Collaboration beyond stereotypes: Understanding what really matters to museum professionals

Authors:

• Kevin Glatt, Museology Graduate Program
• Chair: Jessica Luke
• Katie Headrick Taylor
• Kira Schabram

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Abstract:

This study advances a positive perspective on collaboration in museums. While the development of more collaborative museum practices has been the subject of much research and discussion in recent decades, underlying much of this research and discourse are persistent narratives framing collaboration in museums as a battleground for inter-departmental warfare. Drawing on Anne Edwards’ work on the criticality of mutual understanding of what matters to practitioners to the success of inter-disciplinary collaborations, and aligning with trends in research within and beyond museology that utilize relational, learning-oriented, and systems-based approaches to organizational change, this study sought to develop a positive, human-centered perspective on collaboration in exhibit development, which served as a context paradigmatic of museological practice in general. Thirteen museum professionals who worked together on a highly collaborative and successful exhibit development project were interviewed about what matters to them, as well as their perception of what matters to their collaborators. Interview data were analyzed inductively to identify recurring themes. The results generate a picture that contrasts starkly with the stereotypical, reductive narratives alluded to above. The motivations identified by interviewees were complex and multidimensional, and there existed both consequential divergence within and significant overlap between departments. The findings of this study suggest that museum professionals may be better positioned to work more collaboratively than inherited departmental structures and museological discourse suggest. They also point to the expansive potential exhibit development holds to be a site of experimentation and development of new, more collaborative museum practices from the ground-up.