Kevin Coffee – författare

Museums and Social Responsibility examines inherent contradictions within and effecting museum practice in order to outline a museological theory of how museums are important cultural practices in themselves and how museums shape the socio-cultural dynamics of modern societies, especially our attitudes and understandings of about human agency and creative potential.

Museums are libraries of objects, presenting thematic justification that dominate concepts of normativity and speciality, as well as attitudes of cultural deprecation. By sorting culture into hierarchies of symbolic value, museums cloak themselves in supposed objectivity, delivered with the passion of connoisseurship and the surety of scholarly research. Ulterior motives pertaining to socio-economic class, racial and ethnic othering, and sexual subjugation, are shrouded by that false appearance of objectivity. This book highlights how the socially responsive practitioner can challenge and subvert taken-for-granted motivations by undertaking liberatory museum work that engages subaltern narratives, engages historically disadvantaged populations, and co-creates with them dialogical practices of collecting, preserving, exhibiting and interpreting. It points to examples in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, not as self-contained entities but as practices within a global web of relationships, and as microcosms that define normality and abnormality, that engage users in critical dialogue, and that influence, are conditioned by, and disrupt taken-for-granted understandings and practices of class, ethnicity, sex, gender, thinking and being.

Suitable for students, researchers, and museum professionals, Museums and Social Responsibility presents a comprehensive argument and proposes critical, reflective processes to the practitioner, so that their museum work may more effectively engage with and change their societies and the world.

Museums and Social Responsibility examines inherent contradictions within and effecting museum practice in order to outline a museological theory of how museums are important cultural practices in themselves and how museums shape the socio-cultural dynamics of modern societies, especially our attitudes and understandings of about human agency and creative potential.

Museums are libraries of objects, presenting thematic justification that dominate concepts of normativity and speciality, as well as attitudes of cultural deprecation. By sorting culture into hierarchies of symbolic value, museums cloak themselves in supposed objectivity, delivered with the passion of connoisseurship and the surety of scholarly research. Ulterior motives pertaining to socio-economic class, racial and ethnic othering, and sexual subjugation, are shrouded by that false appearance of objectivity. This book highlights how the socially responsive practitioner can challenge and subvert taken-for-granted motivations by undertaking liberatory museum work that engages subaltern narratives, engages historically disadvantaged populations, and co-creates with them dialogical practices of collecting, preserving, exhibiting and interpreting. It points to examples in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, not as self-contained entities but as practices within a global web of relationships, and as microcosms that define normality and abnormality, that engage users in critical dialogue, and that influence, are conditioned by, and disrupt taken-for-granted understandings and practices of class, ethnicity, sex, gender, thinking and being.

Suitable for students, researchers, and museum professionals, Museums and Social Responsibility presents a comprehensive argument and proposes critical, reflective processes to the practitioner, so that their museum work may more effectively engage with and change their societies and the world.

This provocative book challenges frequently voiced assertions regarding museums as necessary and valued modern institutions. It raises fundamental, existential questions about contemporary museums as products of the modern colonial world order.

Drawing on practical examples of collecting and exhibiting, theoretical research, and critique from diverse countries across the globe, including Chile, India, Korea, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Palestine, Portugal, Sri Lanka, and the United States, the book moves beyond the conventional Eurocentric museological framework. The book synthesises contemporary critiques of museums, while arguing that societies need the sociocultural examinations that museums are capable of facilitating, and that radical transformations of ‘the museum’ are fraught with difficulty, but also possible and necessary. Ultimately, Coffee argues that museums can only be future orientated if they are transformed into agents of social justice and inclusion; divestors of illicit collections; and proponents of a liberatory ethic, opposing neo-colonialism in all of its forms. During that transformative process, as the book demonstrates, museum practice and museum theory must also be transformed.

The End of the Museum: Culture, Colonialism, and Liberation will appeal to students, researchers, and practitioners interested in a critical examination of museum work and theory.

This provocative book challenges frequently voiced assertions regarding museums as necessary and valued modern institutions. It raises fundamental, existential questions about contemporary museums as products of the modern colonial world order.

Drawing on practical examples of collecting and exhibiting, theoretical research, and critique from diverse countries across the globe, including Chile, India, Korea, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Palestine, Portugal, Sri Lanka, and the United States, the book moves beyond the conventional Eurocentric museological framework. The book synthesises contemporary critiques of museums, while arguing that societies need the sociocultural examinations that museums are capable of facilitating, and that radical transformations of ‘the museum’ are fraught with difficulty, but also possible and necessary. Ultimately, Coffee argues that museums can only be future orientated if they are transformed into agents of social justice and inclusion; divestors of illicit collections; and proponents of a liberatory ethic, opposing neo-colonialism in all of its forms. During that transformative process, as the book demonstrates, museum practice and museum theory must also be transformed.

The End of the Museum: Culture, Colonialism, and Liberation will appeal to students, researchers, and practitioners interested in a critical examination of museum work and theory.