PARTICIPATION: THE MUSINGPLACE AS ENTERPRISE

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Traditionally museology was structured around the premise that in the musingplace visitors are largely the passive receivers of information. Conversely new museology practice shifted the emphasis from curators doing the interpreting to it being the province of ‘the visitor’. 

Political and economic pressures have forced musingplace professionals to shift their attention from their collections towards visitors. 19th C musingplaces, and up to the 1970s,  tended to be exclusive and elitist. 

A progressive opening-up and demands for greater accessibility have appeared. A climate of increasing self reflection within the profession is being identified as a ‘new museology’. Curators and directors argue that the movement towards a more visitor centred ethos can entail a corresponding paradigm shift in the identity of, and relevance of, musingplaces. Musingplace professionals’ role is shifting from a kind of ‘legislator’ to one of being a kind of ‘interpreter’ charged with navigating cultural meaning/s and the currency of scientific understandings.

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Museology intellectuals are being redefined, and arguably this process is in transition, and it is by no means complete. Nonetheless, musingplace personnel are often resistant to these forces of change given that they challenge entrenched and a more comfortable order of things. It might also be the case that their qualifications may come under scrutiny. 

Musingplace autonomy and their insulation from their Communities of Ownership & Interest (COI) is increasingly untenable and especially so when ethics and accountability come into play. Increasingly, audiences and visitors are being imagined as 'participatory'. 

This becomes more so as COI members of public musingplaces assert an authority based upon their cultural, social and fiscal investments in the institution. Increasingly COI memberships, individually and collectively, they are looking for tangible and intangible dividends to be delivered. 

These dividends are beginning to be delivered via participatory programming, citizen curatorship, independent scholarship, open engagement, etc. 

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The Musingplace as Enterprise 

In the paradigm of new museology the demands upon musingplace programming grows exponentially. Quite possibly demand goes far beyond the level of funding typically provided for traditional passive musingplace programming – the museum and galleries with static displays and the visitor being the passive receiver of information.

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Musingplaces must come to terms with their past. They have been one of the important ways communities have made sense of their histories, the realities of their culture, the ecologies they are a part of, and more still. In a 21st C context they need to tear down the cultural barriers that impede communities participating in their activities. 

Moreover, they need to be more responsive to their COI. The ‘museologists’ working in them need to be seeking the approval to their COI's rather than their fellow museologists – they need to be gate openers rather than privileged gatekeepers. 

Musingplaces with museologists talking only to museologists, in a 21st C sense, would be something like Sir Humphrey Appleby’s Hospital  in the TV comedy ‘Yes Minster’.  The thing is, just like it is with the TV show, its far from just being just funny. 

After that we might then consider the ‘dignity for all’ idea and the issue of 'Rankism' that Robert Fuller tells us about in “Somebodies and Nobodies: Understanding Rankism”  .... “An assertion of superiority. It typically takes the form of putting others down. It’s what “Somebodies” do to (their chosen) “nobodies.” ... Robert Fuller When museums were imagined as the purveyors of the 'official' point view they were the province of somebodies talking to nobodies. Happily, its an idea that has had its day as has sexism and racism!

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