Eithne Nightingale’s article on museums and social justice stimulated my thoughts, but not perhaps in the way she would hope.
I know that the issue is one that has exercised the minds of some sections of the museum world for some time, but I cannot say I am always happy with it.
As a volunteer in a local museum going through challenging times, I have always understood, perhaps naively, that our priorities are the preservation of the cultural artefacts in our care and their use to provide pleasure and perhaps instruction to the community we serve.
Of course, some of the objects we display may very well reflect on and arise out of the inequalities and injustices of the past, and we have to deal with that as fairly and objectively as we can. But to say as Nightingale does that museums should “act as progressive agents of social change” seems to me to subvert the essential role of a museum.
If I wanted to campaign for social justice, political change and all the rest of it, then I think there are many more appropriate organisations that I could join.
Richard Samways, Portland, Dorset
