{"id":191,"date":"2024-02-02T09:20:39","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T09:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumemotion.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=191"},"modified":"2024-02-02T10:23:26","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T10:23:26","slug":"project-launch-reflections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumemotion.stir.ac.uk\/?p=191","title":{"rendered":"Project Launch: Reflections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We are thrilled that our Royal Society of Edinburgh workshop grant has now officially started, running for 12-months from 1 February 2024. Over the past few months, we have been busy organising our workshops. This has already provided vital opportunity to connect and speak with a diverse range of scholars and museum and heritage practitioners interested in emotions in museum work. In addition to conversations, we have been taking opportunities to co-develop our thinking together through presentations (including this<\/a> forthcoming talk at the University of Stirling) and writing plans (watch this space!). In this short blog post, we reflect on where we have come from and how this is shaping the next steps we take into this area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is surprising us most about this topic so far?<\/strong>
So far it is the amount of interest that it is prompting from museum and heritage professionals. It feels like such an important moment to be trying to understand, in a more nuanced way, how emotions are used in museum and heritage practice. There seems to be a real desire for developing understandings grounded in experience, with view of how such work can be better acknowledged and supported. Another surprise for us has been the huge variety of important issues this topic could potentially connect with \u2013 for instance, from supporting fair working in the museum, heritage and cultural industries, to working with traumatic or difficult histories, to emotions in specific areas such as front of house work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we think is missing from wider discussion?<\/strong>
The \u2018so what?\u2019, \u2018what now?\u2019 and \u2018why now?\u2019 questions are missing, we think. We notice growing concern with emotions in museum work, evidenced through sector surveys, networks, and policies. But why this concern now<\/em>? What is unique about how emotions are experienced or being used in current social, economic, political and or environmental contexts? Additionally, while the wellbeing impact must remain central, focused typically on (what we have thought of as being) especially intense emotional moments, we think we also need rigorous understanding of how emotions as a form of \u2018tacit knowledge\u2019 are being used, and used on a more everyday and even perhaps mundane basis, to inform and shape work activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there anything we have read from wider academic literature that has especially helped shape our thoughts or approach to this topic so far?<\/strong>
Recently we have been inspired by Robert Janes and his new book<\/a> on museums as \u2018lifeboat\u2019. Janes argues that the whole person is required in the workplace in order to engage in the kind of work that\u2019s needed to support society. We think this is a really interesting idea. If the whole \u2018personhood\u2019 is needed in work settings, this means that emotions are an integral part of that. We need to think more about what the implications of this are. Jennie has also recently started reading Flourishing in Museums<\/a><\/em> edited by Kiersten Latham and Brenda Cowan which inspires both for bringing attention to more positive emotions in museum work but also for seeing the museum as an \u2018ecosystem\u2019 that \u2013 to flourish in healthy ways \u2013 requires acknowledging all work, all people and, we would add, all emotional labour!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What directions are emerging for the \u2018next steps\u2019 for this collaboration? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crux of this collaboration has been co-developing ideas and directions through ongoing discussion. We think that an important next step is to delve more deeply into exploring possible conceptual framings for this work. From \u2018affective practices\u2019 to theories of care and the \u2018emotional turn\u2019 in museum and heritage studies, these all hold huge possibilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna and Jennie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are thrilled that our Royal Society of Edinburgh workshop grant has now officially started, running for 12-months from 1 February 2024. Over the past few months, we have been busy organising our workshops. This has already provided vital opportunity to connect and speak with a diverse range of scholars and museum and heritage practitioners<\/p>\n

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