Please find below a second call for papers for the RGS-IBG Annual Meeting, 28th - 30th August, London
with apologies for cross-posting
Title: The Museum and its Communities in an Age of Austerity,
sponsored by PyGyRG
Organizers: Ealasaid Munro (University of Edinburgh), Nuala Morse (Durham University)
The past decade has seen an explosion in scholarship that addresses museums and their roles and aspirations in relation to ‘‘communities’. Where once, community engagement in museums referred largely to attempts to diversify audiences, latterly, community engagement may refer to a whole host of activities, including working with institutions such as rehabilitation centres, prisons, hospitals, care homes, or religious organizations; and may also entail active collaboration with practitioners in the fields of mental health, social work, youth work and housing provision.
In the UK, museums are operating in an increasingly austere funding environment, and are being asked to do more with less. The scale of public sector cuts – in particular, to the arts and to the cultural sector – is likely to cause permanent shifts in the way cultural organizations operate, presenting both challenges and opportunities. Community engagement remains a key discourse within the museum sector, however, this work is increasingly at risk.
This session seeks to bring together scholars concerned with the social role of the museum, in particular those scholars seeking to reconsider the relationships between museum and communities in the times of austerity.
- First, these questions force us to reconsider the ways in which community may represent a problematic concept – what is a community? How is the idea of community changed in the context of austerity? Is there now a case for identifying priorities depending on the specific local or global context? What is lost through this approach?
- What are the current conditions of possibility for participation? For example, which participation projects get funded and why? Who is able to participate?
- What are the possibilities for change: how do new forms of museum engagement work create new possibilities for community knowledge to influence museum work? For example, beyond the specific oral history focused on asking people how pieces of industrial machinery were used, how can encounters between museums and communities lead to new, collaborative knowledge production?
We invite papers that investigate the intersection between museums and their communities – in all their diversity
Themes to consider (note these are a loose guide and submissions are welcomed along other themes)
-The museum and its local communities or source communities
-Community engagement and participation in museum practice
-Museums in times of austerity.
-The museum as a social service or agent of welfare
-Collaborative knowledge production in museums
-Museums and social justice
Please send abstracts of 250 words to Ealasaid ([log in to unmask]) and Nuala ([log in to unmask]) by 4th February 2013.
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