ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the nature of collaborative relationships between community-based heritage organizations and museums and their potential to progress social justice, understood for the purposes of this chapter to refer to attempts to establish equality, equity and parity where it is currently lacking. The particular aspect of the museum that will be examined is its position as truth-teller, authority and keeper of what is sacred in society, a role that was established at its inception and is linked to its colonial and empirical past (Duncan and Wallach 1978; Bennett 1995). Once established, this position became ingrained in the public’s imagination and the museum’s narrative came to be accepted as the ‘mainstream’ account of arts and culture which went largely unchallenged until the later part of the twentieth century (Sandell 2002, 2007; Crooke 2007; Pollock and Zemans 2007). In recent years the narrative of the museum has been challenged both from inside and outside of the institution. Key external drivers for change include government agendas to promote access, inclusion and diversity through audience development and exhibition content. Moreover academic discourse, arising from cultural politics and feminist critiques, has recognized that the interpretation of objects and artifacts held in museums must be considered from multiple perspectives, particularly related to the cultures, religions and societies from which the objects are derived (Jordan and Weedon 1995; Lidchi 1997; Hall 2001). Internal drivers for change include the response to such external influences by individual practitioners and the consequent implementation of organizational change management in accordance with social, cultural and financial trends beyond the museum’s walls.