ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how democracy can manifest itself in the work of museums and how the forms of democratic engagement unique to them sit within the organisational culture of the UK museum. It discusses the extent to which museums can contribute to experimental and alternative forms of democratic and civic engagement. The chapter describes from some reflections about how the concept of democracy tends to be understood and used within museums, and how museum democracy tends to be construed and enacted in museum work. The instances of museum practice that seek to intersect with and connect to democracy can be seen as manifestations of the broader framework of cultural democracy. The problem with the mainstream conception of cultural democracy is that it functions as a normative and conceptual framework that takes a facile politics of recognition as the defining and ultimate horizon of democracy in museums, and reduces democracy in museums to a celebration of pre-established ‘identities’ and local cultures.
