interest in an umbrella discipline.
• Museology thus gradually became recognized as a field
of interest with its own identity.
• Although the changes resulted from the synergy of the
discussions on practical, theoretical and critical levels the
emphasis was on practical museum work.
Interpretative Method
Interpretative methods, beyond simple
identification labels, encourage visitors to think
about exhibited artifacts in terms of meaning,
symbolism, and factual description, rather than
simply as objects.
ICOM Definition
•
•
•
•
•
is a non-profit making permanent institution,
in the service of society, and of
its development,
open to the public,
which acquires, conserves, researches,
communicates and exhibits, material evidence
of people and their environment,
• for purposes of study, education and
enjoyment.
Education
Is directed toward making a
population aware of:
• Its identity
• Strengthening its identity
• Instilling confidence in a population’s
potential for development
Identity
• Identity is a total images that has of itself, its
past, present and future
• The role of the museum is to put a population in
a position to visualize, be aware of, and name
these images which are manifested at the
material and non-material levels in every day life
Suggestions
• strive to construct a strong inclusive vision of
what constitutes a museum
• focused on service to society
• suggest that ICOM definition be rephrased
that to acquire, conserve and research
objects should be optional not compulsory
New Definition
• A museum helps people understand the world
by using objects and ideas to interpret the past
and present and explore the future.
• A museum preserves and researches
collections, and makes objects and information
accessible in actual and virtual environments.
• Museums are established in the public interest
as permanent, not-for-profit organisations that
contribute long-term value to communities.
Museology
• knowledge concerned with the study of the
purposes and organization of museums
• to stand for all the theoretical notions
• their role in society of collecting and preserving
knowledge, for present and future evaluation,
• interpretation and specific system of research
• dissemination back to society in the form or
research, academic scholarship, publications,
educational demonstrations, exhibits, etc.
• should be used for the explicative aspect
Core Issues
•
•
•
•
•
•
collection,
conservation,
documentation,
classification,
interpretation and
presentation.
Commitment
• To serving society by helping to advance our
understanding of ourselves by examining not only
our past, but also our present.
• Emphasis should be placed on educating society
by examining traditions and issues from multiple
viewpoints and by encouraging active public
participation in this learning process whenever
possible.
• The true value of a museum is irrevocably linked
to the amount of intellectual and psychological
benefit it gives back to society.
• To engaging visitors in a knowledge-building
process that negotiates rather than declares
beliefs.
Approaches
• Empirical-theoretical: is mainly heuristic
• Praxeological: designs strategies of
behaviour
• Philosophical-critical: wants to develop a
definite point-of-view with resulting guidelines
Empirical-theoretical
• Aims at 'substantial rationality', i.e. the ability
to see signifying relationships between
different phenomena in reality.
• Is mainly descriptive.
• It tries to understand museological
phenomena in their historical and sociocultural contexts.
• Its usefulness is primarily heuristic.
Praxeological
• Focuses on 'functional rationality'.
• Functional rationality is the ability to develop
adequate means (methods, techniques,
procedures) to realize ends that have been
defined beforehand.
• Its aim is applicability.
• It should give very concrete answers to very
concrete questions.
Philosophical-critical
• Concentrates on the development of a critical
social orientation.
• Speaks of 'programme orientation' instead of
'cognitive orientation'.
• Is often suggested that the prevailing attitude
among museologists is one of non-commitment.
• This criticism concerns museums, the museum
profession as well as museological theory.
• Views as to a more active social role of
museums initiated some explicit opinions
concerning the programme orientation.
Applied Museology
• Includes the more theoretical questions of the activities,
i.e. collecting, documenting, conservation,
registration, exhibition design, education;
• Jahn's distinction between 'Museumstheorie',
'Museumsmethodik' and 'Museumstechnik',
although she uses the term 'applied museology'
for both 'Museumsmethodik' and 'Museumstechnik‘. Her proposal have not met any approval,
neither within ICOFOM nor elsewhere.
• For this specific field of applied museology/
museum practice Swiecimski introduced the term
expositiology (Swiecimski), comparable to
scenography which is used in Brazil (Scheiner).
Museography
• Was defined as (museum) practice
• Was defined as covering methods and practices
in the operation of museums.
• Deals with techniques and methods on a day-today level, for example security and exhibition
techniques.
• Jahn suggests to use the term for the descriptive
aspect of the discipline.
• Some authors seem to use the term for the
practice of (museum) communication work only,
and is usually used for museum exhibition work
• Most authors consider museography
synonymous to applied museology.
The Second Revolution
• In the period 1960/1980 we see a similar synergy,
but now the leading force is the wish to develop
museums as social institutions with political
agendas.
• The break through of new thinking in both periods
was accompanied by a new 'rhetoric'.
• The new rhetoric of the second museum
revolution has been referred to as 'new
museology'.
Schools of Thought
• 'marxist-leninist museology‘
• 'new museology'.
• 'critical museology'.
Marxist-Leninist Museology
• a very normative approach,
• where axiological norms are applied
• leading to a rather strict system of rules.
The New Museology
• New museology and critical museology advocate
an attitude rather than the application of rules.
• There is not just one methodology in new
museology, there are several possibilities
depending the prevalent conditions.
• Theorization should have the role of questioning,
more than defining the frame for systematic and
systematizing work.
Development
• The key-concept is the 'reappropiation du
territoire, du patrimoine, pour l'auto
developpement individuel et collectif'.
• The objectives are geared towards community
development, hence the term 'community
museology'.
• Presentation and preservation of the heritage are
considered within the context of social action and
change.
• Heritage is a resource to be considered and
developed within the context of community
improvements.
• The people of the community themselves have to
take care of their own heritage, hence the term
'popular museology'.
Mission
• Understand, develop, expand, and use the
learning opportunities that museums offer their
audiences.
• Enrich our knowledge, understanding, and
appreciation of our collections and of the variety
of cultures and ideas they represent and evoke.
• Assure that the interpretive process manifests a
variety in cultural and intellectual perspectives
and reflects and appreciation for the diversity of
museum’s public.
Application
• The commitment to education as central to
museum’s public service must be clearly
expressed in every museum's mission and pivotal
to every museum’s activities.
• Museums must become more inclusive places
that welcome diverse audiences, but first they
should reflect our society’s pluralism in every
aspect of their operations and programs.
• Dynamic, forceful leadership from individuals,
institutions, and organizations within and outside
in the museum community is the key to fulfilling
museums’ potential for public service in the
coming century.
New Museum
• The 'new museum' was to be people-centered,
action-oriented, and devoted to social change
and development.
• The movement was concerned with the
democratization of museums and museum
practices.
• It stressed the importance of community
participation in all aspects of museum operations.
People’s Museography
• defined as 'a body of techniques and practices
applied by a population to the conservation and
enhancement of the collective heritage of the
community or territory'.
• Places people and their relationship to objects in
the forefront of curatorial work, and
• suggests that there is no single set of curatorial
practices that is universally applicable or
appropriate.
• Curatorial work is constantly being redefined as
part of ongoing social processes and interactions,
and is relative to specific cultural contexts
Implementasi
three concepts that represent
three new paradigms and to its
implementation:
– "community museum",
– "the inclusive museum",
– "lieux de mémoire".
Community Museum
• Advocates a radical different approach.
• The primary responsibility of museums is the
development of their constituent community.
• Defines as "one which grows from below, rather than
being imposed from above.
• It arises in response to the needs and wishes of people
living and working in the area and it actively involves them
at every stage while it is being planned and created and
afterwards when it is open and functioning.
• It makes use of experts, but it is essentially a co-operative
venture, in which professionals are no more than partners
in a total community effort".
• Decides what is being musealised and institutionalised as
cultural heritage.
• The most radical type of community museum is the
"ecomuseum".
Eco Museum
• Characteristic is the view that the concept of
museum is not confined to a building.
• The museum can be anywhere, and is
anywhere and everywhere within a specified
territory.
• For this museum concept the term eco museum
has been coined, hence the term 'eco
museology'.
Inclusive Museum
• The goal is to achieve cultural inclusion by representation
of, and participation and access for those individuals or
communities that are often excluded.
• As agent of social regeneration where its goal is to
improve individual's quality of life.
• Is a vehicle for broad social change by instigating positive
social change,
• Play a role in generating social change by engaging with
and empowering people to determine their place in the
world educate themselves to achieve their own potential,
• Play a full part in society and contribute to reforming it in
the future.
• Decides whose collective memory is recognised and
respected as cultural heritage.
Lieux de Mémoire
• Part of our institutionalised heritage ("historical
memory").
• Every group of people within society has its own
network of "lieux de mémoire",
• its own "reservoir of knowledge about the past on
which the creators of history can draw and select
time and time again.
• In that sense, the collective memory is a metareservoir unaffected by the vicissitudes of actuality
and whole pre-selective position enables it to protect
the past against constant curtailment by historical
images, which shield history from scientific or social
bias".
Exhibition
• Every exhibit carries a message, a point of view, a
position, political or otherwise, intentionally or
unintentionally.
• Despite efforts by curators to remain independent
of political intervention, those who work in state
museums in particular cannot avoid the pressure
to portray the "dominant" or "absolutist" picture of
a society at a given time,
• They should challenge and provoke visitors in a
pleasurable and exciting way.
Exhibits
• Exhibits emphasising logic rather than objects.
• Objects are represented in context and make
social inferences.
• They convey the meanings as interpreted from
the standpoint of the population.
• Enfranchises people with the means to see for
themselves how pasts are composed.
• How their history has been shaped by the present
to form their own identity
• Contribute to the moulding of the consciousness
of the society
Approaches
• A positivist worldview is evidenced in didactic
displays where visitors move from artifact to
artifact reading informative labels or listening to
tour guides. Knowledge is attainable rather than
socially constructed.
• An interpretive worldview leads to the creation of
interactive displays where visitors construct their
own knowledge.
• An emancipatory worldview plans for social action.
For example, the data would become vehicles for
raising issues of gender, class, and race.
Exhibition Idea to Its Fruition
•
•
•
•
its interpretive thrust,
goals,
targeted audience(s),
methods of communication (i.e., titles and
text panels),
• selection and placement of artifacts,
• production, and
• evaluation
The Process
• …. something foreign, strange, separated in
time, space, or experience is made familiar,
present, comprehensible;
• something requiring representation,
explanation, or translation is somehow
‘brought to understanding’ – is ‘interpreted.’
Techniques
• An artifact within an exhibition is like a word
within as sentence.
• The setting for the exhibition becomes a
context that provides clues to the visitor for
“reading” the artifacts.
Principles
• The museologist makes final decisions about
what to include or exclude from the presentation
of data.
• The museologist must translate the message of
the artifacts for appropriation by visitors.
• The appropriation of objects always depends on
the eyes of the visitors.
• What is helpful for a museologist is the need to
identify a common language between the artifact
and the visitor.
Problems
• What common language can be developed in an
exhibition between artifacts and visitors?
• What are the possible horizons of the visitors and
artifacts?
• What potential obstacles exist to hinder the
visitors’ understanding of the artifact?
• Since different people learn differently, what aids
(audio guides, tour guides, text labels, catalogs)
can be made available to facilitate understanding?
Critics
• Who has the authority to speak for or to
represent a community.
• Limiting the past through interpretative media
that artificially organize and restrict history.
• Interpretations of the past are seldom value
free.
• It shapes the way objects are interpreted.
• Define what is featured and what is ignored.
• Presenting the past merely as a text of the
present.