Museums, Social Capital, and Everyday Life

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Museums, Social Capital, and Everyday Life
Gaynor Bagnall
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Why the interest in the Social

• 'increasing evidence shows that social cohesion
  is critical for societies to prosper economically
  and for development to be sustainableSocial
  capital is not just the sum of the institutions
  which underpin a society it is the glue that
  holds them together' (The World Bank 1999)

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The Policy Context MLA

• Generic Social Outcomes The Context
• Awareness of social impact of museums
• Potential of museums to develop social capital
• Belief - cultural participation was linked to the
  development of social capital
• New Labour/Govt policy about value of
  communitanarism
• GSO framework about enabling Museums to
• Deliver to key agendas, to communities, to
  policy priorities
• Evidence their contribution
• Measure Social Impact
• Instrumental approach
• Reductionist approach
• Social Capital - a troubled concept (Adkins,
  2005)

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Social Capital The official version

• Key indicators, social relations, formal and
  informal social networks, group membership,
  trust, reciprocity and civic engagement
• Relationships matter social networks are a
  valuable asset
• Interaction enables people to build communities,
  to commit themselves to each other, and to knit
  the social fabric.
• A sense of belonging, social networks,
  relationships of trust and tolerance are seen as
  beneficial
• Decline in Social Capital negative consequences
  for society

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Defining Social Capital Bourdieu Putnam

• Bourdieu (1983)
• Access to social networks and resources
• Related to Social class to other capitals,
  cultural economic unequal access to resources
  inequalities of power
• SC a means to access and hold onto power - those
  in privileged positions use social networks to
  maintain their position
• Putnam (2000)
• Social networks civic virtue
• Membership of Voluntary associations key
• SC a feature of communities
• Community connectedness makes an enormous
  difference to lives
• Different dimensions to SC bridging
  bonding
• Issues for Museums Questions about Value what
  types/forms of SC are being generated - does
  this problematize simplistic measurement of SC
  under headings implications of SC being
  related to prod/reproduction of inequalities

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Social Capital NL Govt Policy

• SC popular with NL fits with 3rd way of NLP
• Deficit model - Repairing enhancing SC seen as
  a means to deal with difficult social issues SC
  a panacea
• Emphasis on Community civic decline seen as key
  cause of political social ills (Giddens, 1998)
• Social involvement key to well-being of
  communities
• BUT
• Communities presented as undifferentiated, with
  shared understandings, tensions concealed (James
  James, 2001)
• Social capital provides non-economic solutions to
  social problems - economy is not presented as the
  cause of social inequalities
• The individual becomes responsible for their own
  inequalities
• How does that fit with a Museum world where there
  are still patterns of inequality in terms of
  visiting - that are linked to economic and
  cultural differences inequalities. Diverting
  attention away from economic inequalities raises
  the issue as to who gains by the focus on social
  outcomes social capital.

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Consumption, Culture Performance

• Consumer society, where consumption shapes our
  identities
• consumption now affects the ways in which people
  build up, and maintain, a sense of who they are,
  and who they wish to be. It has become entwined
  with the processes surrounding the development of
  an identity (Chaney1996, x)
• And
• Performative society social life dramatic,
  presentation of self, play particular roles, but
  everyday life is a performance
• So deeply infused into everyday life is
  performance that we are unaware of it in
  ourselves or in others. Life is a constant
  performance we are audience and performer at the
  same time everybody is an audience all the
  time. (Abercrombie Longhurst, 199872-73,
  Audiences)
• Both these process still framed by social factors
  such as class, gender, ethnicity museums site
  of consumption performativity

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The Research Globalization Belonging (2005)

• Research on 4 contrasting locations around
  Manchester (182 in-depth interviews)
• Relationship between locale, lifestyles
  identity
• Social Cultural Practices in Context -
• Topics neighbourhood locality, cultural
  leisure interests, household relationships, work
  and employment, and finally attitudes regarding
  class, ethnicity, and other discrete topics

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Elective Belonging

• Elective Belonging - a way of thinking about the
  attachment people have to places where they have
  decided to live
• Belonging not linked to historical roots -
  rather something that can be achieved
• Belonging is not to a fixed community places
  seen as sites for performing identities
• People locate themselves in places though
  parenting, shopping, working, and engaging with
  cultural sites such as museums
• Draw on their imaginary vision of place, a
  knowledge of the cultural geography cultural
  sites such as museums part of this
• People concerned with Place as a marker
• Value of museums in enabling people to achieve
  belonging

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The Museum, Consumption, Performance, Belonging
Everyday Life

• City is narrated as set of consumption spaces to
  be viewed lived museums part of this
• Museums narrated as consumption spaces in which
  to perform identity of parent cultural capital?
• Museums narrated as spaces to perform belonging
  and attachment to place part of the cultural
  landscape part of what makes a place
  (Manchester) valued
• Museums place to perform identities of everyday
  life - important to recognize flow of everyday
  life (parenting) in cultural participation
  engagement
• Value of museums lies in their ability to enable
  the performance of identities and belonging

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Conclusions

• GSO instrumental approach problematic no easy
  value free definitions of social capital
• Doesnt mean Museums arent able to generate it
  but need to be careful about what type of capital
  we are talking about and the impact that might
  then have
• Society is increasingly informed by consumption
  and performativity how does that affect the
  value of museums as places in which to consume
  perform but need to consider how this framed by
  social factors such as class, gender, ethnicity
  museums role in everyday life
• Generally quantitative collection of data not
  nuanced enough to capture the fullness of the
  value of museums GSO model might serve
  interests of Govt MLA - but does it really
  serve the interests of museums and the
  communities and audiences they serve