UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Natural history museums as provocateurs for dialogue and debate

Carnall, M; Ashby, J; Ross, C; (2013) Natural history museums as provocateurs for dialogue and debate. Museum Management and Curatorship , 28 (1) 55 - 71. 10.1080/09647775.2012.754630. Green open access

[thumbnail of 10.1080-09647775.2012.754630.pdf]
Preview
PDF
10.1080-09647775.2012.754630.pdf

Download (424kB)

Abstract

Interpretation in natural history museums is generally conservative with methods of collections interpretation barely changed since the first natural history museums were founded. For all the changes undertaken by museums in the last 20 years, sector leaders such as the American Museum of Natural History, the Natural History Museum, London, the National Museum, Prague, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin and the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris still operate by connecting objects with facts about their biology. The recent relocation of the Grant Museum of Zoology at University College London has offered the opportunity for the museum to become a space for dialogue and experimentation.The museum, in collaboration with the university, has developed 'social interpretation' designed to engage visitors with controversial questions in life sciences and museum practice. Visitor responses are recorded and used as the basis to plan future work.The paper explores how this form of engagement with visitors might allow natural history museums to add to established methods of interpretation, and - in a form of co-production with their visitors - challenge attitudes to scientific knowledge and its development. Thus, the way natural history museums function as sources of knowledge for the public and the 'front line' of biological engagement is potentially changed, based on the responses of museum visitors. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Type: Article
Title: Natural history museums as provocateurs for dialogue and debate
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1080/09647775.2012.754630
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2012.754630
Additional information: © 2013 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Science and Technology Studies
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1390613
Downloads since deposit
302Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item