Abstract
Museums today play an important role as a space for learning about science and the world. For this article, the phenomenon of human evolution is explored as an example of knowledge production about change. Empirical materials on exhibitions of human evolution were collected from visits to 25 historical and natural history museums.
 The empirical materials are analyzed together with a posthuman version of evolutionary theory, with a focus on aspects of change. This is based on a post-anthropocentric and relational approach to human evolution and change. The analysis shows that (i) museums face an anthropocentric tension, (ii) evolutionary change is seen as both an inherent quality of the individual species and as an entanglement of humans and the natural environment, (iii) the notion of ‘the first human’ produces various and contentious versions of knowledges about evolutionary change.
Highlights
Museums are institutions that attract visitors who want to learn, experience and educate themselves
The first section discusses change in relation to the anthropocentric tension the museums face: one version enacts the human species among other animals and nature, while another version separates the human species from the rest of the exhibition
Knowledge production is a central issue in educational research and in this study museums were studied as educational institutions
Summary
Museums are institutions that attract visitors who want to learn, experience and educate themselves. Current studies on museum learning acknowledge the way in which visitors bring their own world into conversation with the exhibition’s contents (Falk & Dierking, 2000). Knowledge is not presented in museums, transmitted from exhibition to visitor. Knowledge in this article is viewed as being produced in museums. Knowledge is not static but is produced through the entanglement of science, education, museum and society. This view of the production of knowledge is common in science and technology studies (STS), respectively, in posthuman theories
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