ABSTRACT
There is, today, widespread agreement among practitioners and researchers that museums construct and present ways of seeing and understanding that not only reflect but also shape collective values (Hooper-Greenhill 2000; Luke 2002). Recent years have seen a growing body of research around the ways that visitors encounter and interact with the narratives presented in museums. As numerous studies have found, while audiences are highly active in the ways in which they engage with exhibitions and displays, museums, nevertheless, have some influence on the way visitors perceive, think and talk about wide-ranging themes and issues (Silverman 1995; Gregory and Witcomb 2007; Cameron and Kelly 2010; Scott et al. 2014). Museums, as I have previously argued (Sandell 2007), hold considerable potential to frame, inform and enable the conversations that visitors, and indeed wider society, have about difference.
