Museum Meanings
About the Book Series
Museums have undergone enormous changes in recent decades; an ongoing process of renewal and transformation bringing with it changes in priority, practice and role, as well as new expectations, philosophies, imperatives and tensions that continue to attract attention from those working in, and drawing upon, wide-ranging disciplines.
Museum Meanings presents new research that explores diverse aspects of the shifting social, cultural and political significance of museums and their agency beyond, as well as within, the cultural sphere. Interdisciplinary, cross-cultural and international perspectives and empirical investigation are brought to bear on the exploration of museums’ relationships with their various publics (and analysis of the ways in which museums shape – and are shaped by – such interactions).
Theoretical perspectives might be drawn from anthropology, cultural studies, art and art history, learning and communication, media studies, architecture and design and material culture studies, amongst others. Museums are understood very broadly – including art galleries, historic sites and other cultural heritage institutions – as are their relationships with diverse constituencies.
The Series Editors invite proposals that explore the political and social significance of museums and their ethical implications. If you have an idea for a book that you think would be appropriate for the series, then please contact the Series Editors to discuss further.
Museums, Moralities and Human Rights
1st Edition
By Richard Sandell
December 27, 2016
This book explores how museums, galleries and heritage sites of all kinds, through the narratives they construct and publicly present, can shape the moral and political climate within which human rights are experienced. Through a series of richly-drawn cases, which focus on gender diversity and ...
Museum as Process: Translating Local and Global Knowledges
1st Edition
Edited
By Raymond Silverman
August 27, 2014
The museum has become a vital strategic space for negotiating ownership of and access to knowledges produced in local settings. Museum as Process presents community-engaged "culture work" of a group of scholars whose collaborative projects consider the social spaces between the museum and community...
Museums and Migration: History, Memory and Politics
1st Edition
Edited
By Laurence Gourievidis
June 11, 2014
Recent decades have seen migration history and issues increasingly featured in museums. Museums and Migration explores the ways in which museum spaces - local, regional, national - have engaged with the history of migration, including internal migration, emigration and immigration. It presents the ...
Museums and Social Activism: Engaged Protest
1st Edition
By Kylie Message
December 04, 2013
Museums and Social Activism is the first study to bring together historical accounts of the African American and later American Indian civil rights-related social and reform movements that took place on the Smithsonian Mall through the 1960s and 1970s in Washington DC with the significant but ...
Museums, Equality and Social Justice
1st Edition
Edited
By Richard Sandell, Eithne Nightingale
June 12, 2012
The last two decades have seen concerns for equality, diversity, social justice and human rights move from the margins of museum thinking and practice, to the core. The arguments – both moral and pragmatic – for engaging diverse audiences, creating the conditions for more equitable access to museum...
Museum Making: Narratives, Architectures, Exhibitions
1st Edition
Edited
By Suzanne Macleod, Laura Hourston Hanks, Jonathan A. Hale
April 06, 2012
Over recent decades, many museums, galleries and historic sites around the world have enjoyed an unprecedented level of large-scale investment in their capital infrastructure, in building refurbishments and new gallery displays. This period has also seen the creation of countless new purpose-built ...
Museums in a Troubled World: Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse?
1st Edition
By Robert R. Janes
June 26, 2009
Are Museums Irrelevant? Museums are rarely acknowledged in the global discussion of climate change, environmental degradation, the inevitability of depleted fossil fuels, and the myriad local issues concerning the well-being of particular communities – suggesting the irrelevance of museums as ...
Heritage and Identity: Engagement and Demission in the Contemporary World
1st Edition
Edited
By Marta Anico, Elsa Peralta
January 08, 2009
Heritage and Identity explores the complex ways in which heritage actively contributes to the construction and representation of identities in contemporary societies, providing a comprehensive account of the diverse conceptions of heritage and identity across different continents and cultures. ...
Museums and Community: Ideas, Issues and Challenges
1st Edition
By Elizabeth Crooke
March 07, 2008
Combining research that stretches across all of the social sciences and international case studies, Elizabeth Crooke here explores the dynamics of the relationship between the community and the museum. Focusing strongly on areas such as Northern Ireland, South Africa, Australia and North ...
Museums and Education: Purpose, Pedagogy, Performance
1st Edition
By Eilean Hooper-Greenhill
December 21, 2007
At the beginning of the 21st century museums are challenged on a number of fronts. The prioritisation of learning in museums in the context of demands for social justice and cultural democracy combined with cultural policy based on economic rationalism forces museums to review their educational ...
Recoding the Museum: Digital Heritage and the Technologies of Change
1st Edition
By Ross Parry
December 03, 2007
Why has it taken so long to make computers work for the museum sector? And why are museums still having some of the same conversations about digital technology that they began back in the late 1960s? Does there continue to be a basic ‘incompatibility’ between the practice of the museum and the ...
Rethinking Evolution in the Museum: Envisioning African Origins
1st Edition
By Monique Scott
December 03, 2007
Rethinking Evolution in the Museum explores the ways diverse natural history museum audiences imagine their evolutionary heritage. In particular, the book considers how the meanings constructed by audiences of museum exhibitions are a product of dynamic interplay between museum iconography and ...