Observations of museums and communities

The relation between museums and (their) communities is a frequently debated, described, and reformulated topic. A quick browse through the academic literature results in various books whose titles directly refer to museum-community relations. We have Karp’s, Mullen Kreamer’s and Levine’s (eds.) Museums and Communities (1992); Crooke’s Museums and Community (2007) and Watson’s (ed.) Museums and their Communities (2007). One of the general points being made in these works is the following:  if the museum is to maintain relevant in today’s world, if the museum is to respond properly to a changed political and cultural landscape and if the museum is to live up to its mission of serving society, then it has to open up its hierarchical structure, break down its authoritative walls and transform into an institute that tries to represent all groups of society with a transparent and sincere attitude.

Moreover, we see an increased interest in the societal relevancy of museum’s when looking at governmental policy. Museums are encouraged, of not pressured, to reach the 'underrepresented’ and 'underserved’ groups of society with 'outreach programs’, 'participatory exhibition design’ and 'community building’. Inspired by ideas of inclusivity, participation and communitarianism national and local governments hope that museums prompt processes of empowerment and emancipation of various minority groups. It is thought that the museum’s experience with collective memories and identities – and their insights in the stories and objects that are attached to them – can contribute to the fulfillment of a government’s social welfare agenda.

Furthermore, the museum world itself has become aware of the need to connect more directly to its audiences and invest in structural relationships with visitors in order to be able to compete with other cultural organizations and leisure activities. Community outreach, or even creating a community in and around the museum, seem to be fine strategies to achieve this goal.

Finally, as various minority groups in society strove and strive for genuine recognition and acknowledgement, numerous museums have been build by community representatives themselves to represent a community’s history and culture and to point a broader audience at the current (often social and political) issues a community is dealing with.

Academics, politics, the field of museum professionals and grass-root initiatives. In all these areas the word community frequently comes up. However, community tends have alternate meanings, depending on the purpose with which – and the context in which – it is used. In academic theory community is often used as a sociological variable, pointing out certain groups in society. Besides, community is also used in academic works that tend to criticize museums for neglecting and under-representing these groups. Therefore community is often attached to heritage communities that are positioned in society’s economic and cultural periphery, overlooked by the 'grand euro-centric and elitist institutions’.

In governmental policy community often stands for a social ideal: a society in which people look after each other, show respect for each other and in which the excesses of individualism are overcome by collectively shared morals. Another main concern is to include as many people in a community’s social structure as possible. Here the above mentioned focus on peripheral groups returns, as economic under-derveloped and culturally ignored groups are often excluded from mainstream social life.

Museum professionals often use community in relation to the locality in which their museum is situated. In this sense community can refer to a nation, region, city, neighborhood or village. How to deal with the differences that exist in-between these communities and how to reach as large a part of these community as possible, are examples of these professionals’ main concerns. Besides that, community has become a synonym for target audience, inspired by novel marketing techniques that advocate that traditional mass-communication is no longer valid. In marketing jargon, a community stands for a group of loyal consumers (a niche) who keep on consuming your product (and even promote it among their peers for you ) if you treat them well and if you give them the feeling that they are listened to.

Grass-root communities are maybe the most interesting. These communities often have a concrete goal in the here and now. Social recognition, political agency, economic emancipation and so forth. What we see here is that this acute collective purpose strengthens the community, and that the concrete goal is only achievable if the out-side world is convinced that it is dealing with a tight and determined collectivity: a community. In this case the museum functions as a performance of community: to show the world that there is a inneglectable group of people whose message has to be heard.

You might imagine that in this community cacophony the various meanings and purposes of the word community often aim at different things or even contradict each other. How to serve the government’s policy of inclusivity, of your museum survives on serving a niche audience? How to serve Fillipine immigrants if you are the British Museum? How does your museum maintain its relevancy if the peripheral community you were representing has moved up to society’s centre? What if your participatory community decides to exclude others?

My aim is to unravel the several origins of community theory and policy and to show what kind of museums use which concepts of community, in order to reveal what museal implications a certain community concept entails. Furthermore I will give attention to new forms of community that emerged in the world of mass communication and a global culture industry.