Symbolic power for student curators as social agents: the emergence of the museum of World Languages at Shanghai International Studies University during the COVID-19 era

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has hindered the effectiveness of museum management and curatorship, a growing concern for the movement of international heritage conservation. Accordingly, this participatory action research explores the emergence of the Museum of World Languages at Shanghai International Studies University during the COVID-19 pandemic. By drawing insights from Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of symbolic power and social agency in the new museology, this paper explores the educative, social, and political roles of the new language museum and the experiences of student curators with the new language museum. This paper promotes scholarly conversations about the curatorial narration of the language halls, the new coordinator’s responsibility, curatorial philosophy, experiential learning, social responsibility, political savvy, and intercultural communication and digital literacy competencies among the student curators. This study enhances the theoretical rigor and provides practical action agendas for diverse stakeholders in higher education administration and museum management beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

KEYWORDS:

• University museum
• symbolic capital
• social agency
• student curators
• participatory action research

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 There are a total of 26 language institutions. Yet, only SISU and Beijing Foreign Studies Universities (BFSU) are rated as double first-class universities (Jiang et al. 2023; Liu, Nam, and Yang 2023; Nam, 2021; Nam and Jiang 2021; Nam, Yang and Draeger 2023; Wang 2021).

2 Shanghai International Studies University. 2021. Exhibition. http://en.shisu.edu.cn/resources/events/exhibition/museum-of-world-languages

3 One of the authors was fully immersed in the visitor groups as a participant and oversaw the overall tours.

4 One of the authors visited the event in person and conducted participant and direct observation for four hours.

5 This information was collected through personnel from the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange and one of the graduate student curators during the authors’ first visit to the SISUMuseum.

6 The fieldnotes were developed through mutual communications and interactive interviews between the co-authors. They met in-person on July 18, 2022, and online on September 19 and December 18, 2022.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Grant number [NYY221001].

Notes on contributors

Qiong Bai

Qiong Bai is a Ph.D. and Associate Professor in the School of Media and Art at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Her primary research focus center on STEAM education, art and digital media communication, globalization of the art industry, museum studies, and professional development for artists, such as vocational education and training and career trajectories.

Benjamin H. Nam

Benjamin H. Nam is a Ph.D. and Associate Professor in the School of Education at Shanghai International Studies University. His primary research areas and interests lie in comparative and international education, globalization of education, vocational education, intercultural communication, and museum studies.