Museum-based research: a typological exploration

ABSTRACT

The term ‘research’ has multiple meanings in the museum context, ranging from a self-reflective practice integrated into any daily task to a highly specialised scientific activity. At the same time, conventional academic standards and scholarly publications are prioritised over practice-based research methods and museological forms of dissemination. This leads to an inherent hierarchy and a culture of exclusion when it comes to research practice within museums. In this article, I argue how the conceptual confusion around research creates major obstacles to this key function in museums, perhaps even more so than administrative challenges such as the lack of time and funding. To offer some clarification to a chaotic field, I present a five-fold typology of research models typically hosted by museums. Rather than presenting a fixed definition of how to do research in museums, the aim is to encourage a non-hierarchical and pluralistic approach to museum-based research.

KEYWORDS:

• Museum-based research
• museum epistemology
• research culture
• research typology
• research confusion
• research obstacles

Funding details

This article was written with the support of the Icelandic Research Fund, grant number IRF 217814-051.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Exceptions to this generalisation are, e.g., (in no particular order and unevenly distributed across the globe), the Natural History Museum (UK), the Field Museum (US), the Tate Modern (UK), the Humboldt Forum (DE), the AfricaMuseum (BE), the Rijksmuseum (NL), Museo del Prado (ES), Museo Galileo (IT), Glyptoteket (DK), the National Museum of Norway (NO), the Vasa Museum (SE), the Kyoto National Museum (JP), the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City (MX), Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (NZ), the Museum of Black Civilizations (SN) and the National Museum in New Delhi (IN). Furthermore, university museums are generally research intensive, such as the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford (UK), the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia (CA), the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo (NO), the Museum of Zoology at the University of São Paulo (BR) and the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney (AU).

2 This has been changing during the last two to three decades, especially with the introduction of artistic research within the higher arts education system. In artistic research, knowledge is generated through creative practice and disseminated in the form of an artwork (often accompanied by critical reflection and contextualisation in the form of a text). Other alternative forms of research have entered academia in the last few years, such as embodied critical thinking (a branch of philosophy) and reflective practice and sensory methodologies (particularly within anthropology and ethnography). These research forms build on feminist, postcolonial and post-human theories, and have contributed significantly to the expansion of the idea of research and science as rooted in Western culture.

3 I have discussed elsewhere the synergies between this museum-based definition of research and the official definition of research and development as recognised by academia (Author 2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ólöf Gerður Sigfúsdóttir

Ólöf Gerður Sigfúsdóttir is a PhD candidate at the University of Iceland.