ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how museum visitors’ own conceptualization of the museum visit primarily as a matter of consumption has consequences for the politics of its reception. The life-cycle itinerary refers to comments made by visitors about visiting the Science Museum as something which should be done at a particular stage in the life-cycle. The nostalgic dimension of the life-cycle itinerary illustrates too the significance of a long-term temporal dimension to museum visiting, something which is only rarely investigated in museum visitor research or audience research of other types. The cultural itineraries which the present research suggests are: those of life-cycle; family event; place; and education. ‘Good foods, bad foods’ maps onto experience of health education exhibitions, and the paraphernalia of health regimes such as scales and exercise bikes. In the context of the exhibition, then, visitors seem to treat science as a matter of objective fact, as legitimate and trustworthy knowledge.
