A full list of abstracts and bios for the event can be found here.

A recording of the event can be found here

Making Museum Professionals: Transnational Forces: Online Workshop

13 May 2024 (online, hosted by Fordham University) 

  2pm BST Welcome/Introduction: Nushelle de Silva, Fordham University

 The Forces of Transnational Practice (1)

Chair: Kate Hill; Moderator: Claire Wintle

 2.15 Bonita Bennett, Heritage Consultant, South Africa: Museum Activism for Democracy and Anti-Racism in South Africa

2.30 Akash Bharadwaj, Shiv Nadar University, India: Regional Spaces, Transnational Aspirations: A Case Study of Bihar Museum

 2.45  Julia Harth, Ohio State University, US: ICOM’s Impact: International Institutions and Professional Practice 

3.00 Kahyun Lee, Royal College of Art / Tate Modern, UK:    Transnational Narratives in Collection Display and Beyond at Tate Modern

3.15-3.45 break

The Forces of Transnational Practice (2)

Chair: Andrea Meyer; Moderator: Kate Hill

 3.45 Tamsin Russell, Museums Association, UK: The Impact of Brexit on Museum Professionals 

 4.00  BeKuto waSirya a.k.a. Tony Kalume, Diversity Lewes, UK: Technology as Transnational Force: Impact on Museum Professionals and Cultural Legacies

  4.15 Nicola Bird, Mila Malko and Valerii Malko, Multaka Oxford, UK: Migration and Museums

 4.30 Roundtable Discussion, chaired by Nushelle de Silva and Claire Wintle

 5pm Close

The call for participants can be found below

The Making Museum Professionals network (makingmuseumprofessionals.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk) brings together researchers and practitioners to identify, critique and reframe the processes by which museum professionals are made. We do this from historical and contemporary perspectives, in the UK and beyond, to address structural inequalities in museum practice. Following workshop 1: Museum Work: Hierarchies and Barriers, Exclusion and Inclusion, and workshop 2: Navigating Museum Careers: Pathways, Training and Communities, 1850-Now, we are launching the call for participation in workshop 3, which will focus on transnational forces and their effect on shaping museum professions and professionals.

The workshop will be composite in nature, with one online event, and an in-person day, in order to build on the strengths of the formats used in workshops 1 and 2, and allow for as wide participation as possible, particularly geographically in the light of the workshop theme. Those proposing presentations are asked to indicate whether they have a preference for delivering their work at either session.

We are seeking proposals for 10-minute presentations which address the themes of the workshop. The significance of museums as ‘contact zones’ between geographies and cultures has long been recognised, and Savoy and Meyer’s 2014 The Museum is Open showed how significant the transnational transfer of expertise could be. Significantly, they argued that the museum was and is ‘a popular European export item’ – our workshop aims to investigate this further while also encouraging focus on the ways in which transnational forces have not just circulated out from Europe, but have operated in the other direction or outside Europe altogether – decentring Eurocentric museologies. In this workshop we intend to develop on these foundations by:

• examining the transnational forces that have impacted on museum professionals, including colonialism, ‘development’ and war, their effects and legacies
• considering professionals’ mobility (willing or unwilling), the mechanisms of mobility, and their networks of patronage and influence
• investigating organisations and networks for transnational training and development, e.g International Council of Museums
• uncovering the mechanisms that have and do produce movement of expertise, new ideas and knowledge around the world
• asking how ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ on a global scale were and are constructed and contested through transnational forces

We are keen to hear from practitioners, academic-practitioners, and academics from a range of disciplines and a variety of career stages. We are open to presentations which outline completed research, but also which discuss methodologies and sources, or initiatives/campaigns currently underway.

Please send your proposal of up to 200 words, with a title, and a brief biography (up to 50 words) to museumprofessions@lincoln.ac.uk and c.wintle@brighton.ac.uk by 16 Feb 2024. Please indicate which, if any, date/format you would prefer (online in May; in Berlin in June, or either). Please note speakers will be responsible for their own travel and accommodation costs. We will aim to respond by 1 March 2024.