by Patrick Boylan (2006), who also gives an overview of the role played internationally by ICOM, and nationally by professional organizations: the Museums Association in the United Kingdom, the American Alliance of Museums in the United States, and their equivalents elsewhere.3 Any account of museum practice has to take into account the membership associations and professional bodies that are such an important part of the framework within which museums operate, as well as legislation, policies, and regulatory environment. We should, however, be wary of definitions, codes, and laws, useful as they are for raising standards and monitoring performance. As Simon Knell cautioned, these “artifacts of professionalism” can restrict practice, instead of advocating a “creative professionalism” that is more open to change (Knell 2013). Different professionals in different kinds of museums in different parts of the world do not always agree on what museum practice consists of, and might even see the setting of standards, processes of accreditation, and other bureaucratic guidelines as exclusive boundaries that may stifle responsiveness to change. There may be disagreement over specific aspects of museum work or even over basic principles, as well as over what universal best practice might be.
Rather than viewing museum practice simply as the best way of doing things in museums, then, this volume seeks to recognize the diversity of perspectives, to open up questions and to show a variety of ways in which they might be addressed. To introduce it, I provide some background to how museum practice has been dealt with in museum studies thus far and suggest how it might be better integrated into research on and in the museum. Then I consider the relationship between theory and practice and argue that together the university and museum sectors can collaborate in teaching, research, training, and practice. In the third section I review recent “practice theory” and assess its value for an integrated model of museum studies that is grounded in current museum practice, a model showcased in this volume. Lastly I briefly preview the contents of the four parts of the book – Priorities, Resources, Processes, Publics – which describes the contemporary museum at work.
The place of practice within museum studies
While there has been much useful academic research on contemporary museums, there is much less coverage of museum practice – especially of the practicalities of museum work – in the museum studies literature. The incorporation of social and cultural theory into museum studies from the 1980s was necessary for strengthening the field, and has produced much work of a high quality that has added immeasurably to the breadth and depth of the subject (Macdonald and Fyfe 1996), though it has been suggested that the introduction of more theoretical perspectives has contributed to a disconnect between research and practice (Grewcock 2013). Some critics have even claimed that the explosion of academic and critical writing on museums has produced little that is directly useful to those who work in them or to those who use them (Spiess 1996; Rice 2003; Starn 2005; McCarthy 2007); and others argue that university museum studies courses with an emphasis on academic theory may be a poor preparation for the workplace (Davies 2007; Duff, Cherry, and Sheffield 2010).
Much of the academic work on museums has been written by university scholars who may have little experience working in the sector. Unfortunately not nearly as much has been written about their work by professionals themselves (who are perhaps so busy doing it that they do not have time to write about it). Some commentators point out that there is little incentive for professionals to read widely and write critically about their practice, and that many museums lack a research culture, let alone a framework to define, fund, and manage research as universities now do. They argue that museums can gain much from the strategic and structured way in which university-based scholars go about their research, just as the academy would learn a great deal by working with museums and galleries whose collections, education, and interpretation programs, not to mention their demonstrable social impact, offer a model for engaged public service (McCarthy 2012; Boddington, Boys, and Speight 2013).
One of the key benefits that university research in museum studies can offer museums is critical analysis. Much institutional discourse continues to present museums as if they were innocent of social, political, and economic forces. As academic writing on museums – as well as the experience of numerous cases – has made clear, however, much of what goes on in museums is unavoidably embroiled in power relations. They are so, though, in specific, localized ways in which actual ongoing practice matters. This is well recognized by Anthony Shelton, who provides an afterword in this volume, in his recent manifesto for critical museology. This takes what he calls “operational museology” as its object of study. According to Shelton, such museology tends to “construct … the museum’s institutional authority on an uncritical acceptance of empirical methodologies anchored in theories of objectivity” (2013, 11). Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, Shelton argues, by contrast, that “museological practices should be understood in relation to the field in which they unfold.” This would mean paying more attention to institutional concerns and work practices, thus leading, he suggests, to “establishing a theory of practice … from which a practice of theory can emerge” (2013, 14). “Continued separation between the academy and museum and between their different traditions of scholarship is no longer justifiable or desirable,” writes Shelton (this volume), “and the division between practice and theory needs to be flatly rejected.” For museum practice, he adds, the problem is not too much theory, but “working through the implications of theory and criticism to help re-define museum operations, purposes, resources, as well as … providing perspectives on new issues” (Shelton this volume).
It is precisely this task that the current volume sets itself, to provide a bottom-up outline of current practice throughout the contemporary museum from governance, management, and policy, to collections, exhibitions, and programs. In order to ground museum studies in the everyday work of museums, we need more research within all areas of the museum across its varied roles and functions – leadership practice, repatriation practice, collection management practice, community engagement practice, interpretation practice, and so on. The chapters in this book make a start on this, as authors conceive of each of these sub-topics as practices in their own right, allowing us to build up a detailed empirical picture of the contemporary museum.
Reviewing the literature: the state of the art
The most influential readers, anthologies, and edited collections that have defined the field of museum studies over the past 20 years have been preoccupied with issues such as the politics of representation in collecting and display, giving some attention too to the history and theory of collections and collecting (Karp and Lavine 1991; Karp, Lavine, and Kreamer 1992; Preziosi and Farrago 2004; Carbonell 2004; Karp et al. 2006). These works, and much of the material published in the major journals in the field, tend, however, to talk generally about cultural practices in museums, rather than professional practice as such. A small amount of work provides insight into the specifics of process and internal conditions of museum work (Gillespie 2001; Macdonald 2002); with some prominent positions, such as that of the director/CEO (Janes and Sandell 2007) or curator (Marincola 2001; Townsend 2003; Graham and Cook 2010), receiving extensive attention. Even this, however, tends to be directed primarily toward the content of collections/exhibitions, or individual experience, than the actual practice of curating/exhibiting/managing itself; though there are some notable exceptions, such as anthropologist Christina Kreps, who describes curatorship as a “social practice” (2003).
More recently, there has been an attempt to bring academic work on a more comprehensive cross-section of museum practice together with research in the form of readers (i.e., volumes of work already published on a topic, with chapters not all necessarily directly concerned with museums): see for example, Caple (2011) on conservation, Parry (2010) on digital media, Watson (2007) on communities, Knell (2007) on material culture and Janes and Sandell (2007) on management and marketing. Texts by Corsane (2005) and Marstine (2005) pay some attention to practice in selected chapters (e.g., Stam 2005) though Marstine focuses more on art galleries and Corsane on heritage
