of cases from elsewhere. Equally they use practice to think through issues such as the nature of objects, the role of media, or sensory potentials.
It is interesting to note that at an analytical level, the volumes all contain chapters that give emphasis to specific cases and argue for the importance of paying close attention to grounded process–what actually happens, where, who, and what is involved. Although not all are informed by theoretical perspectives of actor network theory or assemblage theory, there is much here that recognizes the significance of material forms not just as objects of analysis but as agents in processes themselves. There is also much work across the volumes that gives explicit attention to the affective dimensions of museums, exploring, for example, how different media or spaces might afford certain emotional engagements. The sensory is also given new levels of consideration in what we see as, collectively, a more extensive attempt to really get to grips with the distinctiveness of museums as a medium, as well as with their sheer variety.
Various forms of collaborative engagement with specific groups–sometimes called communities–as well as with individual visitors, is also a notable theme cutting across the various volumes. Certainly, the idea of a generic “audience” or “public” seems to be less present as a central but abstract focus than in the past. Divisions along lines of gender or class are made less frequently than they might have been in earlier critical perspectives–though when they are, this is often done especially well and powerfully, as, for example, in some contributions to the discussion of museum media. Interestingly, and this is a comment on our times as well as on social and political developments in which museums are embroiled, the work with “communities” is framed less in terms of identity politics than would probably have been the case previously. No longer, perhaps, is the issue so much about making presence seen in a museum, increasingly it is more about mutually enriching ways of working together, and about pursuing particular areas or issues of concern, such as those of the environment or future generations. Yet politics is certainly not absent. Not only is the fundamental question about whose voice is represented in the museum a thoroughly political one, the chapters also show political concerns over relatively subtle matters such as methodology and reformulations of intimacy, as well as over questions of sponsorship, money-flow in the art world, the development of mega-museums in Gulf states, environmental destruction, and so forth. Indeed, there is a strong current of work that positions the museum as an activist institution and that shows its potential as such–something perhaps indicative of at least one future direction that more museums might take.
One thing that is clear from these volumes, however, is that there is no single trajectory that museums have taken in the past. Neither is there a single track along which they are all heading, nor one that those of us who have contributed would agree that they should necessarily all take. The diversity of museums themselves, as well as of those who work in, on, and with them, and of the perspectives that these volumes show can be brought to bear upon them–as well as their very various histories, collections, contexts, personnel, publics, and ambitions–has inspired the diversified museum studies represented in these International Handbooks. Our hope is that this more diversified museum studies can contribute not only to new ways of understanding museums but also to new, and more varied, forms of practice within them–and to exciting, challenging futures, whatever these might be.
Acknowledgments
Producing these International Handbooks of Museum Studies has probably been a bigger and more demanding project than any of us had anticipated at the outset. Assembling together so many authors across four different volumes, and accommodating so many different timetables, work dynamics, styles, and sensitivities has been a major task over more years than we like to recall for both us as general editors, and even more especially for the editors of our four volumes: Andrea Witcomb, Kylie Message, Conal McCarthy, Michelle Henning, Annie E. Coombes, and Ruth B. Phillips. As general editors, our first thanks must be to the volume editors, who have done a remarkable task of identifying and eliciting so many insightful and illuminating contributions from such a wide field, and of working with authors–not all of whom were experienced in academic writing and many of whom were already grappling with hectic schedules–to coax the best possible chapters from them. We thank our volume editors too for working with us and what may sometimes have seemed overly interventionist assistance on our part in our push to make the volumes work together, as well as individually, and for all contributions, as well as the International Handbooks as a whole, to be a substantial contribution to the field. We also thank our volume editors for sharing so much good humor and so many cheering messages along the way, turning what sometimes felt like relentless chasing and head-aching over deadlines into something much more human and enjoyable. All of the contributors also deserve immense thanks too, of course, for joining the convoy and staying the journey. We hope that it feels well worth it for all concerned. Without you–editors and contributors–it couldn’t have happened.
There is also somebody else without whom it couldn’t have happened. This is Gill Whitley. Gill joined the project in 2012 as Project Editor. In short, she transformed our lives through her impeccable organization and skillful diplomacy, directly contacting contributors to extract chapters from them, setting up systems to keep us all on track with where things were up to, and securing many of the picture permissions. She has been a pleasure to work with and we are immensely grateful to her.
The idea for a series of International Handbooks of Museum Studies came from Jayne Fargnoli at Wiley Blackwell and we are grateful to her for this and being such a great cheerleader for the project. She read a good deal of the work as it came in and knowing that this only increased her enthusiasm for the project boosted everyone’s energy as we chased deadlines. We also thank other staff at Wiley Blackwell for their role in the production processes, including, most recently, Jake Opie, for helping to at last allow us to bring out the individual volumes in paperback format.
Because of its extended nature and because things don’t always happen according to initial timetables, editorial work like this often has to be fitted into what might otherwise be leisure time or time allocated for other things. Luckily, both of our Mikes (Mike Beaney and Mike Leahy) were sympathetic, not least as both have deeply occupying work of their own; and we thank them for being there for us when we needed them.
Lastly, we would like to thank each other. We have each benefited from the other’s complementary expertise and networks, from the confidence of having that insightful second opinion, and from the sharing of the load. Having some-body else with whom to experience the frustrations and joys, the tribulations and amusements, has made it so much more fun. Not only has this helped to keep us relatively sane, but it has also made The International Handbooks of Museum Studies so much better than they would otherwise have been.
Sharon Macdonald and Helen Rees Leahy, August 2014 and July 2019
INTRODUCTION: MUSEUM THEORY An Expanded Field
Kylie Message and Andrea Witcomb
At a public lecture delivered in September 2013 in Canberra, Nicholas Thomas, director of the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, remarked that the–now not so “new”–new museology has been preoccupied with the politics of museums at the expense of remembering and theorizing what museums are and do (Thomas 2013). The journal of the American Anthropological Association, Museum Anthropology, had previously published a “commentary” piece by Thomas in which he had presented his preliminary sug-gestions for exploring what he called the “museum as method.” Thomas had pro-posed the museum as method as a conceptual approach for reflection that may lead to innovation in the ways we think about museums as complex assemblages of meaning. He used this idea to challenge the generally accepted understanding that theory is primarily aligned with academic disciplines and discourse–a pre-sumption that overlooks the reality, which
