Is museology a theory or a set of practices? Is it a science or just museum work? Is it the same as museum theory? Or is it autonomous from the museum? Is it a philosophy or is it based on social experimentation? Are we evolving towards the path of a metamuseology? If so, what are the boundaries of this ‘museology’ that has shown to have no boundaries in the past decades of theoretical rese…
What is a museum? How do we defi ne a collection? What is an institution? What does the term ‘heritage’ encompass? Museum professionals have inevitably developed answers to questions such as these, which are fundamental to their work, compiled according to their knowledge and experience. Do we need to reconsider these? We believe so. Museum work shifts back and forth between practice and th…
his research was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation as part of the research award for Sharon Macdonald’s Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, and was carried out at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMAH) at the Department for European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. I also received financial support from the Ge…
Central to the practice of the modern museum sector are the principles of access, inclusion, diversity, sustainability, and community participation (ICOM, 2022). As the curators of our cultural and social histories, the heritage sector is morally and legally required to provide reasonable adjustments to ensure equitable access or all people. The dictionary definition of access is the me…
It has been seven years since the so-called refugee crisis in Europe, andwarfarecontinuestoforcepeopletoleavetheirhomelandstosettleelsewhere.AsIamwritingthis,inAprilof2022,RussiantroopsaretearingapartUkraineand the lives of its people, forcing many people to flee their homes. Forcedmigration is not temporary phenomenon, and historical, ethnographic andcity museums will –one wayor another –c…
European countries, including the Netherlands, are increasingly more willing to return looted art to their former colonies. In doing so, however, they are confronted with hard choices. In The Empty Showcase Syndrome, Jos van Beurden explores three of the toughest questions that countries and governments face. First, former colonial powers often hesitate to relinquish control over the provenance…
What are photographs ‘doing’ in museums? Why are some photographs valued and others not? Why are some photographic practices visible and not others? What value systems and hierarchies do they reflect? What Photographs Do explores how museums are defined through their photographic practices. It focuses not on formal collections of photographs as accessioned objects, be they ‘fine art’ or…
Colonialism was not just a historical policy concerning the domination of other territories and their peoples. It included racial and racist ideologies to ‘legitimize’ such domination, the suppression of aspects of identity such as language and traditions, and the propaganda of a Western system of knowledge. Nations, organizations, companies, and individual actors were all involved in diffe…
The design aim for hybrid museum experiences, of integrating digital technology closely with the museum space and the museum visit, means that hybrid museum visits need to strike other diff icult balances – they need to be hybrid in more than one respect. In particular, hybrid museum experiences need to take into account how museum visits are performed. Museum technology falls on a scale betw…
How is heritage created and re- created, shaped and reshaped, formed, reformed and transformed – or even reborn? Heritage in all its forms endures a lengthy and dynamic journey of emergence, transformation, decline and revival. An object displayed within a museum showcase may have travelled through various places and changed uses more than once before acquiri…