Museums’ community engagement schemes, austerity and practices of care in two local museum services

Abstract

In recent years, geographers have paid attention to the practices and spaces of care, yet museums rarely feature in this body of literature. Drawing on research conducted with two large museum services – one in England, and one in Scotland – this paper frames museums’ community engagement programmes as spaces of care. We offer insights into the practice of community engagement, and note how this is changing as a result of austerity. Our focus is on the routine, everyday caring practices of museum community engagement workers. We further detail the new and renewed strategic partnerships that have been forged as a result of cutbacks in the museum sector and beyond. We note that museums’ community engagement workers are attempting to position themselves relative to a number of other institutions and organisations at the current moment. Drawing on empirical material from the two case study sites, we suggest that museums’ community engagement programmes could be seen as fitting within a broader landscape of care, and we conceptualise their activities as expressions of progressive localism.

Résumé

Ces dernières années, les géographes se sont penchés sur les pratiques et les espaces de soins, et pourtant les musées ont rarement leur place dans ce type de recherches. En s’inspirant de recherches menées avec les services de deux grands musées – un en Angleterre et l’autre en Ecosse – cet article situe les programmes d’engagement communautaire des musées dans le cadre des espaces de soins. Nous nous intéressons à la routine, aux pratiques de soins quotidiennes des travailleurs d’engagement communautaire des musées et en quoi les conséquences de l’austérité les ont changées. Nous faisons découvrir la pratique de l’engagement communautaire et notons en quoi l’austérité est en train de la modifier. En outre, nous exposons en détail les partenariats stratégiques nouveaux et renouvelés qui se sont forgés en raison des mesures d’économies dans le secteur des musées et au-delà. Nous remarquons que les travailleurs d’engagement communautaire dans les musées tentent de trouver leur place par rapport à un certain nombre d’autres institutions et organismes à l’heure actuelle. En exploitant le matériel empirique des sites des deux cas d’étude, nous suggérons que les programmes d’engagement communautaire des musées pourraient trouver leur place dans un paysage de soins plus vaste et nous conceptualisons leurs activités en tant qu’expressions de localisme progressif.

Resumen

En los últimos años los geógrafos han prestado atención a las prácticas y espacios de atención, sin embargo, rara vez han considerado a los museos en este cuerpo de literatura. Sobre la base de la investigación llevada a cabo en dos grandes museos — uno en Inglaterra, y uno en Escocia — este documento enmarca programas de participación comunitaria en museos como espacios de atención. El enfoque se centra en la rutina, las prácticas de atención cotidiana de los trabajadores de participación comunitaria en museos, y cómo éstas están cambiando como resultado de la austeridad. Se ofrecen ideas sobre la práctica de la participación de la comunidad, y se observa cómo esto está cambiando como resultado de la austeridad. Se proveen más detalles de las nuevas y renovadas alianzas estratégicas que se han forjado como consecuencia de los recortes en el sector de los museos y más allá. Se nota que los trabajadores de participación comunitaria en museos están actualmente tratando de posicionarse en relación con una serie de instituciones y organizaciones diferentes. Sobre la base de material empírico de los dos sitios tomados como estudio de caso, se sugiere que los programas de participación comunitaria en los museos podrían ser vistos como apropiados dentro de un paisaje más amplio de atención, y aquí se conceptualizan sus actividades como expresiones de localismo progresivo.

Keywords:

• Care
• community engagement
• museums
• austerity
• professional identity
• progressive localism

Mots clés:

• Soins
• musées
• engagement communautaire
• austérité
• musées professionnels
• localisme progressif

Palabras clave:

• Cuidado
• museos
• compromiso comunitario
• austeridad
• profesionales de museos
• localismo progresista

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the community engagement workers from the two case museums. We also extend our thanks to the three anonymous reviewers for their comments, and to the editors of both Social and Cultural Geography, and this special issue.

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/F023227/1], [grant number ES/I902074/1].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. What actually constitutes ‘the museum’ has been the subject of fervent debate within museum studies and other disciplines, particularly since the reassessment of theory and practice prompted by the New Museology in the 1980s (Vergo, 1989). To our minds, ‘museumness’ resides in a concern with ensuring public access to diverse objects, collections and sites, and facilitating education and enjoyment. We note that while the museum remains a distinct institutional space, increasingly it is embedded within a wide-ranging set of social relations and subject to a number of instrumental policy pressures, leading to debates about the ‘museumness’ of some museum activities – particularly, community engagement and outreach. We are confident in emphasising the inherent ‘museumness’ of these activities however, in that they are, in our experience, also animated by a concern with ensuring public access to diverse material cultures, and generally have an educational component.

2. While we discuss Big Society rhetoric elsewhere in this paper, for reasons of space we cannot deconstruct the idea to the extent that we would like. See Williams et al. (2014) for an excellent discussion of ‘Localism and the Big Society in context’.

3. The Museums Association provides a useful timeline of cuts here: http://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/funding-cuts/19122012-cuts-timeline These surveys have found that a large proportion of museums have seen their overall income reduce, some by over 25%, which has led to redundancies and staffing restructures with implications for staff morale. The surveys also report that museums have been obliged to reduce opening hours, cut free events and curtail school visits and outreach work.

4. We will not here enter into debates over ‘professionalism’ as discussed within the sociology of professions (on this topic see Kavanagh, 1991). We view the museum profession as a profession ‘in the making’.

5. In response to suggestions from reviewers, and in order to preserve the anonymity of research participants, both museum services are anonymised throughout the paper.

6. These staff may be community engagement or outreach professionals, curators, staff employed in learning and education, or even trained volunteers.