ePrints

Navigating ‘the political’: The UK MuseumsAssociation and German Museumsbund (1994–2024)

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Susannah EckersleyORCiD

Downloads

• Published version [.pdf]

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Abstract

For over a century, the UK Museums Association and the DeutscherMuseumsbund have represented the professional interests ofmuseums and their employees, while also acting within a‘political sphere’. Yet, much of their recent history andcontemporary activity remains unexplored. Using discourseanalysis of their professional publications, we identify and analysefour socio-political themes raised by both organisations:(dis)ability and mental health; climate and environmental issues;diversity and migration; and colonialism and decolonisation.Emerging from this, we find significant differences between theMA’s and the DMB’s political lobbying strategies, connected totheir self-identification as either ‘advocate’ or ‘activist’. We findthat in navigating ‘the political’ museums associations need tobalance their roles as lobbyists with the norms of their specificcultural contexts to be simultaneously both (socio-)politicallyrelevant and (party-)politically neutral, to meet both national andglobal museum sector expectations.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Wojtych T, Eckersley S

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Museum History Journal

Year: 2026

Pages: epub ahead of print

Online publication date: 11/03/2026

Acceptance date: 30/01/2026

Date deposited: 12/03/2026

ISSN (print): 1936-9816

ISSN (electronic): 1936-9824

Publisher: Routledge

URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/19369816.2026.2626270

DOI: 10.1080/19369816.2026.2626270

Altmetrics

Funding

Share