Doing Diversity in Museums and Heritage

This major multi-researcher ethnography provides new insights into questions of diversity to show how museums and heritage in Berlin make differences.

The museum and heritage sector has been shaken by debates over how to address colonialism, migration, Islamophobia, LGBTI+ and multiple other forms of difference. This major multi-researcher ethnography of museums and heritage in Berlin provides new insight into how 'diversity' is understood and put into action in museums and heritage. Exploring new initiatives and approaches, the book shows how these work - or do not - in practice. By doing so, it highlights ways forward - for research and action - for the future. The fieldwork locations on which this book is based include the Humboldt Forum, the Museum of Islamic Art, the Museum für Naturkunde, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, as well as Berlin streets and protests.

»Gerade in Zeiten, in denen rechtspopulistische und rechtsextreme politische Parteien neuen Aufschwung in Europa und weltweit erhalten, verspricht der in diesem Band vorgestellte Forschungsansatz komplexere Antworten auf die Frage zu liefern, wie ganz praktisch demokratisierende und diversifiziernde Veränderungen umsetzbar sind.«

Auteur

Sharon Macdonald is Alexander von Humboldt professor of social anthropology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where she directs both the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik and CARMAH (the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage).