Contributors to this volume examine and illustrate struggles and collaborations among museums, festivals, tourism, and historic preservation projects and the communities they represent and serve. Essays include the role of museums in civil society, the history of African-American collections, and experiments with museum-community dialogue about the design of a multicultural society.

A vital account of change in Australian museums. Martin Hallett — a notable curator of science and technology at Museums Victoria — had a long and distinguished career. He pioneered electronic cataloguing documentation systems (now used world-wide, including at the British Museum and the Smithsonian), established portals to access distributed collections and championed the presence of diverse voices through a unique storytelling approach. In tribute to an extraordinary career, a number of Martin’s colleagues — many with their own outstanding achievements in the sector — reflect on his significant contributions to the museum and heritage sector, charting critical changes to museological practises over three decades.

Combining research that stretches across all of the social sciences and international case studies, Elizabeth Crooke here explores the dynamics of the relationship between the community and the museum. Focusing strongly on areas such as Northern Ireland, South Africa, Australia and North America to highlight the complex issues faced by museums and local groups, Crooke examines one of the museum's primary responsibilities – working with different communities and using collections to encourage people to learn about their own histories, and to understand other people's. Arguing for a much closer examination of this concept of community, and of the significance of museums to different communities, Museums and Community is a dynamic look at a relationship that has, in modern times, never been more important.

This volume combines some of the most influential published research in this emerging field with newly commissioned essays on the issues, problems and lessons involved in collaborating museums and source communities. Focusing on museums in the UK, North America and the Pacific, the book highlights three areas which demonstrate the new developments most clearly: the museum as field site or 'contact zone' - a place which source community members enter for purposes of consultation and collaboration visual repatriation - the use of photography to return images of ancestors, historical moments and material heritage to source communities exhibition case studies - these are discussed to reveal the implications of cross-cultural and collaborative research for museums, and how such projects have challenged established attitudes and practices. As the first overview of its kind, this collection will be essential reading for museum staff working with source communities, for community members involved with museum programmes, and for students and academics in museum studies and social anthropology.

This edited volume critically engages with contemporary scholarship on museums and their engagement with the communities they purport to serve and represent. Foregrounding new curatorial strategies, it addresses a significant gap in the available literature, exploring some of the complex issues arising from recent approaches to collaboration between museums and their communities. The book unpacks taken-for-granted notions such as scholarship, community, participation and collaboration, which can gloss over the complexity of identities and lead to tokenistic claims of inclusion by museums. Over sixteen chapters, well-respected authors from the US, Australia and Europe offer a timely critique to address what happens when museums put community-minded principles into practice, challenging readers to move beyond shallow notions of political correctness that ignore vital difference in this contested field. Contributors address a wide range of key issues, asking pertinent questions such as how museums negotiate the complexities of integrating collaboration when the target community is a living, fluid, changeable mass of people with their own agendas and agency. When is engagement real as opposed to symbolic, who benefits from and who drives initiatives? What particular challenges and benefits do artist collaborations bring? Recognising the multiple perspectives of community participants is one thing, but how can museums incorporate this successfully into exhibition practice? Students of museum and cultural studies, practitioners and everyone who cares about museums around the world will find this volume essential reading.

Museums Involving Communities: Authentic Connections explores how museums can become more active and also considers how they might involve members of their local communities in their everyday work. Examining the key components of the museum�community relationship, this book looks at both the impact of museums on the cultural and civic lives of local communities and the impact of local communities on the programs, collections, and organizational culture of museums. Advocating an accessible and inclusive approach to museum management, Kadoyama focuses on the role of museum leadership in fostering and deepening community relationships. The result offers insights into how relationships between communities and museums can be forged in practice, how museums can be involved in building healthier communities, and how community engagement strategies can be developed, implemented, and evaluated successfully. Written by an experienced museum professional with extensive experience in community involvement and audience development, Museums Involving Communities is key reading for museum workers looking to make an impact, while building long-term relations with local communities, to the benefit of both museum and community. It should also be of great interest to students taking courses in museum and heritage studies.