(23)--博物馆学概论Contentious politics and m.pdfVIP

13 Contentious PolitiCs and MuseuMs as ContaCt Zones Kylie Message The four Greensboro students launched the sit‐in movement at Woolworth’s, but the movement was actually aimed at a system of segregation created and regulated by state and local governments. In doing so, students constituted themselves as politi- cal actors and assumed the political identities of people unwilling to accept the subaltern status assigned to members of their race. As they sat in at a lunch counter, their action became a political performance, one with a pedigree in the repertoire of contention but that they innovated on like jazz musicians improvising on a theme. As they did so, they engaged with public institutions – the press, the police, and, ultimately, the city government. They also involved themselves in the broader conflict brewing between the state and federal governments in the American political regime. They mounted a classic social movement campaign. Tilly and Tarrow 2007, 187 (emphasis in original) Contentious politics and museums as contact zones Social movement theory has, in recent years, been criticized for its inability to develop theoretical frameworks and forms of analysis relevant to activists and the causes they represent. In contrast, the same period has seen an escalation of claims made about the instrumentality of museums to source communities and stake- holder groups as well as governments. Ideas of shared authority, empowerment through recognition, community collaboration, and political agency have trans- formed the field of museum studies, and have become central to discourses espousing the social and economic value of culture. In this chapter, I draw on theo- rizing from the field of mus