Call for Proposals to Organize a Workshop: African Critical Inquiry Programme

“Who defines the needs of the people and the related epistemologies that serve them?” (Karp & Masolo 2000:10)

Closing Date: Monday 1 May 2023

The African Critical Inquiry Programme invites proposals from scholars and/or practitioners in public cultural institutions in South Africa to organise a workshop to take place in 2024. The African Critical Inquiry Programme (ACIP) seeks to advance inquiry and debate about the roles and practice of public culture, public cultural institutions, and public scholarship in shaping identities and society in Africa. The ACIP is committed to collaboration between scholars and the makers of culture/ history, and to fostering inquiry into the politics of knowledge production, the relationships between the colonial/apartheid and the postcolonial/postapartheid, and the importance of critical pluralism as against nationalist discourse. ACIP is a partnership between the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape and the Laney Graduate School of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia (USA).

ACIP Workshops are intended as annual occasions to identify and address critical themes, fundamental questions, and pressing practical issues concerning public culture. For instance, Workshops might focus on particular questions and issues related to publics, visuality, museums and exhibitions, art, performance, representational forms, or institutional forms from diverse methodological, practical, and theoretical vantage points. They might examine forms and practices of public scholarship and the theories, histories, and systems of thought that shape and illuminate public culture and public scholarship. Workshops should encourage comparative, interdisciplinary, and cross-institutional interchange and reflection that bring into conversation public scholarship in Africa, creative cultural production, and critical theory. Workshop budgets will vary depending on proposed plans; the maximum award is ZAR 75,000.

Workshop Themes and Formats: Working with a different focus each year, the ACIP Workshop will facilitate and energise conversations among scholars and practitioners drawn from universities, museums, and other cultural organisations, seeking to bridge institutional silos and boundaries. The ACIP Workshop should help place research and public scholarship within broader frames, work against institutional isolation, facilitate collaborative research relations and discussions, and build a cohort of scholars and practitioners who talk across fields, across generations, and across institutions. Proposed Workshops will be selected with an eye to cultivating these goals.

Proposed Workshop themes should focus on issues and questions that foster critical examination and debate about forms, practices, and institutions of public culture. Themes should be addressed from multiple orientations and disciplines, include comparative perspectives, and be situated in relation to concepts and theories from relevant fields. Workshops should be planned to engage participants across different institutions of public culture, including universities, museums, arts and culture organisations, NGOs, or others appropriate to the topic. Abstracts for previously funded ACIP Workshops are available here. 

The Workshop might use a range of formats as appropriate. Examples of formats that might be proposed or combined:

  • a standard workshop of 2-3 days, with specific sessions, presentations, discussants, pre-circulated papers or readings, etc. Variations on this format might also be introduced. Preferred timing for such workshops is March 2024.
  • a working group of colleagues and postgraduate students drawn from across institutions that meet regularly over several weeks or months to discuss common readings and work in progress; visitors who work on the group’s central theme and issues might be invited to give public lectures, participate in group meetings, mentor students, etc.
  • a collaborative teaching programme with a common postgraduate course, or module of a course, taught in parallel at different universities with various modes of coordination and interaction, with participants coming together for a 1 day workshop at the end.
  • a distinguished scholar or cultural practitioner invited as a short-term Public Scholar in Residence (PSR) to bring fresh, comparative perspectives to particular issues and debates through public lectures, participation in a standard workshop, consultations with colleagues at institutions of public culture, and meetings with students supported by ACIP’s Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards. The visitor might also contribute to courses as appropriate.

Workshop organisers will work through the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape for basic financial administration and are responsible for complying with CHR policies. Workshop organisers should submit a letter from the host institution, centre, programme, or department confirming that appropriate administrative and institutional support will be available.

We ask Workshop organisers to incorporate appropriate modes of participation for postgraduate students holding current Ivan Karp Doctoral Research Awards from ACIP so that they have opportunities to consult with Workshop participants. Prior holders of Ivan Karp awards may also wish to attend and we encourage organisers to include students from a range of higher education institutions.

Who Should Apply: Applications may be submitted by experienced scholars and cultural practitioners based in universities, museums, and other cultural organisations in South Africa who are interested in creating or reinvigorating interdisciplinary, cross-institutional engagement and understanding and who are committed to training the next generations of scholar-practitioners. Applications may be submitted by a single individual or a pair of individuals who have different institutional affiliations and bring different perspectives, approaches, or specialisations to the proposed Workshop theme.

How to Apply: Interested applicants should submit the following as a single file attachment with documents in the order listed:

  • completed cover sheet (form below and as last page of Workshop application information at http://www.graduateschool.emory.edu/about/special/acip.html, under ACIP Opportunities) 
  • abstract of the proposed Workshop theme, focus, and plan (250 word max.)
  • two to three page statement defining the proposed Workshop theme and focus, its significance, the questions and issues it addresses, and how it relates to the African Critical Inquiry Programme. The statement should also describe the Workshop format and why it will be effective.
  • list of proposed participants with their affiliations, brief bios and descriptions of how their work relates to the Workshop
  • plan of work and schedule for organising the Workshop
  • preliminary Workshop budget that explains and justifies expenses
  • two page curriculum vitae (for each organiser)
  • institutional letter of commitment to host the Workshop. Please describe available administrative-logistical support in this letter and/or your work plan
  • two external reference letters addressing the significance of the proposed Workshop and appropriateness of the format and plan should be submitted directly to the Selection Committee.

The Workshop theme description and plan of work should specify topics or sessions to be included, address the nature and value of the interdisciplinary and cross-institutional exchange to be undertaken, and indicate whether particular outcomes or products are envisioned. It should be written in a way that will be accessible to non-specialist reviewers.

Each Workshop may apply for up to ZAR 75,000. to support Workshop activities and planning. Applicants need not apply for the full amount. Funds may be used to pay honoraria, cover out of town participants’ travel costs, purchase materials, establish a website, promote Workshop activities, hire a student assistant to help with organisation, and cover other related expenses. Workshops are strongly encouraged to supplement the ACIP funding with other sources of support.

Selection Criteria: All proposals will be reviewed by the ACIP Selection Committee; successful applicants will be notified as soon as possible after the closing date so they may begin planning for the Workshop. An award will be made only if applications of appropriate merit and relevance are received. Applications will be evaluated on the following criteria:

Conceptualisation: Does the proposed Workshop identify and address significant themes, questions, and issues concerning the roles and practices of public culture, public cultural institutions, and various forms of public scholarship in shaping identities and society in Africa? Does it combine disciplines and create cross-institutional conversations in new and/or interesting ways? Does it explain how the proposed Workshop relates to research in relevant fields? How are comparative dimensions incorporated into the Workshop? How will the proposed Workshop develop cross-generational relations and conversations? Will the Workshop make possible new forms of knowledge, innovative approaches, or new kinds of exchange?

Appropriateness: Does the proposed Workshop theme relate to questions and issues relevant to African Critical Inquiry? Are the Workshop plan and proposed set of participants appropriate, well thought out, and likely to be productive?

Workshop organiser(s): What qualifications and experience do applicants bring to organising the Workshop, including previous administration/organisation and interdisciplinary and cross-institutional engagements? How do the training, backgrounds, and approaches of a pair of applicants complement one another in formulating Workshop plans?

Impact: Will the proposed Workshop and design be effective in addressing the theme and foster interdisciplinary, cross-institutional, and cross-generational debate and engagement?

Applicants who organise an African Critical Inquiry Programme Workshop must acknowledge the support in all Workshop materials and in any publications that result and indicate affiliation with ACIP and the Centre for Humanities Research. After completing the workshop, they must submit a final report and a financial report.

Closing date: Applications and referees’ letters must be received by Monday 1 May 2023. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Please submit materials as a single file attachment with documents in the order listed above. Applications should be sent by email to acip.uwc@gmail.com with the heading “ACIP 2024 Workshop Proposal.”

Supported by funding from the Ivan Karp and Corinne Kratz Fund

http://www.graduateschool.emory.edu/about/special/acip.html  

https://www.facebook.com/ivan.karp.corinne.kratz.fund

Position Announcement: NAGPRA Coordinator, Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico

The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology (MMA) at the University of New Mexico (UNM) seeks a NAGPRA Coordinator to oversee compliance, consultations, repatriations, and other activities associated with ensuring the Museum’s compliance the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. We seek a dynamic professional with significant experience in NAGPRA compliance to help steward MMA’s NAGPRA efforts. Founded in 1932, the Maxwell Museum holds large anthropological collections in four collecting divisions (archaeology, ethnology, osteology and archives), with particular strengths in scholarship and research in the US Southwest. The Museum is strongly committed to fulfilling the ethical and legal requirements of NAGPRA; fostering strong collaborative relationships with Native American communities; the respectful curation of Indigenous cultural collections; and the repatriation of ancestral human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony as specified in 43 CFR Part 10. The successful candidate will join a dedicated team of museum professionals working to document and care for collections, support appropriate collection-based research and teaching in a vibrant university setting, build collaborations with source and descendent communities, and support an active program of public engagement.

AAA 2022: CMA Sponsored Sessions

0-420: Making, Wearing: Legacies of Cultural Appropriation within Smithsonian Collections 

Reviewed by: Council for Museum Anthropology 

Session Type: Talk Organizer: Amanda Sorensen 

1-125: Unsettling Institutions of Public Memory: Contestations of/within Heritage-Scapes 

Reviewed by: Council for Museum Anthropology 

Modality: In-Person 

Session Time: 12:00 PM to 01:45 PM Session Type: Oral Presentation Session Organizer: Chris Green Participants:Kathleen Fine-Dare, Francisco Diaz, Kasey Diserens-Morgan, Amber Henry, Robert Vigar 

2-168: Between Critique and Practice: Unsettling Collections Management through Anthropology 

Reviewed by: Council for Museum Anthropology 

Modality: In-Person 

Session Time: 10:15 AM to 12:00 PM Session Type: Oral Presentation Session Organizer: Cara Krmpotich Participants: Hannah Turner, Annissa Malvoisin, Sharon Fortney, Alice Stevenson, Sony Prosper 

3-515: Unsettled Anthropology: Materiality, Museums, Memory, and Community 

Reviewed by: Council for Museum Anthropology 

Modality: In-Person 

Session Time: 04:15 PM to 06:00 PM Session Type: Oral Presentation Session Organizer: Maureen Matthews Participants: Charlotte Dawson, Christina Hodge, Paulina Faba, Cassie Smith 

4-000: Affinities and Frictions: Anthropology, Art/Art History and Museum Studies 

Reviewed by: Council for Museum Anthropology 

Modality: In-Person 

Session Time: 08:00 AM to 09:45 AM Session Type: Roundtable / Town Hall Organizer: Christina Kreps Participants: Manuel Ferreira, Halena Kapuni-Reynolds, David Odo, Jami Powell, Denene 

4-277: Co-Creating an Anti-Colonial Cultural Sector (Invited Session) 

Invited by: Council for Museum Anthropology 

Modality: In-Person 

Session Time: 10:15 AM to 12:00 PM Session Type: Oral Presentation Session Organizer: Emily Leischner Participants: Christina Kreps, Halena Kapuni-Reynolds, Maya Haviland, Gwyneira Isaac, Jennifer Kramer 

4-440: (Re)Visualizing Art, Museums, and Ethnography on the Northwest Coast: Papers in Honor of Ira Jacknis (Cosponsored Session) 

Cosponsored by: Council for Museum Anthropology and Society for Visual Anthropology 

Modality: In-Person 

Session Time: 04:15 PM to 06:00 PM Session Type: Oral Presentation Session Organizer: Aaron Glass Participants: Judith Berman, Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, Andy Everson, Jisgang Nika Collison, Wendy Wickwire, Karen Duffek, Jordan Wilson, Robin Wright, Tom Child 

Announcing the 2022 CMA Student Travel Awards

The CMA Board is pleased to announce the two recipients of the 2022 CMA Student Travel Awards!

Emily Jean Leischner (University of British Columbia) who organized the CMA Invited session “Co-Creating an Anti-Colonial Cultural Sector” in which she will present “Captured Voices Still Speak the Law: Sound Recordings of Indigenous Voices in Museums.”

Annissa Malvoisin (University of Toronto) who will be a panelist on the CMA-reviewed panel, “Between Critique and Practice: Unsettling Collections Management through Anthropology.”

Congratulations!!

The CMA Student Travel Awards are designed to support graduate student travel to the annual AAA meeting to present papers and/or posters. Students and recent graduate degree recipients (those who have defended within the year of the award) are eligible to apply. Each year, CMA will award two prizes of $1000 each.

Student Travel Award recipients will be presented with receive a certificate of the award at the CMA Awards Ceremony and Reception in Seattle on Thursday, 10 November, 5- 7 pm.

 

AAA 2022: CMA Business Meeting

The Council for Museum Anthropology Business Meeting will take place on Zoom from 2-4 pm PST on Saturday Nov 12, 2022. Meeting open to all members.

Zoom link to follow.

AAA 2022: Travel Reminders

The health & safety of our attendees are our top priorities, and we’re working closely with the Seattle Convention Center and our host hotels to make sure the Annual Meeting is as safe a space as it can be from a public health perspective. We are counting on everyone taking care with one another and taking care of themselves.

Here’s what we have planned to help keep our in-person attendees, our volunteers, and AAA staff safe at the Annual Meeting.

Attendees must abide by the following requirements:

  1. The Seattle Convention Center first earned its Global Biorisk Advisory Council® (GBAC) STAR™ accreditation in 2021, and was reaccredited in 2022. This is the gold standard of safe public venues. It means the health and safety protocols the Seattle Convention Center puts in place have been independently validated by a qualified third party based on procedures for cleaning and disinfection, air handling equipment, and properly trained personnel.
  2. Attendees must be fully vaccinated with one booster dose, all completed at least 14 days prior to arrival. For international attendees, the documented vaccine/booster must be among those approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization. Exemptions will only be considered for attendees with a note from a medical doctor advising against vaccination. We ask you to upload your vaccination before you arrive in Seattle, as you will not be able to pick up your badge until you complete your vaccination verification. Please scan the QR code below and follow those instructions for upload from your mobile device.
  3. Meeting badges will be required to access AAA event space. Please wear your badge at all times. This means that only attendees who are registered for the meeting will be allowed in our space, and we will know that everyone there has had their vaccine status documented.
  4. We encourage people to wear masks when in indoor AAA event space. We will have an ample supply of KN95 masks available at the registration desk for those who need them. We will also have a supply of rapid antigen COVID tests available for people who are concerned they might have been exposed to the coronavirus in transit to or at the meeting.
More information about Covid-19 measures are listed here: https://annualmeeting.americananthro.org/general-info/covid-19/

Department of Interior Proposes Overhaul of NAGPRA

Via Native News Online, October 13, 2022

“Today, the Federal Register published a proposed rule to rewrite the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in order to expedite and simplify the process for tribal nations seeking their relatives’ return.

Passed by Congress in 1990, NAGPRA is a human rights law that legally compels museums and federal institutions that possess Native American human remains and associated funerary objects to catalog and return those ancestors and belongings within five years.

In a panel discussion on Wednesday at the AAIA repatriation conference, O’Brien outlined the three key changes that tribal nations have called for:

  1. Shifting the onus from tribal nations to museums to initiate consultation. “There is a burden on the Indian tribes and [Native Hawaiian Organizations] to start the process,” O’Brien said. “Museums or federal agencies don’t have to do anything until a tribe makes a request.”
  2. The proposed regulation would eliminate the designation ‘culturally unidentifiable” to describe human remains and their associated funerary objects when cultural affiliation cannot be determined. “That term alone can inhibit and prevent repatriation,” O’Brien said.
  3. The proposed changes would also require that museums repatriate all associated funerary objects along with the ancestor they were buried with. As the law currently stands, museums can retain funerary objects. Shannon Martin (Ojibwe & Pottawatomi), who spoke on the AAIA conference panel with O’Brien, said her first repatriation of 98 ancestors from Harvard’s Peabody museum in 2016 was a two-year process, but the toughest part was that the Peabody refused to return the associated funerary objects. Those sacred objects remain with the museum today, Martin said.”

More here.

AAA Event for CMA Members: Tiny Talks at the Burke Museum

The Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group (ATIG), the Council of Museum Anthropology (CMA), and the Association of Senior Anthropologists (ASA) have come together to co-organize a unique event at the Burke Museum with the help of the Museum’s executive, curatorial and events staff. The event will take place from 3-5 pm on Thursday November 10, with participants able to access the Burke’s galleries from 2 pm onwards. With exhibits and research programs that explore the connections that communities have with culture, art, and the material past, the Burke Museum aims to inspire action, generate knowledge, and aid in healing processes. The event will begin in the lobby near the gift shop, where attendees will be provided with a brief introduction to the museum. Next, they will have the opportunity to visit the museum’s exhibits to enjoy “tiny talks” provided by the museum’s curatorial staff.

Space at this event is limited to 130 guests, so at this time it is open only to members of ATIG, CMA, and ASA.

Register here.

Guest Post: “Participation in Museums: Backstage Ideals and Frontstage Realities,” by Inge Zwart

In April 2022, the Council for Museum Anthropology (CMA) awarded two awards for excellence in papers presented at the CMA’s Virtual Spring Symposium, The Future is Now: Emerging Perspectives in Museology and Museum Anthropology. Included as part of the prize was the opportunity to publish their paper in the CMA blog.  We are pleased to present Inge Zwart’s paper, Participation in Museums: Backstage Ideals and Frontstage Realities

By: Inge Zwart, PhD student at the Department of ALM at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Introduction
Participatory methods in audience engagement and exhibition production have become increasingly common in museums around Europe. In this paper, I suggest that seeing participation as a way to ‘bringing participants backstage’ rests on a false interpretation of what happens in practice. I analyze a workshop with collections in a German museum, using Goffman’s frontstage and backstage theory to consider where and how front- and backstage divisions are crossed and upheld in this participatory project (1959). The participants might have more and different access to objects, spaces and work in a museum than regular visitors, but I suggest that the behind-the-scenes that participants take part in should be understood as a performance of the museum’s backstage work and spaces. I end by arguing that looking at participation as performance does not necessarily discount the value of such projects, but that its success relies on clear communication and transparency. If that is taken into account, this performative view can introduce functions of such a project that were previously not considered.

The paper is built as follows: first, I briefly introduce the context of my research and the case, and place the paper in relation to contemporary discussions about participation in museums. Then, I explain how I apply ‘backstage’ and ‘frontstage’ after which I present the case and suggest how we might consider what backstage and frontstage is in this type of collection-based participation, and why it matters.

Method, Materials and Terms
The paper is based on empirical data generated and analysis developed for my dissertation research, from ethnographic fieldwork in two Northern European museums. I attended meetings, did interviews with mostly curators, joined in their daily office work, took on small tasks and joined events and workshops, and analyzed internal and public documents. The case study in this paper comes from one of these institutions: the Museum Europäischer Kulturen, or the Museum of European Cultures in Berlin, Germany (MEK). The MEK is an ethnographic museum and holds mostly 19th and 20th century collections of everyday objects from European cultures. According to the director, they have been doing participatory projects with source communities and others for over 20 years – as long as the institution exists in its current form. The project reflected on in this paper was a workshop based on a method called Revisiting Collections, and will be further introduced later on.

In my work, I assume a broad understanding of participation in museums. This understanding encompasses the different ways that museums engage external stakeholders actively. Related terms, which I understand to all fall under the umbrella category ‘participation’, are community engagement (Morse 2021; Crooke 2015), co-creation (Mucha 2022) or co-production (Davies 2010; Kershaw, Bridson, and Parris 2018; Morse, Macpherson, and Robinson 2013). This broad understanding stems from my interviews with curators and staff at two museums. When I asked about their experiences with participation in their museum and their interpretation of the term, the interviewees talked about exhibitions of material created by and stories of participants; art interventions in permanent exhibitions; workshop series for film making, language, printmaking; public events co-organised with various stakeholder groups; exhibition including participants’ narratives based on interviews; workshops through which people are invited to reflect on collections; and audience engagement activities within an exhibition. This broad approach allowed the research interlocutors to define what ‘participation’ means to them, in their museums, to then understand how they do the work necessary to do these projects.

Participation in Museums
With a focus on museum as organizations, I am interested in the work of museum practitioners who do participation in museums. Doing so, I move away from a typical discussion found in literature searching for the ‘best’ type of participation, when authors apply models like Sherry Arnstein’s “ladder of participation” or Nina Simon’s proposed categories of participation to valuate (and critique) projects (Arnstein 1969; Simon 2010). This approach has led to important critical reflections on big projects such as Bernadette Lynch’s oft-cited report about UK-based projects (2012), and to further developed models such as for participatory museum management (Sancho Querol 2021). But, as Nuala Morse (2021) and Helen Graham (2012) suggest, this has also led to a rather stagnant cycle of critique. Instead, I follow Helen Graham’s call for a more practice-based understanding of museum participation (2012).

My argument here builds on Nuala Morse’s critique of the ‘center-periphery argument’ for participation, which views participation from a “logic of contribution” (2021, p. 4). Within this logic, participation is understood as a way through which participants can contribute something to the museum and introduce (positive) outside influence, that could potentially change the institution. Morse challenges this logic, arguing that it limits discussions about participation to issues of choice and control and diminishes potential other motivations, benefits or interests of participants and practitioners alike. I am specifically interested in further unpacking what happens when participation is moved “from the margins of the organisation to the core, into policies, strategies and museum operations” (Morse 2021, 51), by applying Goffman’s backstage and frontstage theory (1959).

Backstage and Frontstage in the Museum
Erving Goffman uses the concepts ‘backstage’ and ‘frontstage’ in his book The presentation of self in everyday life (1959). In it, the sociologist presents his widespread theory about how people try to influence others’ impressions of themselves, using performance language. Goffman discusses frontstage behaviour as that which is done when one is aware of an ‘audience’, while for backstage behaviour one resorts to less performative elements of self.

His popular theory and accompanying performance language is applied in many other social settings, such as work and organizations (Manning 2008). In the museum sphere, where we work with an actual audience, the performance language is easily adapted. It is useful and commonplace to think about what audiences can see and have access to as the frontstage, and what audiences typically do not see as backstage. Where Goffman’s theory is about behaviour in social settings, frontstage and backstage is more loosely applied in relation to museums: in reference to (1) the organizational division of work in the museum, as well as (2) differences in access to space. Sharon MacDonald and Vivian van Saaze both use Goffman’s terms to describe different types of work in museums (Macdonald 2002; Saaze 2011). A division between front-of-house services such as the work done by guards, educators or shop attendants, is often organisationally separated from the typical behind-the-scenes work such as curation, conservation, research, or maintenance. This division comes with a division in spaces as well (Wylie 2020; Engineer and Anthony 2017; Valentine 1982). The spaces typically associated with the second group of museum staff are usually not available for audiences: depots, conservations spaces and offices. The shops, restaurants, exhibition spaces and educations rooms, are places visitors are welcome.

Participatory projects as a backstage ideal
Participation potentially complicates these divisions. In participatory projects, audiences can get acquainted with work that is usually done backstage, especially in the case of co-creating exhibitions, and visitors might have access to spaces that usually are closed for everyday visitors.

It is indeed what one of the curators at the MEK imagined when I asked ‘what would the most perfect participatory project look like for you?’ She answered:

“[To] take the people from other neighbourhoods in Berlin to our place here. That they really cooperate with us here. And not only for exhibitions, but also in the museum, behind the scenes, well in the back office for example, the collections. This would be great. To do this participatory work there.” (MEK curator, interview October 2019)

Just a month after the interview, I attended a workshop in the MEK – organised by a group of students working together with the museum as part of a class – that brought a group of six participants behind the scenes and in connection with the collections. On a late afternoon in November 2019 a so-called Revisiting Collections workshop was organised. This method is developed by Collections Trust and MLA council (Collections Trust and MLA council 2009). In these workshops a group of people are invited to – after hours, outside of the exhibit rooms – interact with and reflect on collection objects from the depot in a structured way. It goes more or less like this:

1. Look at museum objects
2. Answer questions about the objects (see figure 1)
3. Receive collection records about object
4. Respond to records in writing
5. Discuss with the curator about the process and their intepretation
6. Implementation of these interpretations into the collection records

One could argue that in such a workshop, participants are introduced to backstage museum work: they see museum objects that are (typically) not on display, get to handle objects (with gloves) directly, see material from the collection records directly, and can interpret the objects themselves. And, ideally, have an influence on the collection records. A relevant side note here, which reveals something about the complications that might come up in the work with such methods, is that the last step did not take place in this particular case.


Figure 1. Two scanned, written answers to the question “What does this object remind you of” contributed by participants to the workshop.

A closer look
Upon a closer look of this meeting, the practices the participants engage in and the spaces they have access to, are actually mediated by the museum. This makes them more like other mediated encounters with the museum taking place ‘frontstage’, rather than a backstage experience. Furthermore, a backstage and frontstage division remains prevalent on a third level – that of a role division within the participatory interaction.

The participants had access to space and practices they did not have access to as a visitor. The meeting took place in a room in the office building of the museum, usually closed for others. The six participants had access to objects currently not on display, taken from the depot. They also had access to material from the collection records, which are not publicly available.

At the same time, the experience was mediated and limited by the museum. The participants did not get invited into the real conservation spaces, but met in a meeting room in the office building. They were allowed to handle objects, but did not choose the objects themselves, they did not take them from the depot themselves and thus saw the objects outside of their actual ‘backstage’ environment. Further, the participants could only give their personal accounts of these objects: what memories it brought up, and how they have used it. They did not do research on the objects themselves, and did not have access directly into the collection records: the facilitators arranged printed collection records for them to access.

Considering this mediation, there remains a clear division between what practitioners and participants have access to and which work they do in the participatory project itself. The curator and facilitator have clear organizational roles and the participants can react and respond within certain confined framework only created by the museum. A clear example of this took place when participants were excited to bring in some ideas for an exhibition handling these objects. This type of input was not used: the participants had very specific roles to play.

A performance of backstage
In this type of participatory project, museum backstage is ‘performed’. Participants are invited in a simulated way of interacting with objects, but they are not actually invited backstage. They play conservator, in a staged backstage. In this type of museum environment, the division between front- and backstage has shifted: backstage is where the organizational decisions about the workshop were made, including decision making about which objects would be used, where and when this would take place and the setting of goals.

The example shows that participatory projects might allow for access to museum work and spaces that publics usually do not see, but the division between frontstage and backstage remains. Participants are taken into a staged backstage area. The division between front and back stage is upheld by the roles that practitioners and participants alike take on, the respective access they have to material and spaces, and the organizational work they do or not do and thus the influence they have over how the interaction goes.

From a performed backstage to a transparent front
Why does this matter? Participatory practices in museums are often described as an attempt to change the museum from the inside (Morse 2021). Morse already criticises this goal, arguing that relying on external stakeholders to instigate change in turn reduces the responsibility of the museum. Bernadette Lynch highlights the problems that occur when museums are not transparent about how limited external stakeholders’ influence often actually is (Lynch 2011). My empirical data supports their critique by showing that what looks like or is imagined as ‘backstage participation’ rather allows for controlled and limited input and influence from external stakeholders involved. My reflections further suggest that when arguing for participatory projects to take place in, or have an effect on the ‘center’ of the museum, it is important to consider the shifting boundaries of what is center/periphery or backstage/frontstage in a project.

Even though the museum and student facilitators were relatively clear in this case, the importance of clear communication about expectations should be stressed. So that no false ideas of a redivision of power should be given in these cases: participatory projects are indeed rarely, if ever, the way to change museums or to radically redefine the role of the curator.

To end on a more positive note, we might understand this type of project as a new frontstage in which audiences and participants are engaged – rather than as a true engagement with backstage. In this new frontstage, the participant can learn how knowledge is created in a museum setting, be involved in dialogues about representation and what that looks like in practice (decision-making, thinking with objects), and perhaps introduce new materials in the museum records. That is a fairer and more transparent understanding of this type of work and still valuable for museums, participants and practitioners alike.

Acknowledgements

I thank the Museum of European Cultures and the curators, as well as the students and participants involved in the described workshop for welcoming me into their space. This paper has been developed as part of a study in the POEM project (https://www.poem-horizon.eu/) with funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodawska-Curie grant agreement No. 764859. I thank Isto Huvila for reading and commenting on an early version of both the presented and written paper. A final thank you goes out to Hannah Turner, whose comments and edits greatly helped in finalizing the written text.

References

Arnstein, Sherry R. 1969. “A Ladder Of Citizen Participation.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35 (4): 216–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944366908977225.
Carpentier, Nico, Ana Duarte Melo, and Fábio Ribeiro. 2019. “Rescuing Participation: A Critique on the Dark Participation Concept.” Comunicação e Sociedade, no. 36 (December): 17–35.
Collections Trust, and MLA council. 2009. Revisiting Museum Collections. 3rd ed. London: Collections Trust.
Crooke, Elizabeth. 2015. “The ‘Active Museum’: How Concern with Community Transformed the Museum.” In Museum Practice, edited by Conal McCarthy, 481–502. The International Handbooks of Museum Studies. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Davies, Sue M. 2010. “The Co-Production of Temporary Museum Exhibitions.” Museum Management and Curatorship 25 (3): 305–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2010.498988.
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