Outline

 

1.  Intro

2. The Canadian Pluralist Context

3.  Designing the Course, Museums Moving Towards Pluralism

 Outline

 Terminology

 Scope

 Goals

 Organization

 Course Details

      4. The Literature of Pluralist Museology  

      5. "The Tree is Only As Good as Its Roots": Cultural Pluralism Competencies for Museum Workers

      6. Lessons for Museology

    

---

 Introduction

 

      In September of 1999, the first class of the half term fall term course, “Museums and Society: Moving Towards Cultural Pluralism”, welcomed its first two students at the Museum Studies Program at the University of Toronto. In 2000 another two students registered.  As an elective on a very full plate of required and elective courses,[1] its small number of students has provided me a privileged lab-like atmosphere for the exploration of issues in teaching museology and pluralism. As the importance of diversity issues for current students begins to loom large for professional careers in Canada, the course has already begun to develop as a major choice for our master’s students, and offers some lessons, not only for those taking museum studies formal programs but also for established career professionals.  Some students see the choice as equal to or more important than such standard selections as conservation or collections management.  Beginning with another very small class, in 2000, it will be offered again in the fall of 2001, with an expected increase in enrollment. Program administrators are now considering offering the course online as an exceptional museological learning moment attuned to the needs of a leading multicultural city of the world.

 

     The second set of events in my life during the past seven months, has provided opportunities to work with the Multicultural History Society of Ontario (MHSO) in a local inner city school on a project entitled “S.O.S. Seeing Our Surroundings, Teens Views of Community,” and another pilot project partnering with the MHSO and the ROM and a Toronto suburban high school. In both cases I was able to test my ideas around cultural pluralism community work in the crucible of extremely culturally diverse high school classes, building on curriculum and pluralist interests of students. Needless to say, the pathway from theory to practice has been most enlightening, and will enrich the Museum Studies course this fall. The presentation at ICTOP offers me an important opportunity to reflect on what lessons have been learned? In so doing, we are following the practice of “reflexivity,” called for by writers like Donald Schon.[2]

 

The Pluralist Context:

 

    The Museum Studies Program at the University of Toronto began in 1969, and is the major museum studies masters program in Canada, in English.  Through its over thirty years the Program has offered elements of museum studies curriculum very much in the manner of museum studies offerings in other parts of the world; it is noteworthy in North America for offering a masters in Museum Studies (MMST), and for its attempt to engage students in both theory and practice at a deep academic level over a two year program, and including original research in museology.  In recent years, we have attempted to layer in newer subjects into course choices like cultural theory, new media and cultural pluralism.

 

      The addition of a course to focus on cultural diversity is very much conditioned by a number of factors pertinent to the context of Canada, and of Toronto, that may reflect developments in other parts of the world.  Canada developed the concept of official multiculturalism in the late 1960s in response to limits seen in its policy of two founding nations (English and French), and to the developing consciousness of other cultures’ and First Nations’ requests for recognition in cultural policy. With the first policy statements in 1971, and an official Multiculturalism Act in 1988, the government has come to mirror societal acceptance of cultural pluralism as a fact in the land. Canada has had a number of waves of immigration through its history, one of the most major being that of the last fifty years as a massive influx immigrants from Europe, were joined by non-traditional immigrants from the Caribbean, South Asian, and Central America. These forces of immigration have prompted authorities to rethink the role and status of "other ethnics" within the evolving dynamic of Canadian society.  Canadian society can then be said to be formed of three major groups or “forces”:

 

  The first force consists of aboriginal peoples and includes status Indians, non-status Indians, M�tis and Inuit.  The Constitution Act of 1982 defined all natives as aboriginal peoples. In 1991, 1,002,675 persons reported their origin as aboriginal or part aboriginal, representing about 3.7% of the total population.  The second force consists of the colonizing groups; who eventually defined themselves as the founding members of Canadian society.  Known as the Charter groups, both the French- and English-speaking communities constitute this force.  The third force in Canadian society comprises those racial and ethnic minorities who fall outside the Charter groups; that is, native and foreign-born Canadians with some non-French and non-British ancestry.[3]

The 1996 census reported that 44% of the Canadian population reported at least one ethnic origin other than British, French, or Canadian.  Canadians of German, Italian, Aboriginal, Chinese, South Asian, and Filipino origins were among the top fifteen largest ethnic groups.  Moreover, 3.2 million persons, representing 11.2% of the total population of Canada, identified themselves as members of a visible minority.  Chinese, South Asians and Blacks represented two-thirds of this visible minority population.  An active immigration policy has more recently brought in a growing number of individuals from non-traditional places including Asia, Africa, Central America, and the Caribbean, a trend indicating that multicultural diversity will continue to flourish in some form well into the twenty-first century.  Much of this diversity can be found in the metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Montreal, but by far the most in the province of Ontario, particularly in the metropolitan region of Toronto.  As the largest city in Canada, and recently named the “economic engine of Canada” by the City of Toronto cultural plan, Toronto records over 51% of population as visible minority.[4]         

   

      Government policy after the 1960s responded in developing the legitimacy of cultural and social distinctiveness of minorities, mainly concentrating on language or social objectives.  In recent years, however, discussion has expanded to consider  “arts, culture and heritage” within the discourse of cultural diversity in deepest socio-cultural terms, as the lens of pluralism has turned to cultural and heritage institutions. People of visible difference refer to their wish to get into “the big house,” rather than the backyard, representing the aim of participating in the larger cultural institutions of the city.[5]

 

     Whatever the statistics of diversity, few of today’s Toronto cultural institutions adequately reflect the fact of visible minorities as the majority of the population. Most seem unaware of how to take up the task, whatever their own political orientation.  There have, of course, been some glowing exceptions, one being the Ontario Science Centre’s “A Question of Truth” exhibit.[6] Some multicultural cultural groups have been involved in museum-like work since the late 1940s – notably the Ukrainian Women’s Museum in Saskatoon – but for the most part culturally diverse reflections of material and aesthetic heritage are only faint images on the mirrors of society reflected in our museological institutions.

 

         In November 1989, a temporary traveling exhibition, “Into the Heart of Africa” at the Royal Ontario Museum opened and became a watershed event for museology in the province. Intended to move on to four more destinations,[7] the exhibition closed at the end of May 1990, and the other venues cancelled. By February of 1990, the controversy and confrontation raised particularly in the African-Canadian community brought violent clashes, arrests, and bomb and personal death threats. This was a crucial moment and catalyst for Toronto’s cultural community to deal with the challenges for museums and their complete inadequacy to deal with questions of pluralism. In fact, the exhibition was one of several cultural controversies that were swept Toronto, including the Barnes Exhibit at the AGO, and two musicals, “Miss Saigon”, and “Show Boat”, all of which raised questions around the process of cultural production in the greater Metro area at a moment of racial tension, particularly among African-Canadians and the city’s power structures, most notably the police.

 

       It was telling that the two most notable museums, the ROM and the AGO, were embroiled in controversy as cultural expression and representation became key to minority protest. In the case of the ROM, the exhibit’s use of ironical messages in quotes, and other design elements to critique imperialist messages of the missionaries and the collections that came to the ROM – and not subject to community consultation - were misread, and certainly culturally predicated. What worked with a professional white audience as meaningful referencing system, symbolized, if not replicated, the original racism of missionaries much of which reverberated in perceptions of some of Toronto’s citizens. In the year that Nelson Mandela came out of jail from Robben Island, this exhibit approach was perhaps an unfortunate choice for the first ever show about Africa at the ROM, but at least it began with noble, if misdirected intent.

 

    In the case of the Barnes exhibition, based on Philadelphia’s Dr. Albert Barnes collection, it was as much what was not shown and the lack of community consultation that brought reaction. Despite the fact that the Barnes collection in Philadelphia is one of the most important grouping of African, Chinese, Japanese, South Asian, Native American and African-American masterpieces, anywhere,[8] non-European collections were left at home in order to take advantage of the potential blockbuster of Eurocentric art attractions, of Impressionist and Post-impressionist work. Difficult as such controversies were, they were also Godsends, and have forever changed the way that institutions and professionals view museums; roles in cultural production.  What they had not done however, particularly in the fear and backlash created, was equip museums or their workers with precepts or methodologies to work with ethno-racial or other cultural communities. The issues were various and profound: whether around collections and curatorial work, exhibit representation and messaging choices, or even the manner in which the public had rights were to be included in the management and decisions of the institutions, as well as what day to day infrastructures of board, management, staff and organizational style would reflect pluralism. A late and superficial consultation over the programming of an exhibition with significant import to communities would no longer suffice. The good news is that museums now matter to some new cultural groups and individuals, but the bad news is that cultural workers are unsure of what to do about it, and almost paralyzed by the fear of controversy. 

 

The Course Design:

 

    Thus we come to the design of the course, “ Museums and Society: Topics on Museums and Pluralism MSL2040F,” at the Museums Studies Program, University of Toronto. In a sense, the course is my personal response to the museum professional challenges raised in the decade of the 1990s in Toronto, given focus by the passions raised by “Into the Heart of Africa”, and forever changed museum praxis.  The introduction to the course syllabus states the premise of the course:

 

Outline.

 

 This course deals with issues of inclusion emerging in museum thought and practice.  While many of the discussions, and much of the literature, emanate from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other countries, the subject matter has specific Canadian dimensions.  Debate about museums and inclusion originates from museum critics, and activists, from the work of "culturally-specific" organizations, social issues-based projects, First Nations, and from the tentative attempts of mainstream museums to work towards more pluralist goals.  All discussion occurs within the intellectual context of evolving notions of the museum's role in society.  Traditional concepts of national, regional, communal, and individual identity are being replaced by "hybridity”.  This involves the intersection of ethnic, "racial”, religious, and linguistic identities, as well as ability, gender, sexuality, class, professional status, etc.

 

The resulting fluid and borderless "communities" provoke the reframing of ideas of pluralism and inclusion.  What are the implications for museum ideas and practice?  Working from the current literature, and examining the practice and projects of different types of museums in Canada, and elsewhere, this course will use a comparative approach.  We will borrow from fields, such as sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, ethnic and racial studies, education, management and critical museology, to consider how museums are -- and could be -- engaging and communicating with a wider spectrum of society.

 

The current course outline can be accessed at

http://www.utoronto.ca/mouseia/course1/course1.html

 

Terminology:

 

       One of the first challenges was to deal with terminology that marks working with diverse communities and museums.[9] Multiculturalism was once the term but has since received considerable criticism as representing an ideology of modernistic difference but masking a substance that is essentially about homogeneity. Some have tried to resurrect it as “Critical multiculturalism.” “Cultural diversity” involves cultural difference, ethno, racial, social or other differences, among individuals and groups in a social sub-set. Cultural pluralism is preferred by some who feel that diversity only reflects difference, while pluralism allows for the differences and the shared elements among individuals and groups, supportive of the civil society. Social inclusion is the term preferred in the UK where class, poverty, gender issues are viewed to be equal in importance to ethno-diversity. As yet, ethno-racial or cultural difference remain the focus of much of the North American discourse, often summed up as work with “communities,” a catch-all term that represents a variety of work with societal groups defining their identity in a myriad of ways including geography, political outlook, race and ethnicity, religion, gender, socio-economic status, ability and so on. We could further mix-up the terrain by asking whether we will use the conceptual frame of cultural studies, whether of post-modernism or post-colonialism to further trouble the issues of museums and pluralism.

 

         It has been my conclusion that the various approaches to peoples can be covered by the concept of pluralism as defined more broadly by whatever factor creates a depth of tradition and memory that creates a shared culture among individuals, even without common ethno-racial or ethno-cultural factors.  Deciding on whether one is to use the broader or narrower focus is the first task of defining the scope of a course on pluralism. Tony Bennett has argued that broadening the discourse does disservice to the issues of race and ethnicity. Still, I have decided to use the broader term, and let the topics and students create their own focus on the layers of identity and the challenge for museum work.  One of the first lessons learned is that whatever group or community is under discussion we are examining a diverse set of individuals with different and non- homogenous viewpoints, subject to conflict and debate as much as community.

 

     In museum pluralism work, terms that need to be clarified are “culture”, “community” and “identity”. All are used unsystematically and often in exchange for one another. “Culture” is most practically used as a “wide, blanketing concept including both values, knowledge and ways of life.”[10] “Community” is the term used to represent a group of people with shared experiences, traditions, values or beliefs, often framed within a specific ethnic unit or geographic space. “Identity” is used much like culture. Added to these notions are those of hybridization and crossover to detail the mixing of cultures within specific contexts. The most important thing is to understand that culture is “dynamic, flexible, fuzzy along the edges, indefinable at its core” and “extremely problematic to delimit relative to other cultures.”[11] And yet, our ability to know who is in one’s own or another culture can be quite specific.[12]  

 

 Scope:

 

        One of the other conceptual problems in the course is whether and how to include indigenous museum issues. As we know, indigenous issues in museums have a history and development that is linked to pluralism. But indigenous peoples do not wish to be linked with multiculturalism, and multiculturalism groups also want their own “air time”. However similar the issues and approaches the problems of museums and indigenous peoples, First Nations issues are treated in Museum Studies in other sections of the Program. Therefore they are discussed in passing for comparison rather than treating them as a unit of the course.

 

    While Toronto and Canada provide the context for the development of this course, the next step is to consider the wider international frame of parallel diverse museum philosophies and practice, and the global dynamics of museology and cultural diversity. This is the task for developments in 2001-2002.

 

The Course Goals are:

1.               To broaden and deepen our understanding of social inclusion and the

“museum” in pluralist society.

2.               To review issues and challenges for museums, given Canada’s pluralism, including examples from US, Europe, Australia and other countries and parts of the world. 

3.               To strengthen the capabilities of students to work towards the goals of

inclusion as museum professionals.

 

 

       We benefited with the development in 1998-2000 of an online bibliographic project that gathered together publications and sources on museums and diversity, created jointly with the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI), Art Gallery of Ontario, Canadian Museums Association Committee on Cultural Diversity, University of Toronto Scarborough Arts in a Plural Society program, and led by me with Kelly Wilhelm, then working with me as a researcher. The act of collecting, sorting, abstracting and synthesizing this material became the first act of the course design. The result is an online bibliography with abstracts, as well as physical holdings in Museum Studies at the University of Toronto.

Additional Readings for the Course are available in the Museum Studies Program Resources Centre and a Bibliography on the Web are available at

http://209.146.250.34/ccm/CF_test/ocasi/index.html.[13]

 

     Perhaps the most important resource for the course, however, has been people and the challenges for museum praxis found within our own Southern Ontario setting.  Fortunately, we had created a study circle, with an extended network, of individuals working with cultural diversity in Toronto and area.  One of the key ingredients in the class has been involving practitioners as well as our habit of getting out and about to various museums around Metro Toronto and beyond to explore the museum dimensions of pluralism in the region. 

 

    But what and how to teach?  Our review of the literature on museum and other fields provided clues here.[14]  Referring to work by Kelly Wilhelm, the museum literature tended:

 

�           To focus on case studies- one museum’s relationship with to one or more cultural community to produce educational programming or an exhibition, and sometimes address collections or research, although rather less.  Sometimes, to portray a controversy.  Mostly to celebrate one project.

 

�           To overlook the map of cultural pluralism in the community around museums.  The past or current demographic socio-economic ethno-racial trends are seldom analyzed and little related to broader efforts of socio-cultural policy, planning and legislation, or project work.  What do we know about the history of our diversity in our communities?  What do we know about our surrounding publics?

 

�           To show that museum writers often discuss community, or even a community, as monolithic, and fail to understand the layers created by individual experience, identity, points of origin, time of immigration, generation, socio-economic and political persuasion. 

 

�            To demonstrate that we discuss work with cultural communities as an add on to our ways of thinking about museums or institutional practices, rather than fundamental museological, institutional or sectoral systemic change.

 

�           To indicate that much of the theory of post-modern, post-colonial and ethno-racial critiques is not related to museums or fails to include museum sensitive or workable strategies

 

�           To show that museum writings fail to address systemic racism in cultural institutions or our profession.  This is left to others to outsiders.  Museum writers fail to engage the discourse of museum criticism from fields like cultural studies, or re-think museological principle and practices in terms of the challenges of pluralism.  Furthermore, they fail to get beyond case study and example to discuss the level and kind of change required by museums and those who work with them, and fail to engage other fields like community development, and organizational change, for examples. [15]

 

     We can also surmise that the fear of controversy has played a negative role in museum engagement with cultural communities.  This is exemplified in the many pieces written around museum controversy.

    

    But how could all of these elements be packaged into a course.  A systematic approach that included description, state of the art, criticism, theory and practice, and strategic action was required, rather than sticking just with the problem of museums and diversity.  The course would have to reflect on both the state of museums with regard to pluralism and reference to other fields where there has been more work.  The trick then was to focus on museums, from the personal, institutional and sectoral levels, but also to blend in critiques of racio-ethnic and postmodernist writers and evidence, museum writers, diversity and audience facts, museum case studies and examples, whether determined through museological ideas, functions or institutional management, and finally, change strategies of sector, institutional and personal professional management.  A course might have just stuck with the problem and the critiques, but I wanted to provide a balanced approach that included museum responses, both written and in practice through case studies.  Most of all, I wanted to offer students some sense of personal strategies or tools for working with pluralism, intellectually and personally, since so many students and workers see the challenge of working with cultural pluralism as one big problem almost beyond one person’s abilities.  The enormity of the task seems even greater if they see themselves as part of the dominant cultural group, either unable or without the franchise to work with pluralism. 

  

Organization

 

   The logic of the course becomes clearer in its organization as the course outline indicates:

 

Part One. Towards Pluralism and the Museum. The course begins with an examination of the underlying issues of diversity for museums as expressed in the facts of the social and cultural makeup of Canada, with reference to other parts of the world.

 

Part Two. Museums as “Inclusive” Institutions: Perspectives and Practice. This section of the course considers a range of critical perspectives, and examples, of how museums, galleries and other museum-related environments operate in relation to issues of pluralism, ethno-racial, class, gender, and First Nations questions.

 

Part Three. Strategies Towards Pluralism for Museums. In this part of the course, we will explore and evaluate strategies for social inclusion at a deeper level in museums, including collections work with representative groups, exhibitions, educational work and visitor activities. In addition, we will examine the inherent challenges involved in museum management, governance, partnerships, intercultural communication, managing and resolving conflict, and government and museum associations’ policy.

 

 

Session Details:  (to skip course session details and go to next part of discussion)

 

Sept. 11.1. Introduction to Museums, Pluralism and Social Inclusion

The framework and organization of the course will be sketched as we begin to explore the context of pluralism and the implication for museums.

Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. Introduction. “Towards Plural Perspectives,” Cultural Diversity. Developing Museum Audiences in Britain. (ed.) Eilean Hooper-Greenhill. London: Leicester University Press, 1997, pp. 1-14.

Durrans, Brian. “Behind the Scenes. Museums and Selective Criticism.” Anthropology Today, Vol. 8, No. 4, August 1992, pp. 11-15. http://rai.anthropology.org.uk/pubs/at/museums/durrans-scenes.html

Additional Readings:

File on Into “ the Heart of Africa”

 

Sept. 18.2. Museums and Pluralism: The Canadian Context

In this session, we will look at the diversity of Canadian population and its implication for museums. What are the global dynamics of muticulturalism that may affect other countries and their museums.

Location: Multicultural History society of Ontario.

 

Required Readings:

Isajiw, Wsevolod. Understanding Diversity. Ethnicity and Race in the Canadian Context. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing, 1999, Chpt. 2

Li, Peter and B. Singh Bolaria. Essentials of Contemporary Sociology. Addison Wesley.

Chpt. 1, 2, 3

Additional Readings:

The Magic Assembling: Metropolitan Toronto Storefronts and Street Scenes Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario by R. Harney and H. Troper.

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/magic/mt86.html

Troper, Harold, ed. Ethnicity and Public Policy in Canada: Case Studies in Canadian Diversity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.

_____________.

Bibliography for University of Calgary Course: “The Peopling of Canada: 1891-1921.”

http://www.ucalgary.ca/HIST/tutor/canada1891/biblio.html

 

 

Sept. 25.3. Views of Museums and Pluralism: The Lessons from the Public 

In this session, we will frame the questions of museums and pluralism from the perspective of current evidence for who visits museums, who does not and why. But is the audience question the place to begin discussions of the museum’s responsibilities for pluralism?

Required Readings:

Cheney, Terry. “Cultural Diversity and Museum Attendance.” Draft Report for Heritage Policy Research Department of Canadian Heritage, 1994.

DiMaggio and Francie Ostrower. Race, Ethnicity and Participation in the Arts. Washington, D.C.: NEA. 

Stephen Weil. “Beyond Management: Making Museums Matter.” Paper given at the CMA/INTERCOM conference: Achieving Excellence: Museum Leadership in the 21^st Century, Ottawa. September, 2000. http://www.museums.ca/conferences/stephenweil.htm

Additional Readings:

Culture, Difference and the Arts (ed. Sneja Gunew and Fazal Rizvi) St. Leonard’s, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1994.

DiMaggio and Francie Ostrower. Race, Ethnicity and Participation in the Arts. Washington, D.C.: NEA.

Falk, J. H. Leisure Decisions Influencing African American Use of Museums. Washington: American Association of Museums, 1993.

HMSO. A Survey of the Use Schools Make of Museums for Learning About Ethnic and Cultural Diversity. Report by HM Inspectors. Department of Education and Science, 1988.

 

Oct. 24.Views of Museums from Pluralist Perspectives

We will address critics’ messages for museums as seen beginning with the lens of contested museum work in Toronto, looking to the balance of culture, class, gender, ability and other elements in the measures of museum pluralism. We will then look abroad for further examples and analysis.  

Required Readings:

File on Into the Heart of Africa.

Tator, Carol et al. Challenging Racism in the Arts: Case Studies of Controversy and Conflict. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998, “Introduction and Theoretical Perspectives, pp. 3-35,” “Revisiting Central Themes and Tensions”, pp. 214-246, and Into the Heart of Africa and The Barnes Collection,” pp. 36-63. 

One Chapter from II, III, or IV in Jordan, Glenn and Chris Weedon. Cultural Politics. Class, Gender, Race and the Postmodern World. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. 

Additional Readings:

Hall, Stuart. “The Politics and Poetics of Exhibiting Other Cultures” in Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices. London: Open University and Sage, 1997: 151-222.

Huyssen, Andreas. Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York: Routledge, 1995. 

Irwin-Zarecka, Iwona. Frames of Remembrance: The Dynamics of Collective Memory. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994.

Linenthal, Edward T. Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum. New York: Viking, 1995.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Knopf, 1987.

See Bibliography from Prof. Roger Simon, OISE.

 

Oct. 16  5. Views of Museums from Pluralist Museological Perspectives 

Using the work this time of critical museologists, this session will continue with explorations of views of museums and inclusion to map museological discourse.

Required Readings:

Coxall, Helen. “Speaking Other Voices,” Cultural Diversity. Developing Museum Audiences in Britain. (ed.) Eilean Hooper-Greenhill. London: Leicester University Press, 1997, pp. 99-117.

Pearce, Susan. “Making Other People,” Cultural Diversity. Developing Museum Audiences in Britain. (ed.) Eilean Hooper-Greenhill. London: Leicester University Press, 1997, pp. 15-31.

Additional: 

Museum Writers Respond:

Barnhart, T. “Museums as Agents for Inclusion.” In the Sourcebook. Washington, D.C.: AAM, 1992.

Black, Nikki. “Cultural Diversity and Equity in Museums.” Keynote Address, Second Museum Education Colloquium. Toronto: Ontario Museum Association, 1993: 1-21.

Cameron, Duncan. "Getting Out Of Our Skin: Museums and A New Identity." Muse (Summer, 1992): 11-16.

Cameron, Duncan. "Values in Conflict and Social Re-definition." Muse (Autumn, 1990): 14-16.

Galla, Amareswar. "Issues For Museums in Post-Colonial Societies." Keynote Address for Commonwealth Association of Museums, Ottawa, 1992.

Galla, Amareswar. "Urban Museology: An Ideology for Reconciliation." Museum International 47(3) (1995): 40-45.

Karp, Ivan and Stephen Lavine, eds. Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. 

Lang, Georgia. “Bridging a Cultural Gap: A Museum Creates Access.” Curator 40 (1) (March, 1997): 16-29.

McLaughlin, Hooley. The Ends of Our Exploring: Ethical and Scientific Journeys to Remote Places. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1999.

MacDonald, George F. and Stephen Alsford. “Canadian Museums and Representation of Culture in a Multicultural Nation,” Cultural Dynamics: Museums and Changing Perspectives of Culture. 7 (1) (March, 1995): 15

CMA Tape: “So You’re Serving Diverse Communities, Eh?” CMA Conference, Toronto, 1999. 

File on Into the Heart of Africa.

 

Oct. 23  6. Museums and Pluralism: Museums of Difference

In this session, we will evaluate the work towards pluralism of museums of special identity groups –sometimes referred to as “culturally specific museums” -- and reflect on their mission, philosophy and operation and ability to deal with pluralism.

Location: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 43 Queen’s Park Crescent.

Required Readings:

Brown, Claudine. “Community Focused Museums: Reflecting the Reality of a Plurality,” Bulletin of Centre for Museum Studies, 1 (2) (October, 1993) http://www.si.edu/cms/bull/oct93/brown.htm

Kunin, Richard. “Debating Racially and Culturally-Specific Museums” in Reflections of a Culture Broker. A View From the Smithsonian. Washington,D.C.: Smithsonian Press, 1997, pp.94-108. 

Multicultural History Society of Ontario Exhibits from Global Gathering Place

- Many Rivers To Cross (http://citd.scar.utoronto.ca/Multihistory/Blacks/Many_Rivers/index.htm),

- "But Women Did Come"...150 years of Chinese Women in North America

http://citd.scar.utoronto.ca/Multi_history/Description.html

-Voices From Memory.

http://citd.scar.utoronto.ca/Multi_history/

Additional Readings:

Kinard, J. and E. Nighbert. "The Anacostia Neighbourhood Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C." Museum 2(2) (1972), pp: 103-9

Lavine, Steven. Part 2: Audience, Ownership, and Authority: Designing Relations between Museums and Communities” in Karp, Ivan, Christine Mullen Kreamer and Stephen Lavine, eds. Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992, pp. 137-366.

Tsang, Henry. “Inside, Outside, Upside Down. In Search of Cultural Space with the Chinese Cultural Centre in Vancouver,” in Questions of Community: Artists, Audiences, Coalitions. Banff: Walter Phillips Gallery, 1995, pp. 221-

Catalogue. Voices From Memory. Toronto: MHSO, 1996. 

 

Oct.30 7. Mainstream Museums Work Towards Pluralism: The Urban Experience 

We will identify and evaluate some examples of mainstream “traditional” museums that have engaged groups in order to be more inclusive. Are the challenges different than for smaller museums in urban or rural settings or those of different constitution? What works and what doesn’t?

Location: Royal Ontario Museum.

Required Readings:

Gable, Eric. “Maintaining Boundaries, or ‘Mainstreaming’ Black History in a White Museum” in Theorizing Museums. eds. Sharon Macdonald and Gordon Fyfe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, pp.177-201.

Gallinger, Diane. “A Passage From India: Building Bridges to Immigrant Audiences, Muse, XIV (3) (1996), pp. 23-37.

Merriman, Nick. “The Peopling of London Project,” Cultural Diversity. Developing Museum Audiences in Britain. (ed.) Eilean Hooper-Greenhill. London: Leicester University Press, 1997, pp. 119-148.

Additional:

Akbar, Shireen, “Multicultural Education: The Mughal Tent Project at the Victoria and Albert Museum,” in Museums and the Education of Adults, Alan Chadwick and Annette Stannett, ed., Niace, 1995, p.86.

Gable, Eric. “Maintaining Boundaries, or ‘Mainstreaming’ Black History in a White Museum” in Theorizing Museums. eds. Sharon Macdonald and Gordon Fyfe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, pp.177-201.

Jones, Jane Pierson. “The Colonial Legacy and the Community: The Gallery 33,” in Karp, Ivan, Christine Mullen Kreamer and Stephen Lavine, eds. Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992: 221-241.

Lavine, Steven. Part 2. “ Audience, Ownership, and Authority: Designing Relations between Museums and Communities” in Karp, Ivan, Christine Mullen Kreamer and Stephen Lavine, eds. Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992: 137-326.

Gail Lord. Paper in files.

Pointe, Susan. From the Outside In: Empowering Practice in the Museum.

MA in Museum Studies, University of Toronto, 1995, pp. 52-58, 83-90.

The Philadelphia Initiative for Cultural Pluralism: Museums in the Life of a City. Strategies for Community Partnerships. Washington, D.C.: AAM, 1995 and Museums in the Social and Economic Life of a City. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Museums, 1996. 

 

Nov. 6  8. Mainstream Museums Work Towards Pluralism: The Case of Community Arts and Community Museums

Some of the most successful museum practice around issues of pluralism has occurred at the local arts and museum level. Using case studies, we will assess the dynamic of the local museum in dealing with inclusion, and compare their solutions to those of larger or middle size institutions.

Location: Peel County Museum.

Required Readings:

Fuller, Nancy, “The Museum as a Vehicle for Community Empowerment: The AkChin Indian Community Ecomuseum Project” in Museums and Communities, p. 326.

Ontario Arts Council. Community Arts Workbook...Another Vital Link. Toronto: Ontario Arts Council, 1998.

Tchen, John Kuo Wei. “Creating a Dialogic Museum: The Chinatown History Museum Experiment.” Museums and Communities, p. 285-320.

Additional:

Greater Vancouver Regional District. Arts and Culture in Greater Vancouver: Contributing to the Livable Region. Interim Report. Burnaby, B.C.: 1997.

Guelph. Exhibition: Black History in Guelph and Wellington County.

http://www.museum.guelph.on.ca/bl2.htm

Snyder-Grenier and Barbara Caldwell. “Voices of History.” Museum News (May/June, 1992), pp. 56-59.

 

Nov.13  9.Exploring Collections, Research and Pluralism

In this part we look more deeply into alternative functional and managerial practice for working in pluralism in manners that involve deeper commitment, change and results. In this session, the opportunities for pluralism in the areas of collections and research and their management will be assessed.

Required Readings:

Goa, David. "At Play in the Fields of Meaning: Reflections on Field Research",
in Godly Things, edited by Crispin Paine, Leicester University series on Museum Studies, Cassell, 1999.
Jenness, Aylette, “Collections,” in Opening the Museum, pp.44-46.

 

Additional:

Cruikshank, Julie.” Oral Tradition and Material Culture. Multiplying meanings of `words' and `things’.” Anthropology Today
http://lucy.ukc.acuk/rai/AT-Museum-articles/AT_articles/oraltrad.html

Davies, Adriana. “Researching Communities.” Alberta Museums Review 19(2) (Fall/Winter 1993), pp. 11-15.

Goa, David and David Ridley (eds.) Aspenland 1998. Local Knowledge and a Sense of Place, 1998.

_________, ed. The Ukrainian Religious Experience: Tradition and the Canadian Cultural Context. Edmonton: The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1989.

Christine Mullen Kreamer, “Part 3. Defining Communities Through Exhibiting and Collecting” in Karp, Ivan, Christine Mullen Kreamer and Stephen Lavine, eds. Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992: 367-611.

Lighting, Inez et al. “Lost Harvests Regained: The Agricultural History of Hobbema: A Project Mode.” Paper presented to the CMA Research Project for Museums and Cultural Diversity.

Keller, Henriette. “The Search for Knowledge: Research as Invitation and Response.” Draft Article. (August 1997).

Morton Weizman, Sandra. “Multiculturalism in museums. “A Coat of Many Colours”: A Case Study.” Muse (Spring 1992), pp. 60-62.

Ridley, David, “The Museum and the Earthy Virtue of Place.” Alberta Museums Review Vol. 23 (No.4) (Winter 1997), pp. 26-28. 

Prystupa, Steve. “Collections and Multiculturalism.” Alberta Museums Review 15 (1) (Spring/Summer 1990), p.5-6.

____________. “Reinterpreting Ethnic History Through the Material History Collections” in Studies in History and Museums ed. Peter Rider. History Division, Mercury Series Paper 47.Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1994.

Welsh, Elizabeth et al. “Multicultural Participation in Conservation Decision-Making." WAAC 14 (1) (Jan. 1992), pop. 13-22.

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/waac/wn/wn14/wn14-1/wn14-105.html

 

Nov. 20   10. Exploring Museum Programming and Pluralism 

We will explore the principles and methods of museum programming and work with pluralism, and assess methodologies for bring systemic and sustainable change. How do the newer notions of meaning making and memory assist pluralist work? Is it possible to get beyond one off special events to create a long-term relationship with communities around programming?

Required Readings:

Worts, Douglas. “Assessing the Risks and Potential of The Oh! Canada

Project,” Muse XV (2) (1997), pp. 19-23.

Francis, Peter. “The People’s Show. A Critical Analysis, “Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies (May 1966)

Golding, Vivien. “Meaning and truth in multicultural museum education,” 

Cultural Diversity. Developing Museum Audiences in Britain. (ed.) Eilean Hooper-Greenhill. London: Leicester University Press, 1997, pp. 203-225.

Additional Readings:

Bunch, Lonnie. “Notes from a Speech presented at the George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art.” Toronto, May 1997.

Jenness, Aylette, “Cultural Exhibitions,” ”Public Programming,” “Curriculum Development,” in Opening the Museum, pp. 44-65.

Christine Mullen Kreamer, “Part 3. Defining Communities Through Exhibiting and Collecting” in Karp, Ivan, Christine Mullen Kreamer and Stephen Lavine, eds. Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992: 367-411.

Roback, Frances. “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, Hold On: Curatorial Strategies for Multicultural Exhibitions.” Proceedings of the 1991 ALFHAM Conference, (1991) p. 29-34.

Nov.27  11. Managing Towards Pluralism and the Museum. Part I. Organizational Change.

We will turn to examples from both museums and other fields to explore the questions of organizational transformation. Using such tools as the institutional assessment work, provided by institutions like the Boston Children's Museum and the YWCA, we will focus on local examples. (This will probably include the City of Toronto Museums Division for 2001). 

Required Readings:

Moreno, Maria-Jose, “The Organizational Behavior of Small/Marginal Institutions: The Case of Hispanic Museums,” Bulletin of the Centre for Museum Studies, 6,1 (May 1998)

http://www.si.edu/cms/bull/may98/moreno.htm

Lavine, Steven.“ Audience, Ownership, and Authority: Designing Relations between Museums and Communities” in Karp, Ivan, Christine Mullen Kreamer and Stephen Lavine, eds. Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992: 137-326.

Additional:

Action Access Diversity! A Guide to Multicultural/anti-racist Organizational Change for Social Service Agencies. Toronto: United Way of Greater Toronto, 1991, p. 79-88, pp. 100-105.

Community Building: What Makes It Work. A Review of Factors Influencing Successful Community Building. Saint Paul, Minnesota: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, 1997 

Garfias, Robert. “Cultural Equity” in Public Money and the Muse. Ed. Stephen Benedict. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1991.

Goa, David.” At Play in the Fields of Meaning: Reflections on Field Research"
in Godly Things, ed. Crispin Paine, Leicester University series on Museum Studies, Cassell, 1999, pp. 29- 32, “The Civil Vocation of the Museum in the Age of Pluralism.”
Martinson, Greg, “Access. Can It Lead to Community Control?” Museums National (August, 1993), pp. 8-11.

Halverston, C. “Managing Intercultural Differences in Work Group.”OD Network 1986 Conference Proceedings. New York: OD Network, 1986.Hal

Lavine, Stephen D. “Museums and Multiculturalism: Who Is In Control?” Museum News, (March/April, 1989), p.37.

Pointe, Susan. From the Outside In: Empowering Practice in the Museum. MA in Museum Studies, 1995.

Wilhelm, Kelly. From the Macro to the Museum: Institutional Change and Assessment for Cultural Pluralism. Masters of Museum Studies, Univ. of Toronto, 1998, p. 24-51.

 

Dec. 4 12.Managing Towards Pluralism and the Museum, Part II. Sector-Wide & Wrap-Up. 

This session will address sector-wide strategies of governments, non-governmental agencies, museum professional and other organizations. We will focus on questions of what are the competencies required for individuals, institutions and sectors to cope with pluralism as our means of summing up the course.

  

Required Readings:

Bennett, Tony. “Culture and Policy: Acting on the Social,” from the CCRN Colloquium, June 1998, 13pgs.http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/ccm/ccrn/documents/colloq98_Bennett.html

Texas Association of Museums. Multicultural Action Plan. 1995.

http://www.io.com/~tam/multicultural/introduction,

___________. Multicultural Action Plan On-line. http://www.io.com/~tam/multicultural/actionplan.html

Museums and Cultural Diversity: Draft ICOM Policy Statement

Report of the Working Group on Cross Cultural Issues of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). 

http://www.icom.org/diversity.html 

Additional:

Daswani, Prakash. “Management of Cultural Pluralism in Europe.” Gimo. Sweden: Swedish National Commission for UNESCO, 1995.

Association of Art Museum Directors. Different Voices: A Social Cultural and Historical Framework for Change in the American Art Museum. New York: AAMD, 1992.

CMA Competencies (Provided)

Galla, A.Heritage Curricula and Diversity. Canberra: Office of Multicultural Affairs, Prime Minister and Cabinet, 1993.

Galla, Amaswar. And D. McIntyre. ed. Issues for Multicultural Heritage Management. Canberra: Office of Multicultural Affairs, Council of Australian Museum Associations, Museums Association of Australia Inc. and the National Centre for Cultural Heritage Science Studies, 1990.

ICOM. “Museums and Cultural Diversity: Draft ICOM Policy Statement.” http://www.chin.gc.ca/Applications_URL/icom/diversity.html

ICOM/ICTOP. Curricula Guidelines for Professional Development in Museum. 1998

http://www.city.ac.uk/ictop/curricula.html

Outline of the Arts in a Pluralist Society (APD) Field of Study. Prepared for Arts in a Pluralist Society by Greg Baeker and Leslie Oliver. October, 1998.

http://citd.scar.utoronto.ca/APS/FieldofStudy.html

Price, Clement Alexander. Many Voices and Many Opportunities. Cultural Pluralism and American Arts Policy. New York: American Council for the Arts, 1994.

 

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4. The Literature of Pluralist Museology

     My first reading of the literature around museums and pluralism suggested some fundamental barriers in our work with cultural community in museums that have only been supported by subsequent study. Again Kelly Wilhelm’s work provides a basis for the conceptualization of problems:

 

 1. Limited notions of our public service ideas of cultural institutions in pluralistic societies [16]   

 2. Corporatization of museums that puts economy over visitors or cultural and person-centered museum experience

 3. Collections concepts/ object fixations and the failure to understand the complexity of human/cultural evidence.

 4. Uni-dimensional Idea of public instead of publics

 5. Lack of knowledge of cultural communities, or their ways

 6. Short term over long term Initiatives with community

 7. Choice of programmatic over systematic change

 8. Cultural groups perceptions of museums/ objects

 9. Lack of professional competencies to work with diversity

10. Fear of working with diversity and the possible controversies

11. Limits of our museological theory to either reflect or build on cultural studies work of post-modernism, post-colonialism and so on. We stop at questions of representation and failed to take the attention given to issues of museums and First Nations, and extend it.

 

 

Next I would like to address numbers 10 and 11 identified in barriers above, in some detail.

 

5. The Tree is Only as Good as Its Roots:  Working from a Competency Map

 

    Thanks to the CMA, ICOM, and a recent CMA Fellowship in Cultural Diversity work undertaken by Kelly Wilhelm, and ongoing discussion with a circle of colleagues interested in questions of museums and diversity in Canada, a beginning draft of the knowledge and skill bases necessary for taking action on pluralism. This has given a starting point for discussing individual competencies, and hence course design. I offer it here for reflection and discussion, and to provide a basis for creating an epistemological organization for a course that might provide the museum career professional some preparation for pluralizing museums.

 

        ICOM and the CMA have built models for museum competencies, (Figure 1), highlighting general or personal competencies for all work, and the museological competencies with sub-specializations in collections, information and care, management and public programming.  But the model invites some further layering especially as relates to shifts in museum work and emphasis.  Working in cultural pluralism, has raised some questions about what the roots of the competency tree may offer.

    

    Trees are common metaphors in many cultures, representing “trees of life”, “trees of faith”, “trees as sustenance”, and “trees as a canopy of civil society”.  In all, the roots are key to the life, the quality, and longevity of the species.  So too in our case, the roots of the competency tree for museum work invite another discourse about the personal and professional abilities needed to pursue pluralism in museums.  These factors of knowledge, skills, and personal abilities and sensibilities are so important that they transform the entity that is the tree, or in this case, the nature of museums and their vocation.  Working with pluralism, requires the ability to change, personally, institutionally, and professionally, and at the broader sectoral level, or nations, sub-nations and global societal groups.  Here we are raising a new idea for museums, that of “cultural competency”, a term developed by some nonprofit organizations to refer to ‘a set of congruent behaviours, attitudes and policies that enables human service organizations to work effectively with various racial, ethnic, religious and linguistic groups.”[17] I call it “pluralizing”.

 

Personal Comp. For Museum Pluralism Work

Professional Comp. For Museum Pluralism Work

 

Figure 1

 

 

 

 

    For a moment, let us look at the list that Ms. Wilhelm developed with a few additions by me. First the professional, then the personal (figure 2). What I have learned through the use of such competency guides in other instances is that they are invaluable tools for students to use as a learning assessment tool and guide during the course. A scaffold on which to hang the complex ideas of cultural pluralizing, and one that, by centering on the personal, invites the most personal change and learning. This is a tool that career professionals can use to change museum pluralism praxis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2

 

 

 

 

   The personal competencies list have been developed through observation of personal development as well as influence of the ideas of David Goa for whom friendship and deep conversation frame the engagement with our respondents in plural museum work.

 

�   Self-reflection

�   Sense of one’s own cultural identity

�   Valuing Diversity

�   Recognition of gifts of working with communities

�   Willingness to share authority

�   Understanding of human relationships resulting from work with communities

�   Willingness to nurture relationships

�   Ability to engage in crisis point and/ or conflicts, both individually and with others

�   Humility, tolerance, flexibility

 

The more professional competencies reflect the knowledge elements underlying the Pluralism course:

 

�   Understanding of the public service role of cultural institutions in a pluralistic society

�   Knowledge of social, sector and institutional, and community forces affecting cultural work with diversity, internationally, nationally, locally.

�   Knowledge of and ability to work with existing collections to broaden the stories that the institution tells, and to tell new stories

�   Ability to connect with and nurture relationships with community members

�  Awareness of the museum/gallery’s institutional culture, and an ability to carry out work with communities within this context

           Knowledge of alternative ways of working in cultural groups

 

6. Lessons for Museology

 

      I think that there are actually some deeper implications for museology epistemology than that reflected in these competencies.  I have previously suggested that museology was defined by three problematiques:

1. What is a Museum?

 

2. Museums for Whom?

 

3. Whose Museum is it?  Museums for Whom?

 

 

  The last ten years of museum thought and practice suggest to me a flaw in the logic implied by this order of questions. Recent ideas of post-modern or post-colonial cultural studies as well as notions of cultural pluralism and diversity turn the museological analysis on its head. If we begin with question number three, “Whose museum is it?” the fundamentals of museums are transformed. Engaging in cultural pluralism reverses the order of these questions, and thus the nature of the discourse.  We do not begin with the museum, but rather with people.  The resulting epistemological questions may well be different. 

 

Pluralism Factor

Museology:

 

1. Roots of Field of Study
2. Museum Process and Ideology:

       philosophy, purpose of museums and process of museumization

3. Museum Context:
4. Operations:

 

              Internal                                               External

 

     5. Management

 

Figure 3

 

       Van Mensch has already identified the different approaches to museology as an academic discipline:

1)    empirical-theoretical

2)    praxeological – or functional rationality

3)    critical social or programme orientation

 

While van Mensch argued that there were further sub-sets to the last critical social programme orientation, Marxist Leninist, and new museology, and even critical museology, a North American perspective perhaps layers in extensions to museology of the new, nouvelle, critical or even community kind, while cultural studies, post-modernism and post-colonialism further troubles our maps of museology. The notions of Pierre Mayrand, the Canadian “economuseologist” of “museology communautaire” at the Quebec 1983 MINOM meeting, take on a new meaning in the critical perspectives of museology provided by diversity and pluralism questions.

 

 

        We are also led into multidisciplinary tropes that overlap with critical pedagogy, pluralism and racial and ethnic studies, cultural studies, cultural development, sustainability and animation work, and change management for people, organizations and societies. 

 

 

Mapping the Fields of Thought and Practice – Museums Studies and Pluralism   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cultural Studies

 

 

Museology

Traditional

 

Cultural Policy/Management

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Figure 4

 

        First the traditional premises of what is a museum are exploded. There is no such thing as “a” museum. There is diversity of type, form, name and kind.

“Museums”, or rather “museums”, exist within a range of sizes and ownership situations.

 

      Museums exist within plural societies, communities and audiences, whether they know it or not.

 

     The nature of object and collection, too, is altered to be more inclusive of a range of social behaviours around meanings and things.

 

      The nature of the museum’s constituents shifts from the visitor to all citizens. It rejects the notion of consumer users. All may be involved in museum ideas, whether they attend specific museums or not.

 

       At the heart of the exercise of naming the organizational form, is the recognition that the museum idea can rest in a private act of “museuming”, or in that of a nation state.  From the act of setting up a display of a favourite item in one’s own space, to the forming of government museums, there is a range of museum forms that echoes the essence of museum and that compose museology.

 

    Such a diversified notion of museum can still share some formal elements or essence that bring up a shared “museumness” that gives coherence to the field of museum studies, or museology, but in altered form.  The transformed model of museum studies also requires a different sense of our own history and development, located in the alternate museum histories beyond that of elite institutions: one that includes those progressive museum theorists along with conservative, elitist, or colonializing forces.

 

    Several forces in the last twenty years have stretched museology and its meaning, those of new knowledge media that have brought the information elements of museums to the fore,[18] those of new learning theory that have brought the visitors, and even non-visitor, experience forward,[19] and finally those of pluralism that have brought the population to the fore to be treated on its own terms. Whether through the ideas of ecomuseology, indigenous peoples and their rights,[20] or notions of museums working for communities, museology is transformed. I call this transformation, the outcome of critical museology, my term “participatory museology,” where every citizen may participate in museological activity whether related to a formal organization or within his or her own circle and on his or her own terms.

    In conclusion, the course at University of Toronto in the Museum Studies Program, “Museums: Moving Towards Cultural Pluralism,” along with my own work with community groups, and has transformed my understanding of 21st century concepts of museum professional competence, and extended museology as a field of thought and practice. My hope is that others may be as fortunate in having an opportunity to renew their thinking with the gift of pluralizing the museum.

 

 

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