Abstract
Although the genesis of the term goes back to the ancient world, the present age can be named the ‘museum epoch’. This chapter considers the genesis of the museum as an institution and as a term, starting in antiquity. The museum experienced its first globalization in the sixteenth century. While museum strategies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were oriented towards cultural differentiation, after World War II, the museum became a mass medium. This chapter explores the changing configurations of this institution from its beginning and since that moment, as an instrument of economic growth, as a player in the art market and as a place for corporate representations, in Europe and beyond. In Europe, the ethnological museums became re-conceptualized as national projects. This process is related to debates on objects and collections, on the relationship between art and ethnology and on new forms of collaborative curating and exhibiting with source communities. But still, museums can also be seen as places of criticism and of social imagination, to give globalism a new meaning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Lucian Hoelscher, cited in Anke te Heesen, Theorien des Museums, Hamburg: Junius Verlag, 2012, p. 9.
- 2.
Christian Feest uses the term ‘nature facts’, in order to underline the constructive character of also these objects: Christian Feest, Materielle Kultur, in: Bettina Beer/Hans Fischer, Ethnologie. Einführung und Überblick, Berlin: Reimer, 2012 (7th edition), p. 256; also: www.museumderunerhoertendinge.de; www.brokenships.com) (last accessed 28.11.2017).
- 3.
http://savethesounds.info/ (last accessed 28.11.2017).
- 4.
Krzysztof Pomian, Collectors and curiosities. Paris and Venice, 1500–1800, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990, p. 9.
- 5.
Paula Findlen, The Museum. Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy, in Bettina Messias Carbonell, Museum Studies. An Anthology of contexts, Malden/Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, p. 24.
- 6.
See details online at www.museumsbund.de/das_museum/geschichte_definition/definition_museum (last accessed 28.11.2017).
- 7.
International Council of Museums online at www.icom-deutschland.de/schwerpunkte_museumsdefinition.php (last accessed 28.11.2017).
- 8.
Anke te Heesen, Theorien des Museums, op. cit., pp. 24ff.
- 9.
Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum. History, theory, politics, London/New York: Routledge, 1996.
- 10.
With the ‘House of European History’, initiated by the European Parliament in Brussels, the nation state framework is transcended, and a transnational overview of the European history and the diversity of historic interpretations is given for the first time; see: www.europarl.europa.eu/visiting/de/visits/historyhouse.html (last accessed 28.11.2017).
- 11.
Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum. History, theory, politics, op. cit., p.59 and p. 96; Karoline Noack, Museum und Universität: Institutionen der Ethnologie und Authentizität der Objekte. Rückblicke, gegenwärtige Tendenzen und zukünftige Möglichkeiten, in: Michael Kraus/Karoline Noack (eds.), Quo vadis, Völkerkundemuseum? Aktuelle Debatten zu ethnologischen Sammlungen in Museen und Universitäten, Bielefeld: transcript, 2015, p. 43.
- 12.
Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum. History, theory, politics, op. cit., pp. 59 ff.; Tony Bennett, Civic Seeing: Museums and the Organization of Vision, in: Sharon Macdonald (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, London/New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, p. 278 and p. 269.
- 13.
Krzysztof Pomian, Collectors and curiosities. Paris and Venice, 1500–1800, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990, p. 21 and p. 25; Christina Kreps, Non-Western Models of Museums and Curation in Cross-cultural Perspective, in: Sharon Macdonald, (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., p. 455.
- 14.
Cited in Paula Findlen, The Museum. Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy, op. cit., p. 24.
- 15.
Jeffrey Abt, The Origins of the Public Museum, in: Sharon Macdonald (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., pp. 116–117.
- 16.
Paula Findlen, The Museum. Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy, op. cit., p. 24.
- 17.
Ibid., pp. 24–25 and p.28; Jeffrey Abt, The Origins of the Public Museum, in: Sharon Macdonald (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., pp. 115–116.
- 18.
Paula Findlen, The Museum. Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy, op. cit., p. 25.
- 19.
Ibid., p. 23.
- 20.
Ibid., p. 25.
- 21.
Ibid., pp. 25–27.
- 22.
Two classifications of objects, although not yet always completely separated from one another—naturalia, artificialia—become already apparent during the Renaissance. Cf. Jeffrey Abt, The Origins of the Public Museum, in: Sharon Macdonald (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., pp. 120–121.
- 23.
Ibid., p. 122.
- 24.
Ibid.; Paula Findlen, The Museum. Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy, op. cit., p. 23 and pp. 25–27; Paula Findlen, cited in Jeffrey Abt, The Origins of the Public Museum, in: Sharon Macdonald (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., p. 120.
- 25.
Ibid., p. 122.
- 26.
Paula Findlen, The Museum. Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy, op. cit., p. 24.
- 27.
Jeffrey Abt, The Origins of the Public Museum, in: Sharon Macdonald (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., p. 123 and p. 127.
- 28.
The move of the library to the new building did not take place until 1997: Ibid. p. 126.
- 29.
Paula Findlen, The Museum. Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy, op. cit., p. 33, p. 31 and p. 26.
- 30.
Krzysztof Pomian, Collectors and curiosities. Paris and Venice, 1500–1800, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990, p. 21 and pp. 26f.
- 31.
Pomian cites André Leroi-Gourhan, Ibid.
- 32.
Ibid., pp. 28–29, pp. 30ff.
- 33.
Christina Kreps, Non-Western Models of Museums and Curation in Cross-cultural Perspective, in: Sharon Macdonald, (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., p. 457and p. 4.
- 34.
See Arjun Appadurai/Carol A. Breckenridge, Museums are Good to Think: Heritage on View in India, in: Donald Preziosi/Claire Farago (eds.), Grasping the World. The Idea of the Museum, Hants and Burlington: Ashgate, 2004, p. 687.
- 35.
Martin Prösler, cited in Mark W. Rectanus, Globalization: Incorporating the Museum, in: Sharon Macdonald, (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., p. 382.
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
Annie E. Coombes, Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities, in: Donald Preziosi/Claire Farago (eds.), Grasping the World. The Idea of the Museum, op. cit., p. 279 and p. 281.
- 38.
Ibid., pp. 282–285. The author describes that with the aim of educating the ‘masses’, museums were founded just also in social hotspots. For Germany see Fritz Kramer, Einfühlung. Überlegungen zur Geschichte der Ethnologie im präfaschistischen Deutschland, in: Thomas Hauschild (eds.), Lebenslust und Fremdenfurcht. Ethnologie im Dritten Reich, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1995.
- 39.
Beatrix Hoffmann, Das Museumsobjekt als Tausch- und Handelsgegenstand. zum Bedeutungswandel musealer Objekte im Kontext der Veräußerungen aus dem Sammlungsbestand des Museums für Völkerkunde Berlin, Münster: LIT, 2012; Mark W. Rectanus, Globalization: Incorporating the Museum, in: Sharon Macdonald, (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., pp. 382–383.
- 40.
Ibid, p. 383; Museum as mass media cites Andreas von Huyssen, in Mark W. Rectanus, Globalization: Incorporating the Museum, in: Sharon Macdonald, (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., p. 383.
- 41.
Ibid., p. 383.
- 42.
Ibid.
- 43.
Ibid., pp. 384–386. As an example for hybridization processes he mentions the Center for Art and Media Technology of Karlsruhe.
- 44.
Ibid., page 386.
- 45.
Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2008, p. 33.
- 46.
Ibid., pp. 386–391.
- 47.
Arjun Appadurai/Carol A. Breckenridge, Museums are Good to Think: Heritage on View in India, in: Donald Preziosi/Claire Farago (eds.), Grasping the World. The Idea of the Museum, op. cit., pp. 687–688.
- 48.
Larissa Förster, Öffentliche Kulturinstitution, internationale Forschungsstätte und postkoloniale Kontaktzone. Was ist ethno am ethnologischen Museum?, in: Thomas Bierschenk/Matthias Krings/Carola Lentz (eds.), Perspektivwechsel. Ethnologie im 21. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Reimer, p. 202.
- 49.
Ibid., p. 203 and Arjun Appadurai/Carol A. Breckenridge, Museums are Good to Think: Heritage on View in India, in: Donald Preziosi/Claire Farago (eds.), Grasping the World. The Idea of the Museum, loc. cit.
- 50.
Ibid., pp. 687–689, p. 691 and p. 696; Arjun Appadurai, cited in Mark W. Rectanus, Globalization: Incorporating the Museum, in: Sharon Macdonald, (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., p. 385, mentions for example the Japanization of Korea, the Indianization of Sri Lanka and the Vietnamization of Cambodia.
- 51.
Christine O’Hanlon on the ‘crisis of identity’ of the museums, cited in Larissa Förster, Öffentliche Kulturinstitution, internationale Forschungsstätte und postkoloniale Kontaktzone. Was ist ethno am ethnologischen Museum?, op. cit., p. 190.
- 52.
The foundation of the Musée du Quai Branly was a project of President Jacques Chirac. The Berlin Palace, which is under (re-)construction and due to incorporate with the Humboldt-Forum the collections of the Ethnological Museum and the Museum for Asian Art, both in Berlin-Dahlem, as well as the former art chamber (Humboldt University of Berlin), is considered to be the largest culture project of the Federal Government and of Europe; see Hermann Parzinger, Das Humboldt-Forum im Berliner Schloss: Anspruch und Chance, in Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (eds.), Das Humboldt-Forum im Berliner Schloss. Planungen, Prozesse, Perspektiven, München: Hirmer 2013. Concerning the renewed interest in ethnological collections as a possible place for engagement of the anthropology within the multicultural initiative in Great Britain cf. Annie E. Coombes, Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities, in Donald Preziosi/Claire Farago (eds.), Grasping the World. The Idea of the Museum, op. cit., pp. 278–279.
- 53.
This questioning can even go so far that the institution of the museum itself may be challenged radically, for example, by Carmen Mörsch cited in Andrea Scholz, Das Humboldt Lab Dahlem—Experimentelle Freiräume auf dem Weg zum Humboldt-Forum, in Michael Kraus/Karoline Noack (eds.), Quo vadis, Völkerkundemuseum? Aktuelle Debatten zu ethnologischen Sammlungen in Museen und Universitäten, op. cit., p. 286.
- 54.
The denomination of the scientific discipline was replaced by terms like ‘world’, ‘culture’ and ‘continents’, also in compounds; cf. Michael Kraus, Quo vadis, Völkerkundemuseum?—Eine Einführung, in: Michael Kraus/Karoline Noack (eds.), Quo vadis, Völkerkundemuseum? Aktuelle Debatten zu ethnologischen Sammlungen in Museen und Universitäten, loc. cit.
- 55.
Andrea Scholz, Das Humboldt Lab Dahlem—Experimentelle Freiräume auf dem Weg zum Humboldt-Forum, in Michael Kraus/Karoline Noack (eds.), Quo vadis, Völkerkundemuseum? Aktuelle Debatten zu ethnologischen Sammlungen in Museen und Universitäten, op.cit., p. 286 and p. 289; Belinda Kazeem/Charlotte Martinz-Turek/Nora Sternfeld (eds.), Das Unbehagen im Museum. Postkoloniale Museologien, Wien: Turia + Kant, 2009.
- 56.
Ibid., p. 289.
- 57.
Ibid., p. 278.
- 58.
James Clifford, Museums as Contact Zones, in James Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 188–219, came once again from the conception of the ‘contact zone’ by Mary Louise Pratt, Arts of the Contact Zone, in Profession, 1991, pp. 33–40; for critique of the conception of transculturality, see Robin Boast, Neocolonial Collaboration. Museum as Contact Zone Revisited, in Museum Anthropology Vol. 34/1, pp. 56–70; Christina Kreps, Non-Western Models of Museums and Curation in Cross-cultural Perspective, in Sharon Macdonald, (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., p. 458.
- 59.
Ibid., pp. 458–459, pp. 463–464, pp. 466–467.
- 60.
Beatrix Hoffmann, Partizipative Museumsforschung und digitale Sammlungen: Chancen und Grenzen, in: Michael Kraus/Karoline Noack (eds.), Quo vadis, Völkerkundemuseum? Aktuelle Debatten zu ethnologischen Sammlungen in Museen und Universitäten, op. cit., p. 289.
- 61.
Larissa Förster, Öffentliche Kulturinstitution, internationale Forschungsstätte und postkoloniale Kontaktzone. Was ist ethno am ethnologischen Museum?, op. cit., p. 202.
- 62.
Amy Lonetree, Museums as Sites of Decolonization: Truth Telling in National and Tribal Museums, in: Susan Sleeper-Smith (eds.), Contesting knowledge. Museums and Indigenous Perspectives. Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press 2009, pp. 322–337.
- 63.
Arjun Appadurai, cited in Mark W. Rectanus, Globalization: Incorporating the Museum, in: Sharon Macdonald, (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies, op. cit., p. 395.
Literature
Appadurai, Arjun, Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
Beer, Bettina/Fischer, Hans, Ethnologie. Einführung und Überblick, Berlin: Reimer, 2012 (7th edition).
Bennett, Tony, The Birth of the Museum. History, theory, politics. London, New York: Routledge, 1996.
Clifford, James, Museums as Contact Zones, in: Idem, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 188–219.
Hoffmann, Beatrix, Das Museumsobjekt als Tausch- und Handelsgegenstand. zum Bedeutungswandel musealer Objekte im Kontext der Veräußerungen aus dem Sammlungsbestand des Museums für Völkerkunde Berlin, Münster: LIT, 2012.
Kazeem, Belinda/Martinz-Turek, Charlotte/Sternfeld, Nora (eds.), Das Unbehagen im Museum. Postkoloniale Museologien, Wien: Turia + Kant, 2009.
Kraus, Michael/Noack, Karoline (eds.) Quo vadis, Völkerkundemuseum? Aktuelle Debatten zu ethnologischen Sammlungen in Museen und Universitäten, Bielefeld: transcript, 2015.
Lonetree, Amy, Museums as Sites of Decolonization: Truth Telling in National and Tribal Museums, in: Sleeper-Smith, Susan (ed.), Contesting knowledge. Museums and Indigenous Perspectives. Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press 2009, pp. 322–337.
Macdonald, Sharon (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies. London, New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Messias Carbonell, Bettina, Museum Studies. An Anthology of contexts. Malden, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
Pomian, Krzysztof, Der Ursprung des Museums. Vom Sammeln. Berlin: Wagenbach, 1998.
Preziosi, Donald/Farago, Claire (eds.), Grasping the World. The Idea of the Museum, Hants and Burlington: Ashgate, 2004.
te Heesen, Anke, Theorien des Museums, Hamburg: Junius Verlag, 2012.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Noack, K. (2019). Museum. In: Kühnhardt, L., Mayer, T. (eds) The Bonn Handbook of Globality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90382-8_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90382-8_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90381-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90382-8
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)