Museums in the Material World

Knell, Simon

doi:10.4324/9780203946855

Cited by 24 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Research in the field has addressed a broad series of important questions and issues, including the following: museums and contestation of cultural heritage; the cultural processes behind the marginalisation of cultural identities in institutions of collective memory; the gendering of museum collections; and the processes through which exhibitions and displays of material culture can provide agency to specific ethnic groups and/or local communities (see, for example, Alzén and Hillström ; Aronsson and Meurling ; Conn ; Forsberg and Sennefeldt ; Karp and Lavine ; Karp et al . , Kirshenblatt‐Gimblett ; Knell ; Knell ; Macdonald and Fyfe ). A list comprising all the significant issues addressed in the field of museum studies would be long.…”

Section: A Cultural Economy Perspective On Cultural Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Museums and Heritage Collections in the Cultural Economy: The Challenge of Addressing Wider Audiences and Local Communities

Gradén

O'Dell

2016

Museum International

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Although more museums are opening now than at any time in the past, too little attention has been paid to the concrete ways in which cultural processes of commoditisation affect heritage production. How can collections speak to wider audiences as well as to local communities in ways that are economically sustainable? This is not a question that invites simple solutions. Turning to ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, this article focuses on The Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle and Skokloster Castle near Stockholm to explore how these institutions negotiate public participation, engage new audiences, and adapt their operations to meet the demands of the cultural economy they operate in. Drawing on critical cultural theory, the article highlights how different cultural and economic contexts affect museums’ potential to develop, expand, and meet their objectives. The study explains how two particular museums struggle to open their collections to broader publics, which can be understood as part of a wider process of democratisation.

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Section: A Cultural Economy Perspective On Cultural Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Museums and Heritage Collections in the Cultural Economy: The Challenge of Addressing Wider Audiences and Local Communities

Gradén

O'Dell

2016

Museum International

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“…Hampp and Schwan 2014;Pine and Gilmore 2007;Kolar and Žabkar 2009), materiality (e.g. Dudley 2010Dudley , 2012Hodder 2012;Knell 2007), museum environments (e.g. Bjerregaard 2014;Forrest 2013;Harvey et al 1998), in the context of digital, virtual, and replica (e.g.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Today in museums, professionals speak -often amongst themselves at conferences, in meetings, in professional publications -about 'the real thing' (from here on out, referred to as TRT). Although the issue has been addressed in the past (Orvell 1989;Gilmore and Pine 2007), museum scholars and professionals are beginning to revisit this question that now finds itself immersed in a digitally ubiquitous world (see Dudley [2012] and Knell [2007] for examples of edited volumes on the topic). This topic directly impacts our understandings of museums and their purpose in society.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is ‘the real thing’ in the museum? An interpretative phenomenological study

Latham

2015

Museum Management and Curatorship

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This article describes a study of the different ways museum visitors understand their experience of the real thing (TRT) in the museum context. Many professionals and scholars claim that the uniqueness of the museum -in relation to other leisure and educational experiences and offerings -centers on being the keepers of 'real things.' Having an insight into the visitor perspectives of what they consider real is important and relevant to museum professionals as well as other cultural heritage workers as it can assist them to better respond to visitor experiences of TRT. The study used an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach to inquire into the qualitatively different ways of understanding the experience of TRT in the museum. The research resulted in four ways of understanding an experience of TRT in museums: through aspects of the self, in relation to others, through the presence of the actual physical thing, and through one's surroundings.

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“…Even authenticity, that highly cherished property of museum objects, is a relational quality. It is often one or more experts' relations to objects that define authenticity (Knell, 2007).…”

Section: Relational Materialities and Ontological Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cod, curtains, planes and experts: Relational materialities in the museum

Maurstad

2012

Journal of Material Culture

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Museums are sites where people encounter material objects. This article examines object and subject entanglements that take place at a university museum in northern Norway, and illustrates how objects shift identities as they interact with subjects and how subjects are also affected by the encounter. A relational materialities perspective, which demonstrates how object identity is related to the subject it engages with, allows multiple versions of objects to appear. Working as a certified expert in the university museum, the author aims to address the quandary over future museum collection policies. She argues that collection policies are not only about what to select but also who makes the selection decisions, and the perspectives associated with such choices. If museum collections are based on expert relationships to objects, the quality of the expert needs further investigation.

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Museums in the Material World

Cited by 24 publications

References 0 publications

Museums and Heritage Collections in the Cultural Economy: The Challenge of Addressing Wider Audiences and Local Communities

Museums and Heritage Collections in the Cultural Economy: The Challenge of Addressing Wider Audiences and Local Communities

What is ‘the real thing’ in the museum? An interpretative phenomenological study

Cod, curtains, planes and experts: Relational materialities in the museum

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