u/feartransmission

Hi everyone!❤️

I’m a second year PhD student at the University of Westminster, working on a collaborative action research project with National Museums Liverpool here in the UK. I’m looking for a few more participants for a questionnaire that will have a big impact on the in-person work I do with these museums!

My project is about stories of deafness, disability, neurodivergence and mental health and how museums do, or don’t, document this heritage & tell these stories.

(Thank you to everyone who engaged with my post about being a museum PhD student, I connected with some really great people!)

A link to my questionnaire (which includes participant information about how your responses are used, stored, etc. & a more in depth and formal description of the below)

https://westminsterpsych.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV\_eJMfCH5KdSVyjxY

The “what’s this about and who can take part”… part:

Eligibility / who can take part:
I’m looking for museum pros who have experience of working and/or volunteering in the museum and heritage sector, and specifically, anyone with experience of developing interpretation or telling stories. I think of interpretation as being broad & holistic: to me and in the context of my project, I’m thinking about these “storytellers” as people who work in learning & education, engagement, curatorial, exhibitions, communication, digital, visitor experience, etc 😊

Please note: you don't have to have worked with these stories, or with deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent communities to be eligible.
I’m especially interested in people who have not done this work, and there are so many reasons why you might not have: the reasons why people do or don’t do this work are what interests me most!

If you choose to take part, it will take around 15-20 minutes, and you will be asked questions about:

• The wider topic of “broadening representation” (anything to increase the diversity of stories that museums tell

• The questionnaire narrows into asking questions about representations of disability, and whether people working in museums have / haven’t seen these types of stories in collections / displays, and where it was / wasn’t, if they’ve worked with disabled communities in their role, etc. & what support they think they might need to do or continue doing this work.

Why am I doing this work and why would I appreciate your time & support?

I’m a researcher and also a curator of disability history & work directly with museums to tell stories about these communities. Your participation supports my broader PhD project, where I will be developing case studies that support the museum sector to interpret disability heritage in ethical and inclusive ways.

I’m particularly interested in the absences and barriers to doing this work & finding these stories in museum collections, as well as in what is already being done. There is no specific experience or even role necessary- anyone whose job involves a level of communicating the stories of the museum to audiences is encouraged.

Thanks so much for reading! I would LOVE to connect with other disability researchers or disabled museum professionals, please don’t hesitate to reach out ❤️

Link to my questionnaire:

https://westminsterpsych.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV\_eJMfCH5KdSVyjxY

Hey!👋
I get the feeling this is a bit more of a US-based sub but was wondering if anyone else has experienced the same thing: going from actual museum pro to museum adjacent person and wondering if they’re ever going to get a real look in again.🥹

I started in the sector as an assistant curator straight out of my undergrad (UK) as part of a two-year fellowship programme. I followed it with a role as an independent heritage researcher and then as an in-house archivist and project curator for a small local heritage organisation before starting my PhD roughly a year after my fellowship ended.

I worked for a large museum group / conglomerate in England & we leveraged that so that I could run my PhD studies at one of the museums as a partner museum: I work with a similar collection to the one I used to, I do a lot of the same things (documentation, community engagement).

However, I’ve heard from friends in the sector that once you move from museum to academia, it’s really hard to go back… That they’re seen as a researcher now & that it puts their actual hands-on museum skills into question. Is anyone else doing their MA or PhD in something heritage adjacent & wondering how they’re going to … re-translate or sell those skills to show they’re still a /museum pro/ not just a student? 🧑‍🎓

Would love to make some museum pro connections with other people in the same boat or with “patchy” experience dipping in and out of actively working in the sector 🥰💖