Abstract
This article is comes out of a seminar series given at UCL in 2011. It deals with the notion of the 'voice' within the museum. That is, the article adresses a particular story of the discovery of the author's own individual voice through being socialized by the museum. The author details the means and results of this socialization and then claims that his biography, an inspirational story about the museum, is being coopted. He argues that those who believe the museum should act as a mechanism of social inclusion and rescue for the disfranchised use a story of personal transformation to support policies of social intervention by museums.
Highlights
In May 2011 I participated in the seminar series ‘Voices in the Museum’, organised by UCL Mellon Programme Fellows Sarah Byrne and Antony Hudek
My aim was to formulate an argument that would free up the museum from its increasing instrumentalisation by government agencies seeking to use culture to mend holes in the social fabric. This policy is a kind of deflection: the desire to press museums and other cultural institutions into serving the social domain is a way to avoid addressing the root of social exclusion, namely economic inequality (Bauman 1991)
In the DCMS report Centres for Social Change: Museums, Galleries and Archives for All (2000: 3), the New Labour government’s first Secretary of Culture, Media and Sport, Chris Smith, writes: Combating social exclusion is one of the Government’s highest priorities, and I believe that museums, galleries and archives have a significant role to play in helping us to do this
Summary
This article comes out of a seminar series given at UCL in 2011. It deals with the notion of the ‘voice’ within the museum. The author details the means and results of this socialisation and claims that his biography, an inspirational story about the museum, is being co-opted. He argues that those who believe that the museum should act as a mechanism of social inclusion and rescue for the disfranchised use a story of personal transformation to support policies of social intervention by museums
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