Museum Transformations

Carleton University Ottawa, ON, Canada

Sharon Macdonaldis Alexander van Humboldt Professor in Social Anthropology at the Humboldt University Berlin where she directs the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage – CARMAH. The centre works closely with a wide range of museums. Sharon has edited and coedited volumes include The Companion to Museum Studies (Blackwell, 2006); Exhibition Experiments (with Paul Basu; Blackwell, 2007); and Theorizing Museums (with Gordon Fyfe; Blackwell, 1996). Her authored books include Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum (Berg, 2002); Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond (Routledge, 2009); and Memorylands: Heritage and Identity in Europe Today (Routledge, 2013). Her current projects include Making Differences. Transforming Museums and Heritage in the 21st Century .

Professor Sharon Macdonald Alexander van Humboldt Professor in Social Anthropology

Institute for European Ethnology Humboldt University of Berlin

Berlin, Germany

Helen Rees Leahyis Professor Emerita of Museology at the University of Manchester, where, between 2002 and 2017 she directed the Centre for Museology. Previously, Helen held a variety of senior posts in UK museums, including the Design Museum, Eureka! The Museum for Children, and the National Art Collections Fund. She has also worked as an independent consultant and curator, and has organized numerous exhibitions of art and design. She has published widely on practices of individual and institutional collecting, in both historical and contemporary contexts, including issues of patronage, display and interpretation. Her Museum Bodies: The Politics and Practices of Visiting and Viewing was published by Ashgate in 2012.

Professor Emerita Helen Rees Leahy

Centre for Museology School of Arts, Languages and Cultures

University of Manchester

Manchester, UK

Jens Andermann,University of Zurich, Switzerland

Bain Attwood,Monash University, Australia

Mieke Bal,University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Paul Basu,University College London, UK

Lissant Bolton,British Museum, London, UK

Mary Bouquet,University College Utrecht, The Netherlands

Tegan Bristow,University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Alison K. Brown,University of Aberdeen, UK

Miriam Clavir,Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Canada

Annie E. Coombes,Birkbeck, University of London, UK

Jonathan Dewar,Director of the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre and Special Advisor to the President at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Reesa Greenberg,Carleton University and York University, Canada

Gwyneira Isaac,National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, USA

Gabriel Koureas,Birkbeck, University of London, UK

Jennifer Kramer,University of British Columbia and Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Canada

Terry Kurgan,University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Johan Lagae,Ghent University, Belgium

Saloni Mathur,University of California, Los Angeles, USA

Christopher Morton,Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, UK

Alexander Opper,University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Gilbert Oteyo,independent researcher, Kenya

Laura Peers,Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, UK

Ruth B. Phillips,Carleton University, Canada

Sibylle Quack,Leibniz Universität, Hannover, Germany

Kavita Singh,Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

Paul Chaat Smith,National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, USA

Nicholas Thomas,Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK

Kimberly Christen,Washington State University, USA

Museum Transformations

As general editors of The International Handbooks in Museum Studies , we – Sharon Macdonald and Helen Rees Leahy – are delighted that Museum Transformations is now appearing in paperback, as a self‐standing volume. So too are the other volumes, which is testament to the strength of these volumes individually, as well as collectively, and to the importance of the issues that they each address. Museum Transformations explores a wide range of ways in which museums seem to be changing, and examines how far the ‘tranformational energies’ that can be witnessed in many parts of the globe, represent ramifying reconfiguration of museums. This is a major focus of interest for museum studies, identifying as it does not only what has been happening but also what the future might bring. Deciding which are the key transformations – especially when retrospect is only sometimes and then usually only partly available – is inevitably a major challenge.

That challenge is, however, one that the editors of Museum Transformations , Annie E.Coombes and Ruth B.Phillips tackled with great insight and deep knowledge of the field. Writing now from the vantage point of 2019, it is clear to us as general editors that they absolutely had their fingers on the pulse, as is thoroughly evident from the resulting volume. The range of topics included and the ways in which they are tackled clearly highlight not only what is already in transformation but also potential future trajectories – and, in some cases, dreams that are already on their way to becoming realities.

The International Handbooks in Museum Studies

Collectively, The International Handbooks in Museum Studies include over a hundred original, state‐of‐the‐art chapters on museums and museum studies. As such, they are the most comprehensive review to date of the lively and expanding field of museum studies. Written by a wide range of scholars and practitioners – newer voices as well as those already widely esteemed – The International Handbooks provide not only extensive coverage of key topics and debates in the museum field, but also make a productive contribution to emerging debates and areas, as well as to suggest how museum studies – and museums – might develop in the future.

The number of excellent contributors able and willing to write on museum topics is itself testimony to the state of the field, as was recognition by the publishers that the field warranted such a substantial work. Bringing together such a range and quantity of new writing about museums was accomplished through the deep knowledge, extensive networks, and sheer labour of the volume editors – Andrea Witcomb and Kylie Message, Museum Theory ; Conal McCarthy, Museum Practice ; Michelle Henning, Museum Media ; and Annie E. Coombes and Ruth B. Phillips, Museum Transformations . All enthusiastically took up the mandate to go out and recruit those they thought would be best able to write useful and timely essays on what they defined as the most important topics within their area of remit. Their brief was to look widely for potential contributors, including unfamiliar, as well as familiar, names. We – and they – were especially interested in perspectives from people whose voices have not always been heard within the international museum studies conversation thus far. This breadth is also a feature of the expanded and expanding field itself, as we explain further below.