CHAPTER 2
                   HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL OVERVIEW

                                   Introduction

     Do (museums) have a positive impact on the lives of other people? (If not
     then) ...we are only servants to our collections and not of our fellow
     humans. -Stephen Weil [1994, 32]

A Broader Ideological Shift for Museology: A Question of Societal Relevance

      The museum field experienced an ideological shift during the 1990s; many

museums began revisiting their relationships with the public and integrated a new

approach as community stewards. Museums began as unquestioned sources of

authority, but New Museology proposed that the museum was obligated to act as a

facilitator of learning. While museums needed to maintain the integrity of their exhibits,

collections information, and research, they realized that the voices of diverse

communities could be integrated into these resources, as well as exhibits. The

museum's role in society has been debated repeatedly during this shift and continues to

be a pertinent issue today. New Museology recommended a modified museum

perspective: fostering civic engagement through accessibility, inclusion, and learner-

centeredness (Weil 1999). New Museology was introduced by Peter Vergo in 1989.

Proponents of New Museology advocated for integrating museums more closely with

the multicultural social groups which these critics believe museums should

represent and serve (Stam 2005). Stephen Weil (1999, 32) described the museum's

change in function to be "fundamentally driven-by-purpose rather than (only) devoted-

to-objects." Museums were hurled into the spotlight during the 1980s and 1990s by

cultural critics1 who applied a post-modern, post-colonialist lens to museum policy and


1 Examples of cultural critics include Ivan Karp (2006) and James Clifford (1988).