My history, your history, our history
Developing meaningful community engagement within historic sites and museums
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/qre.2018.29Keywords:
Historic Ormiston House, oral history project, active community participation, community engagementAbstract
Varying models of community engagement provide methods for museums to build valuable relationships with communities. These relationships hold the potential to become ongoing, dynamic opportunities for active community participation and engagement with museums. Nevertheless, the nuances of this engagement continue to remain a unique process that requires delicate balancing of museum obligations and community needs in order to ensure meaningful outcomes are achieved. This article discusses how community engagement can be an active, participatory process for visitors to museums. Research projects that utilise aspects of community-driven engagement models allow museums to encourage a sense of ownership and active participation with the museum. Indeed museums can balance obligations of education and representation of the past with long-term, meaningful community needs via projects that utilise aspects of community-driven engagement models. Using an oral history project at Historic Ormiston House as a case study, the article argues that museums and historic sites can encourage ongoing engagement through active community participation in museum projects. While this approach carries both challenges and opportunities for the museum, it opens doors to meaningful and long-term community engagement, allowing visitors to embrace the museum and its stories as active participants rather than as passive consumers.
References
All names of participants in the Ormiston House Oral History Project are pseudonyms.
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For example, Historic Ormiston House and its volunteers have received nominations and/or awards in the following programmes and categories: Gallery and Museum Achievement Awards; Museums & Gallery Services Queensland Gallery and Museum Achievement Awards (Organisations); Redlands on Moreton Bay Tourism Awards (Heritage and Cultural Tourism); Redlands Tourism Award (Outstanding Contribution by an Individual); Redlands Tourism Award (Outstanding Contribution to Tourism); Redlands Tourism Award (Special Event or Festival); Redlands Tourism Award (Tourist Attraction); Redlands Tourism Awards (Historic House); Volunteering Redlands Greg Cook Volunteering Recognition Award.
Bryony Onciul, Museums, heritage and Indigenous voice: Decolonising engagement (New York: Routledge, 2015), p. 71.
Michele Everett and Margaret Barrett, ‘Benefits visitors derive from sustained engagement with a single museum’, Curator: The Museum Journal 54(4) (2011), 432, 441; Onciul, Museums, heritage and Indigenous voice, pp. 71–2.
See, for example, a growing emphasis on museum engagement at events coordinated by Museums & Galleries Queensland, one of the most significant industry bodies for museum professionals in Queensland: Museums & Galleries Queensland, ‘M&G QLD Past Events’, 2017, http://www.magsq.com.au/cms/page.asp?ID=5129, accessed 3 October 2017.
Everett and Barrett, ‘Benefits visitors derive from sustained engagement’, 432; Bryony Onciul, ‘Community engagement, curatorial practice, and museum ethos in Alberta, Canada’, in Viv Golding and Wayne Modest (eds), Museums and communities: Curators, collections and collaboration (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), p. 92.
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Sherry Butcher-Younghans, Historic house museums: A practical handbook for their care, preservation, and management (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 184–5; Deepak Chhabra, Sustainable marketing of cultural and heritage tourism (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2010), p. 111.
Jane Merritt and Julie Reilly, Preventative conservation for historic house museums (Plymouth: AltaMira Press, 2010), pp. 9–10.
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For literature that addresses the unique position of historic house museums within the museum sector, see, for example Hedvig Mårdh, ‘Re-entering the house: Scenographic and artistic interventions and interactions in the historic house museum’, Nordisk Museologi 1 (2015), 25–39; Gustaf Leijonhufvud and Annette Henning, ‘Rethinking indoor climate control in historic buildings: The importance of negotiated priorities and discursive hegemony at a Swedish museum’, Energy Research & Social Science 4 (2014), 117–23; Merritt and Reilly, Preventative conservation for historic house museums; Young, Historic house museums; Rebekah Beaulieu, Financial fundamentals for historic house museums (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017).
See, for example Kim Christensen, ‘Ideas versus things: The balancing act of interpreting historic house museums’, International Journal of Heritage Studies 17(2) (2011), 153–68; Maria Adinolfi and Mattijs van de Port, ‘Bed and throne: The “Museumification” of the living quarters of a Candomblé priestess’, Material Religion 9(3) (2013), 282–303; Christina Hodge and Christa Beranek, ‘Dwelling: Transforming narratives at historic house museums’, International Journal of Heritage Studies 17(2) (2011), 97–101; Isabelle Vinson, ‘Editorial’, Museum International 53(2) (2001), 3; Giovanni Pinna, ‘Introduction to historic house museums’, Museum International 53(2) (2001), 4–9; Deborah Ryan and Frank Vagnone, ‘Reorienting historic house museums: An anarchist’s guide’, in Re-disciplining: The rise, fall and reformation of the disciplines history, theory, historiography, and future studies: ARCC/EAAE 2014: Beyond architecture: New intersections & connections, CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS, 2014, pp. 97–8; Rosanna Pavoni, ‘Towards a definition and typology of historic house museums’, Museum International 53(2) (2001), 16–21.
See Aerila, Rönkkö and Grönman, ‘Field trip to a historic house museum with preschoolers’, 144–55; Alexandra Chan, ‘Translating archaeology for the public: Empowering and engaging museum goers with the past’, International Journal of Heritage Studies 17(2) (2011), 169–89; Linda Young, ‘Is there a museum in the house? Historic houses as a species of museum’, Museum Management and Curatorship 22(1) (2007), 59–77; Catherine Howett, ‘Grounds for interpretation: The landscape context of historic house museums’, in Jessica Donnelly (ed.), Interpreting historic house museums (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2002), 126; Janet Sinclair, ‘Expanding family access and engagement in an historic house museum’, in Juilee Decker (ed.), Engagement and access: Innovative approaches for museums (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 61–70.
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ibid.; Sister Katherine, ‘History of Ormiston House’.
‘Queensland Parliament record of proceedings (Hansard), Legislative Assembly’, 5 September 1865, p. 595; Briody, ‘Ormiston House’, 349; ‘“Birthplace of the Australian sugar industry” celebrates 150 Years’, in Australian Canegrower: The Flagship of the Sugarcane Industry June (2012), 5.
Onciul, Museums, heritage and Indigenous voice, p. 72; see also Onciul, ‘Community engagement, curatorial practice’, 84.
ibid., 79
ibid.
Margaret O’Driscoll, ‘Annual report delivered to Carmelite Community and volunteers’, 2010.
Welsh, ‘Re-configuring museums’, 105–6.
Everett and Barrett, ‘Benefits visitors derive from sustained engagement’, 431.
Margaret O’Driscoll, ‘Annual report delivered to Carmelite Community and volunteers’, 2010; Margaret O’Driscoll, ‘Annual report delivered to Carmelite Community and volunteers’, 2011; Margaret O’Driscoll, ‘Annual report delivered to Carmelite Community and volunteers’, 2012.
ibid.
Rappolt-Schlichtmann and Daley, ‘Providing access to engagement in learning’, 307.
For a recent example of the increased importance of oral histories in Redland City, see: ‘Redland Cultural Heritage Network meeting minutes’, February 2017.
Patricia Leavy, Oral history: Understanding qualitative research (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 34.
Corinne Perkin, ‘Beyond the rhetoric: Negotiating the politics and realising the potential of community-driven heritage engagement’, International Journal of Heritage Studies 16(1–2) (2010), 107.
ibid., 108, 116; Mina Dragouni and Kalliopi Fouseki, ‘Drivers of community participation in heritage tourism planning: An empirical investigation’, Journal of Heritage Tourism 13(3) (2018), 2.
A top-down approach to engagement and museum work sees the development of projects that are driven and led by the institution itself, rather than a collaborative-based approach, which involves active collaboration between museum organisations and communities.
Perkin, ‘Beyond the rhetoric’, 107, 109, 112.
Onciul, ‘Community engagement, curatorial practice’, 83.
Onciul, Museums, heritage and Indigenous voice, p. 75.
Graham Black, ‘Embedding civil engagement in museums’, Museum Management and Curatorship 25(2) (2010), 136–7.
See David Mould, ‘Interviewing’, in Donna Deblasio, Charles Ganzert, David Mould, Stephen Paschen and Howard Sacks (eds), Catching stories: A practical guide to oral history (Athens, OH: Swallow Press, 2009), pp. 76, 82, which discusses the various stages of the oral history interview.
Personal communication, Jessica Stroja and Sarah Smith, 4 April 2013; Personal communication, Jessica Stroja and Jane Jones, 22 March 2013.
Zibiah Alfred, ‘Sharing oral history with the wider public: Experiences of the refugee communities history project’, in M. Kurkowska-Budzan and K. Zamorski (eds), Oral history: The challenges of dialogue (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2009), 180.
Perkin, ‘Beyond the rhetoric’, 110–11.
Smith and Waterton, Heritage, communities and archaeology, p. 103.
Mould, ‘Interviewing’, 81–2; Donald Ritchie, Doing oral history: A practical guide, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 114–15.
ibid., p. 114.
Alderson, ‘Foreword’, v; Young, ‘Major case study: Welcome to our house’, 134; Patrick Butler III, ‘Past, present, and future: The place of the house museum in the museum community’, in Jessica Donnolley (ed.), Interpreting Historic House Museums (Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2002), p. 37.
While Historic Ormiston House has applied for various grants and funding opportunities throughout its time as an historic house museum, there are a number of applications that cannot be submitted solely on the basis of exclusion from eligibility criteria. Inclusion in the relevant criteria would only have been possible as a small museum, rather than a privately owned historic house museum. While the issue of funding opportunities for historic house museums and small museums is an increasingly relevant topic, further discussion of this concern remains beyond the purview of this article.
Ruth Rentschler, ‘Museum marketing: no longer a dirty word’, in Ruth Rentschler and Anne-Marie Hede (eds), Museum marketing: Competing in the global marketplace (Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007), 15.
Historic Ormiston House, ‘Home’.
Personal communication, Jessica Stroja and Wendy Parks, 8 March 2013.
Personal communication, Jessica Stroja and Dianne Waters, 9 July 2017.
Rentschler, ‘Museum marketing’, 15.
Teresa Bulger, ‘Personalising the past: Heritage work at the Museum of African American History, Nantucket’, International Journal of Heritage Studies 17(2) (2011), 136.
Ritchie, Doing oral history, second edition p. 46.
ibid., p. 30; Louise Starrm, ‘Oral history’, in David Dunaway and Willa Baum (eds), Oral history: An interdisciplinary anthology, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 1996), 40–1.
Welsh, ‘Re-configuring museums’, 106.
Mary Brown, interviewed by Jessica Stroja, 8 June 2013, Ormiston, Queensland.
Donald Ritchie, Doing oral history, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 249.
Pam Burnett in ‘Historic Ormiston House visitor book, 2015–2017’, Historic Ormiston House Research Library.
Margaret Milton in ‘Historic Ormiston House visitor book, 2015–2017’, Historic Ormiston House Research Library.
Everett and Barrett, ‘Benefits visitors derive from sustained engagement’, 431; Onciul, ‘Community engagement, curatorial practice’, 92; Bulger, ‘Personalising the past’, 139.
Susan Bell in ‘Historic Ormiston House visitor book, 2015–17, Historic Ormiston House Research Library.
‘Historic Ormiston House visitor book, 1998–2007’, Historic Ormiston House Research Library.
Everett and Barrett, ‘Benefits visitors derive from sustained engagement’, 431; Bulger, ‘Personalising the past’, 139.
While some of these benefits are clearly limited to those within the identified project cohort, the oral history process and outcomes of oral history projects can still provide benefits to other members of the public. At Historic Ormiston House, additional oral history projects are currently underway to engage with a wider cohort using the methods discussed in this case study, including a project that involves volunteers — both past and present — at Ormiston House.
Barbara Little and Paul Shackel, Archaeology, heritage and civic engagement: Working towards the public good (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2014), p. 131; Black, ‘Embedding civil engagement’, 129.
Little and Shackel, Archaeology, heritage and civic engagement, p. 131.
