Call for Chapter Proposals:

Capitalising Experience: Museums and Entrepreneurship 

Deadline: 31 May 2021

Find the entire call for papers here

Museums are directly affected by neo-liberal policies and market economy, pressing for their redefinition as financially competitive enterprises. Often described as a “no alternative” condition, entrepreneurship reshapes museum identities. It poses aesthetic, ontological and ethical questions regarding the production, marketing and offer of art and culture; the status and validity of history, identity and knowledge; and the discourse on accessibility, diversity and inclusivity especially in a post-COVID world.

Theme-based exhibition designs and learning become branded, interpretation becomes decentralised in favour of an experience akin to browsing, a new form of spectatorship rises: the followers. Such shifts towards entertainment affect the cognitive value of the museum visit. We thus need to scrutinise the benefits and limitations of different types of exhibition layouts, and the extent to which important discussions on the development of ideas are sidelined in favour of marketability. False “democratisation” of participation might result in an elitist holding back of knowledge and mask institutional practices of selection, framing and exclusion that continue to create spatial narratives and shape viewer experience and understanding.

Understanding the role and impact of entrepreneurship on institutional practices and priorities as a fundamental challenge for the future of museums, this edited collection asks: How do entrepreneurial practices and marketing discourse affect the ways in which museums are conceptualised, organised and experienced? Topics may include, but are not limited to:

 - entrepreneurship, curatorial intent and dramaturgy

- exhibition design, architectural discourses and the staging of cultural heritage

- entrepreneurship, (contemporary) art and culture: production, access, mediation

- market strategies, politics of display and the exhibition of knowledge

- institutional framing, narrative models and interpretation, especially in relation to historicity, tradition, identity and processes of decolonisation

- (false) democratisation, visitor engagement, satisfaction and the impact on learning

- responses and challenges for museum education: from knowledge distribution to knowledge economy and networking

- museum policies, entrepreneurship and post-pandemic challenges

We invite contributions of 7000-9000 words, including footnotes. If you would like to be considered, please send a chapter proposal, no longer than 300 words, and a short bio note by 31 May 2021 to the editors Dr Eve Kalyva (e.m.kalyva@uva.nl), Dr Pamela Bianchi (pamelabianchi1@gmail.com) and Dr Iro Katsaridou (akatsaridou@culture.gr).

Proposals will be selected by 30 June 2021 and draft chapters expected by December 2021.