Cultural inclusion, exclusion and the formative roles of museums

Abstract

Very diverse cultural practices develop within sufficiently large polities, in response to, and contributing to, a matrix of social relationships. Museums play a formative role in defining and reproducing those relationships through their policies and narrative practices. As importantly, how museums are construed, who uses them, and how they use them, are also defined within this web of relationships. Discussions of audience inclusion and exclusion should thus be grounded in an analysis of the complex socio-cultural roles that museums play, and specifically in regard to the user's search for shared narrative.