Building Relationships through Communities of Practice: Museums and Indigenous People

Building Relationships through Communities of Practice: Museums and Indigenous People

This paper explores the theory of “communities of practice” and how the ideas contained in it could be applied to museums, by demonstrating how a key stakeholder group, Indigenous people, have been involved with and engaged in the work of the Australian Museum, Sydney, over the past 30 years. It is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Curator (New York, N.Y.) Vol. 49; no. 2; pp. 217 - 234
Main Authors: Kelly, Lynda, Cook, Carolyn, Gordon, Phil
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-04-2006
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This paper explores the theory of “communities of practice” and how the ideas contained in it could be applied to museums, by demonstrating how a key stakeholder group, Indigenous people, have been involved with and engaged in the work of the Australian Museum, Sydney, over the past 30 years. It is suggested that the processes museums have developed in building relationships with Indigenous people, particularly at the practitioner level, could form a template for how museums make themselves relevant to broader communities through active engagement with multiple communities of practice.
Bibliography:ark:/67375/WNG-HD4PJSM2-L
ArticleID:CURA214
istex:C4C8AB18EABCC33DE0FA68BD4E8AAE0F83FA2531
philg@austmus.gov.au
Phil Gordon
is head of the Australian Museum Audience Research Centre, Sydney, Australia
lyndak@austmus.gov.au
is manager of the Aboriginal Heritage Unit at the Australian Museum, Sydney.
Lynda Kelly
Carolyn Cook is a Museums Studies intern, University of Montreal, Canad
ISSN:0011-3069
2151-6952
DOI:10.1111/j.2151-6952.2006.tb00214.x