Perceptions of Possibilities: An Exploration of Transatlantic Collaboration

ABSTRACT

The act of co-authoring an article across two languages (German and English) and three institutional contexts (a large science and technology museum, a university-based small art museum and a university-based small anthropology museum) led to numerous instances in which the meaning of particular terms had to be both articulated and negotiated to ensure understanding. This was uniquely important given that the article being written was about collaboration and cooperation. The process for doing so took place in the digital margins of our shared document, creating a dataset that could be interrogated through further conversation and careful analysis. While we recognized that translation work was happening, this analysis led us to understand how translation and collaboration are conjoined. We argue that all collaborations require acts of translation as participants establish shared understandings, build relationships, and decenter personal, cultural, and institutional assumptions.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaboration
• translation
• museum education
• transatlantic
• assumptions

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Silverman, Museums as Process, 4.

2 Phillips and Glass, “Report on Materiality and Cultural Translation.”

3 Bailey, “Two Stories of Collaboration,” 18; Berry, “A Focus on Art Museum/School Collaborations,” 10; Hazelroth and Moore, “Spinning the Web,” 24; Hord, “A Synthesis of Research on Organizational Collaboration,” 26; Wickens, “Museum and Community,” 97.

4 Bjørn and Ngwenyama, “Virtual Team Collaboration,” 228.

5 Paulus, Woodside, and Ziegler, “Extending the Conversation,” 239.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heather Harris

Heather Harris is the Educational Programs Manager at the Art Museum of West Virginia University where she works to forge robust partnerships with K-12 schools, institutions of higher education, and the larger community through planning and implementing interactive programs and tours. Heather holds an MA in educational theatre from New York University, and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in curriculum and instruction. Her research focuses on collaborative processes in museum-school partnerships.

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 and instruction at Indiana University. Her professional and research interests include object-based learning in both classroom and museum settings, social studies education and history, and material culture.

Lorenz Kampschulte

Lorenz Kampschulte has been head of education at Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany since 2018. Before he was working as a research assistant at the IPN-Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education at Kiel University for six years, besides others coordinating the Kiel Science Outreach Campus KiSOC. Until 2012, Lorenz was heading 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 master degree in Micro- and Nanotechnology.