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Exploring relations to documents and documentary infrastructures : the case of museum management after austerity
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Rex, Bethany (2018) Exploring relations to documents and documentary infrastructures : the case of museum management after austerity. Museum and Society, 16 (2). pp. 187-200. doi:10.29311/mas.v16i2.2781 ISSN 1479-8360.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.29311/mas.v16i2.2781
Abstract
Interaction with documents and documentary infrastructure is part of the day to day reality of museum work. However, their constitutive and mediatory role is rarely foregrounded in empirical studies of museums. In part, this is because a defined theoretical and methodological framework for such an investigation has yet to be developed. This article outlines what a conceptualisation of documents as more-than-text informed by actor-network theory offers to studies of museums, particularly the potential of this method for investigating how documentary infrastructures influence daily practice and inform notions of possible action amongst museum staff. The insight that institutional practices operate ‘on the field of possibilities’ is Foucault’s ([1982] 2000: 341). However, as I outline in this article, actor-network theory took up this insight and developed it, drawing out its methodological and analytical consequences. Empirical material exploring the influence of Arts Council England’s Accreditation Scheme on someone new to museum work, drawn from a study of community asset transfer, a process whereby people new to museum work become responsible for the operation and management of museums previously run by local authorities, is used to demonstrate the potential of this approach.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | A General Works > AM Museums (General). Collectors and collecting (General) | ||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Museums -- Management -- Great Britain, Community development, Actor-network theory, Archives -- Administration | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Museum and Society | ||||||||
Publisher: | University of Leicester Open Journals | ||||||||
ISSN: | 1479-8360 | ||||||||
Official Date: | July 2018 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 16 | ||||||||
Number: | 2 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 187-200 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.29311/mas.v16i2.2781 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 9 December 2019 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 12 December 2019 | ||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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