Changing Museums Through Cooperation and Collaboration

ABSTRACT

Working within a new museological paradigm that sees museums as fluid, unbounded, and dependent upon context, this article seeks to examine the discourses that underpin collaboration as a contemporary and necessary museum education practice. In conducting this examination we will use examples from both Germany and the United States to illustrate the fact that though the two nations exist thousands of miles apart, and the museums within each nation are situated in different socio-political and cultural contexts, the underlying purpose of collaboration is the same in each nation and its museums. Collaboration seeks to change the museum from, in the immortal words of Stephen Weil, being about something to being for somebody.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaboration
• cooperation
• discourse
• strategic development
• museum education
• transatlantic
• communities

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Fulbright Germany, Leibniz Association and Smithsonian Institution for funding the Transatlantic Seminar for Museum Curators and Educators 2019.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Boast, “Neocolonial Collaboration,” 58.

2 Fairclough, Language and Power.

3 Peters and Wain, “Postmodernism/Post-Structuralism,” 60.

4 Silverman, The Social Work of Museums; Lonetree, Decolonizing Museums; Phillips, “Part 3 Introduction.”

5 Peers and Brown, Museums and Source Communities.

6 Yarrow, Clubb, and Draper, “Public Libraries, Archives and Museums.”

7 Roschelle and Teasley, “The Construction of Shared Knowledge in Collaborative problem Solving.”

8 Dillenbourg et al., “The Evolution of Research on Collaborative Learning.”

9 Simon, “The Participatory Museum”; Golding and Modest, “Museums and Communities.”

10 Clifford, “Museums as Contact Zones.”

11 Boast, “Neocolonial Collaboration,” 58.

12 Paris, “Perspectives on Object-Centered Learning.”

13 Boddington, Boys, and Speight, Museums and Higher Education Working Together.

14 Lewalter, “Der Einsatz von Museen als außerschulische Lernumgebungen”; Itzek-Greulich et al., “The Impact of a Science Center Outreach Lab Workshop”; Geyer, “Museums- und Science Center-Besuche im naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht aus einer motivationalen Perspektive.”

15 Website EXPOneer project: www.exponeer.de.

16 Kampschulte, “The Student-Curated Exhibition.”

17 Weil, “From Being About Something to Being for Somebody.”

18 Lund and Greyser, “Corporate Sponsorship in Culture.”

19 Otte, “How to Build Partnerships for Museum Digitization in 2020.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fulbright Germany.

Notes on contributors

Lorenz Kampschulte

Lorenz Kampschulte has been Head of Education at Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany since 2018. Prior to this, he worked as a research assistant at the IPN-Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education at Kiel University for six years, in addition to coordinating the Kiel Science Outreach Campus KiSOC. Until 2012, Lorenz headed the Center for New Technologies at the Deutsches Museum, running the exhibitions and a variety of visitor programs on Nano- and Biotechnology. Lorenz holds a PhD in Nanoscience as well as a masters degree in Micro- and Nanotechnology.

Sarah Junk Hatcher

Sarah Junk Hatcher is the Head of Programs and Education at the Indiana University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Her academic background includes degrees in social studies education, history, and arts administration. In addition to her museum work, Sarah is currently a part-time doctoral student in Curriculum Studies at Indiana University. Her professional and research interests include object-based learning in both classroom and museum settings, the history of social studies education, and material culture.