Museums, Prejudice and the Reframing of Difference

This book draws on in-depth case studies and a range of international examples on the topical debate surrounding social issues, political challenges, opportunities and responsibilities that accompany a museums framework. Richard Sandell combines interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives with in-depth empirical investigation to address a number of timely questions: How do audiences engage with and respond to exhibitions designed to contest and reconfigure prejudiced conceptions of different social groups? To what extent can museums be understood to shape understandings of difference, acceptability and tolerance? What are the challenges for museums which attempt to engage audiences in debating contemporary social issues and how might these be addressed? This highly original contribution presents the significant role that museums can play in confronting prejudice and cross-cultural understanding through accommodating and engaging differences on the basis of gender, ethnicity, class and sexuality. "Museums, Prejudice and the Reframing of Difference" will greatly appeal to practitioners, academics and policy makers on an international scale.

1. Museums and the Good Society 2. On Prejudice 3 .Purpose, media and message: the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art and the Anne Frank House 4. The visitor-exhibition encounter: reconciling and rethinking museum-audience agency 5. Museums and the Mediascape 6. Displaying difference: revealing and interpreting the hidden history of disability 7. (Re)Framing Conversations Appendices 1. Investigating visitor responses: notes on methodology, research design and data sources 2. Buried in the Footnotes: the representation of disabled people in museum and gallery collection. Self-completion questionnaire to curators Bibliography

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