Changing Democratic Landscapes: Two Suggestions

Many of my conversations with museum colleagues these days reflect anxieties around the changing democratic landscapes we operate in. Some of these anxieties relate to increasingly illiberal governments; others stem from differences in views that no longer follow traditional dividing lines.

Strategies that have been proposed evolve around strengthening networks, clarifying organisational values, and developing business models that make museums less dependent on the public purse [1]. All of these are important and relevant.

In this post, I’d like to share two additional approaches I have been thinking about.

Beutelsbacher Konsens

This is one from my time at a German Volkshochschule. The Beutelsbacher Konsens is a set of three guiding principles for political education, formulated in the 1970s. I’m slightly paraphrasing them here in my own English translation:

• Prohibition on indoctrination. In other words, organisations must not overwhelm learners (read: visitors) with their own views, or prevent them from forming or expressing their own [2]
• Anything that is controversial in academia or politics must be represented as such.
• Learners (read: visitors) must be empowered to analyse a situation and their own interests in relation to it, and be empowered to find ways to influence this situation accordingly.

This can be useful in a museum context when our purpose is to provide learning and enjoyment for ‘the public’. ‘The public’ is not homogenous, and their views may differ from ours. Indeed, even within our own teams, there might be disagreements on what is right and what is wrong.  

Checking our provision and actions against these principles can help ensure we’re representative of, and relevant to, more of that public, and potentially more members of the team as well. It can support us in creating agonistic, democratic spaces that foster genuine communal learning and understanding [3].  

Allyship

A recent post on LinkedIn by Germany’s Neue Deutsche Medienmacher*innen proposed allyship as a strategy in contexts where diversity is put under pressure.

Here are their five tips, which I’ve slightly adapted to reach beyond colleagues, which was their focus:

• Speak Up. When we hear something that seeks to degrade and exclude people, let’s speak up. A simple ‘That’s not okay’ goes a long way.
• Use your privileges. Give space to marginalised people: share your decision-making powers, put marginalised colleagues forward for promotion where you can.
• Support marginalised people. Protect them where you can. I would add: let them know you see what’s happening and reassure them that they’re still valued.
• Make their voices visible. Give space to marginalised people to share their views. Repeat and promote their ideas and make sure they get the credit.
• Listen and Learn. Allyship is a process. ‘Awareness and empathy count more than perfection.’

We all know that as museums, most of us still have some way to go before we are truly diverse, both in terms of our staff and the experiences that are represented in our exhibitions and programmes. These tips can therefore support a more inclusive practice overall.  

However, thinking specifically about changing democratic landscapes, allyship as a strategy can provide a continuous checklist: is there room to do more in this situation?

Allyship is also adaptable, it can happen on different levels and in varying degrees of intensity. It’s not a fail-safe, but it links back to the strategy of building networks. A network of allies can give the strength of numbers to those that don’t have them. Importantly, it lets marginalised people know that we see and care about them, and that we recognise their rights as ours.

Notes

[1] The latest issue of Museumskunde, the journal of the Deutsche Museumsbund, the German Museum Association, has some excellent articles reflecting on museums in current political contexts and their responses.

[2] This does not mean we should accept views that are outside the legal framework or which have been disproven.

[3] This does not mean we cannot have values – in fact, I think we most decidedly need to have clarity about what our values are, perhaps now more so than ever. We should state these values clearly where it is important to us and our purpose. However, not all values are equally relevant to all aspects of our museum work – something I feel has been forgotten in the last decade or so.