Amateur Museum Practices: Leisure, Myth, and Ritual
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Doctoral Thesis Amateur Museum Practices: Leisure, Myth, and Ritual Seven Case Studies from Catalonia and a Contrast Case from Colombia Mariona Moncunill Piñas Thesis Supervisor: Natàlia Cantó Milà (UOC) Doctoral Programme: Information and Knowledge Society Universitat Oberta de Catalunya 2017 2 $*5$Í0(176 $OD1DWjOLD&DQWy0LOjODPHYDGLUHFWRUDGHWHVLTXHP¶KDUHJDODWWDQWHVKRUHVLTXH P¶KDHPSqVDWUHXUHHOPLOORUGHPLPDWHL[D$ODUHVWDGHPHPEUHVGHOJUXSGHUHFHUFD HVSHFLDOPHQWDO5RJHU0DUWtQH]O¶,VDDF*RQ]jOH]O¶(XQLFH5RPHUR5LYHUDi també a O¶6ZHQ6HHEDFKSHUODVHYDJHQHURVLWDWDOOOHJLULGLVFXWLUODPHYDIHLQD $O¶$OED&RORPER9LODUDVVDO¶$QD5RGUtJXH]*UDQHOHO3DX$OVLQDLHO-HV~V&DUULOOR per el seu suport emocional i els seus comentaris. També a tots els companys que han compartit el procés de fer el doctorat amb mi, per les seves experiències, bromes i ansietats i, sobretot, pels dinars de tres anys: Clara, Elisa, Manu, Marina, Adriana, Ivan, Lara, Vanina, Débora, Lara, i en especial a la Karla Berrens, sense la que ni tan sols P¶hauria decidit a començar a fer el doctorat. $OIHUUDQ(O2WURTXHKRIDWRWSRVVLEOHLQFORVDODPHYDHVWDGDDO¶,QVWLWXWR7HFQROyJLFR Metropolitano de Medellin. Al Christian Papilloud per acollir-PH D O¶,QVWLWXW IU Soziologie, i a ell i a la Katja Müller pels seus comentaris i consells. A la Sylvia Terpe, la seva família i els seus amics per fer-me sentir a Halle com a casa. A O¶$QJHOD-DQQHOOL per compartir la seva feina amb mi malgrat les barreres idiomàtiques LDO¶$OLFLD9HOD pels seus consells. A la meva germana, que jugava a fer museus amb mi i als meus pares i avis que es veien obligats a visitar-los i a pagar entrada. Als meus pares també per portar-nos a suficients PXVHXVFRPSHUTXqXQGLDVH¶QVDFXGtVMXJDUDIHUPXVHXVSHUHOVXSRUW incondicional a totes les meves decisions incloent la de fer el doctorat, i perquè sempre m¶KDQDMXGDWWDQWFRPKDQSRJXW a aconseguir els meus objectius. $O6HUJLSHUTXLDTXHVWDWHVLKDHVWDWXQSURFpVG¶DSUHQHQWDWJHLPSRVDWSHUDMXGDU-me DSUHQGUH¶P menys seriosament a mi mateixa i a respectar el meu temps lliure. Aquesta recerca no hauria estat possible sense la generositat dels museògrafs que han compartit els seus projectes, les seves histories i els seus pensaments amb mi: Joaquim, Magda, Agustí i Agustí, Martí, Joan, Antoni, Josep i Rafael. 3 $&.12:/('*(0(176 To Natàlia Cantó Milà, my thesis supervisor, who has gifted me so many of her cherished hours and who has pushed me to bring the best out of me. To the rest of the research group, especially Roger Martínez, Isaac Gonzàlez, Eunice Romero Rivera and also Swen Seebach, for their generosity in reading and discussing my work. To Alba Colombo Vilarassa, Ana Rodríguez Granel, Pau Alsina and Jesús Carrillo, for their emotional support and their comments. Equally important, to all the colleagues that have shared the process of writing a thesis with me, for their experiences, their jokes, their anxieties and their lunch breaks: Clara, Elisa, Manu, Marina, Adriana, Ivan, Lara, Vanina, Débora, and specially to Karla Berrens, without whom I would not have even decided to enroll in a doctoral programme To ferranElOtro, who makes everything possible, including my stay at the Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano de Medellin. To Christian Papilloud for hosting me in the Institut für Soziologie, and for his comments and advises. Also to Katja Müller for her feedback, and to Sylvia Terpe, her family and friends for making me feel at home in Halle. To Angela Jannelli for sharing her work with me despite my language limitations and to Alicia Vela for her advice. To my sister, who played museum making with me, and to my parents and grandparents who were forced to visit our museums and pay fees to get in. To my parents again, for taking us to enough museums so that, one day, we figured we could play museum making, for unconditionally supporting all my decisions, including my doctoral studies, and because they helped me, as much as they could, achieve my goals. To Sergi, to whom this thesis has been an imposed learning process, for helping me to take myself less seriously and to respect my leisure time. This work would have been impossible without the generosity of the museum practitioners that shared their projects, their stories and their thoughts with me: Joaquim, Magda, Agustí and Agustí, Martí, Joan, Antoni, Josep and Rafael. 4 $%675$&7 Amateur museums are museums that are made as leisure pursuits by their makers. Amateur museum practitioners usually pour considerable amounts of time, effort, and resources in their museums, which often include and emerge from a collection. They differ from community museums in that they are mostly individual or quasi-individual endeavors and have no apparent political purpose. These museums have usually been neglected from current museology research, and yet, because of their specificities, they give us the opportunity to question relevant issues about the museum as an institution, the aim of its practices, the way in which individuals can relate to them and the role that they might have in our societies. I approach amateur museums through the practices of their makers to find out from which position they pursue them. My work hypothesis is that they develop their museum productions from disadvantageous positions in relation to other museum practitioners. In these pages, I analyze their specific practices and the manner in which they relate to them. This allows me to show that the positions from which they act shape their practices and vice versa, that is, amateur museum practices serve them to improve their position by accruing symbolic capital. To do so, I use a qualitative methodology based on the Grounded Theory. Seven case studies from Catalonia and a contrast case from Medellin (Colombia) conform the corpus of this research. All cases have been approached through participant observation, in-depth interviews and documentation analysis. My theoretical framework and theory building rely mainly RQ%RXUGLHX¶VWKHRU\RI SUDFWLFHDVZHOODVRQGH&HUWHDX¶VFRQFHSWLRQRIFXOWXUDOconsumption, which allows me to highlight amateur museum practices as being socially situated. The work of these authors is combined with specific research on amateur museums and other museums made from similar positions of disadvantage, as well as with other relevant literature from the field of critical museology. I also approach amateur museum practices through the lens of leisure studies, thus highlighting the relevance of leisure for their understanding. Myth and ritual theory is the analytical lens that helps me focus and make sense of how amateur museum practitioners manage to increase their symbolic capital and gain an advantage in their struggle for position-taking through museum practices. 5 6 &217(176 INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................... 10 General Introduction .................................................................................................... 10 What Is an Amateur Museum? ................................................................................ 11 Research Questions ...................................................................................................... 16 Objectives and Contribution ........................................................................................ 17 Methodology ................................................................................................................ 19 Data Gathering ......................................................................................................... 20 Analysis.................................................................................................................... 24 Case Studies ................................................................................................................. 24 Selection ................................................................................................................... 25 A Note on Gender Unbalance .................................................................................. 27 Cases ........................................................................................................................ 28 Thesis Structure ........................................................................................................... 31 State of the Art ............................................................................................................. 32 Critical Museology ................................................................................................... 32 Amateur Museums ................................................................................................... 38 Sociology of Practice ............................................................................................... 43 Leisure, Myth and Ritual ......................................................................................... 59 PART I: AMATEUR MUSEUMS, THEIR MAKERS AND ME ......................... 61 Museu del Pa (the Bread Museum) .............................................................................. 63 La Casa de les Papallones (The House of Butterflies) ................................................. 77 Museu Matern (Maternal Museum) ............................................................................. 89 Museo del Juguete (Toy Museum) .............................................................................. 97 0XVHXGHO¶$QWRQL $QWRQL¶V0XVHXPthe ³Coca-&ROD0XVHXP´ ......................... 109 Museu El Cau del Tauró (Museum