Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego Prace Etnograficzne 2020, 49, z. 2, s. 173–187 doi:10.4467/22999558.PE.20.014.12639 www.ejournals.eu/Prace-Etnograficzne/ Nick Merriman Horniman Museum and Gardens, London e-mail: [email protected] 30 Years after the New Museology: What’s Changed? I am currently chief executive of the Horniman Museum and Gardens in London, but in order to explore what has changed since 1989 when “The New Museology” was published, I want to go back a bit further. And please forgive me if my reflec- tions are rooted primarily in the Anglo-phone world; this has been the context in which I have worked over my career. In September 1982, after an archaeology degree at Cambridge, I went to the University of Leicester to do a one-year postgraduate course in Museum Stud- ies, something they had been offering since the mid 1960s. It was a very practical course, aimed at giving people the skills and understanding to go and work in a museum. So we did sessions on labelling objects, writing press releases, docu- mentation, practical management and so on. There was really no “theory”, except a little about communication and education, which was from a psychological back- ground. There was some quasi-philosophical thinking such as Duncan Cameron’s proposition that a museum should be a forum, not a temple (Cameron 1971), and Hugues de Varine’s writings about ecomuseums and the role of museums in soci- ety (Varine 1978). But there was pretty well no consideration of politics, ideology, representation or any kind of critical approach to museums. In parallel, though, of course, a more critical turn was taking place in the wider social sciences through the influence in particular of French theorists such as Foucault, Derrida, Althusser, and Bourdieu, and through German academics of the Frankfurt School, such as Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, and Habermas, which began to provide a language to critically analyse history and institutions such as museums. From this background, a critical art history began to develop – sometimes also called “The New Art History” from the early 1980s, and at the same time archae- ologists and anthropologists developed material culture theory, which provided 174 Nick Merriman a way for museum people to develop a theoretical framework with which to criti- cally analyse objects and processes of ideology, representation, domination, and resistance. Much of this came out of Cambridge where I had done my degree, through the work of Hodder, Tilley, Miller, and others. After my practical muse- um studies course in Leicester, I returned to Cambridge to do a PhD, where, after an unsuccessful start looking at the Bronze Age archaeology of Austria, I decided to change topics to look at the issue of the public’s attitudes to the past, and why large sections of the population did not visit heritage sites. I discovered the work of Pierre Bourdieu and his work The Love of Art: European Art Museums and their Public (1990), which I later translated from French into English. At the same time, Susan Pearce had taken over the Leicester Museum Studies department, who was a strong follower of the writings of material culture theo- rists. It was her influence in Leicester that really started a critical approach to museum studies. The key moment here was a big international conference, in Leicester, in 1987, called “Museum Studies in Material Culture”, which was published in 1989 (Pearce 1989). The success of the conference and book sparked real interest and a movement of critical approaches to the analysis of museums. For me, this is the 30th anniversary that is more significant than the Peter Vergo book, published in the same year. Vergo and most of the contributors came from an art history background, and their contributions, while very good and critical, were really an extension of what was already going on in mainstream art history at that time. Vergo’s book, however, had a good title and made a bigger splash, being also pub- lished with a larger publisher compared to the Pearce book, and the term “The New Museology” took off in the same way that “The New Archaeology”’ had in the 1970s: like that, it was not a seismic shift but an evolution, but it did represent a significant change. Be that as it may, 1989 does usefully mark the beginning of a paradigm shift in museology, from a practical vocational discipline to a thoroughly academic, criti- cal discipline. Since then, the whole landscape for museums and museum studies has shifted hugely. I will not explain these changes in detail but I thought a sum- mary would be useful, and then I will move on to look at what has not changed, and what we need to do in the future. First, of course, museum studies has become a proper academic field, with its own set of research questions. When I was studying there was one museum studies course in the UK (Leicester) and one on gallery studies (Manchester). Now there are 78 embracing museum, gallery and heritage studies, producing hundreds of postgraduate students each year, and scores of PhDs. This has been accompanied by an explosion of publications with perspectives from art history, archaeology, history, sociology, anthropology, geography, natural sciences, archi- tecture, tourism, and so on. Through this was have had 30 years of people entering the museum profession who were versed in the critical language of museum stud- 30 Years after the New Museology: What’s Changed? 175 ies, and so we have had a generation of people who have begun to bring critical perspectives into what is otherwise a fairly conservative field. So, what has changed in museum studies is: • A general introduction of criticality and complexity into the analysis of museums. • A recognition of multiple narratives and a critique of singular views of his- tory; an understanding of the political nature of museums. • Museums as sites of contestation – artists often used as catalysts (e.g. Fred Wilson “Mining The Museum” in 1992). • Better understanding of critical histories of museums and the particular contexts in which they have been developed. • Hence, giving voices to those who were previously excluded or silenced: women, working classes, minorities. • A focus on audiences; an understanding of the cultural barriers to par- ticipation; improvements in education and communication; outreach, co- curation, introducing subjects of interest to wide audiences and not just elites. • Evaluation of the museum experience; an anthropology of museum par- ticipation. • Understanding of the role of museums in society, including place-making and identity formation, citizenship, learning and skills, health and well- being, and economic (including culture-led regeneration). Despite this 30 years of development, there are still a significant number of areas where much still remains to be done. One of these is to bridge the gulf between academic museum studies and mu- seum practice. I am one of the few museum directors who has also been an aca- demic museologist and I can see that whilst museology has undergone a revolu- tionary paradigm shift over the last 30 years, it has opened up a large gap between academia and the museum profession. Whilst students from museum studies courses take up museum jobs, they rarely have the time to keep up with current literature, or have the ability to make changes. So, one of the things we have to work on is to narrow this gap – there is a danger that museum studies becomes a self-referential academic discipline, with an audience of fellow museologists but no impact on museums themselves. An example of this is our understanding of quite why they are so much more popular than they were: from the critiques, you would think that museums are sites of oppression and social division. But as a museum director, I see that people choose to come to museums in huge numbers and they find enjoyment, inspira- tion, fun, laughter there, as well as learning and provocation. We have not really developed an adequate understanding of why museums are so popular, whether with international tourists at the BM or amongst local communities – they are about pride of place as well as being safe inclusive places. At the Horniman, we 176 Nick Merriman have a strong social and environmental agenda, as I will explain, but our majority audiences are families with small children who run around enjoying the stuffed animals, etc., and having a good time with their family. We do not really value this or see it as something worthy of academic enquiry. But at the same time this great popularity in museums has been still restrict- ed to certain sections of the population. In England, national museums are free, but the people who have mostly taken advantage of this are middle class people who already visit museums. The Horniman, although it has nearly a million visits a year, is actually less diverse than it was 30 years ago. So, one of the great remaining challenges is how to make museums actually properly inclusive; how to bring about mass participation from wider audiences. Others include: • Critical understandings of the role of stored collections as a mass archive, and the role of disposal and collecting. • The role of digital – are we in a post-material phase? • Confronting difficult histories such as colonialism, and the issue of repa- triation. • Finally – Integrating “the natural world” into our theory of museology, and thence looking at museums and the climate, pollution and biodiversity crises. To me, these last two are the greatest remaining challenges, and I want to dedi- cate the rest of my text to this subject, because it also highlights a whole series of other issues about the future of museums and of museology.