with scientific methods, many researchers and professionals in the museum and heritage field question today whether museology is a science at all, and what its real value might be.
ment was made (Norway). In fact, opinions are divided. One fraction of muse- um professionals has, since the 1970s, enthusiastically thrown themselves into de facto museological development according to new international, social and museological trends, whether they are aware of it themselves or not (Hofrén et al. 1970; Näsman 2014). But many museum professionals are still so stuck in everyday matters – running the museum, taking care of their collections and perhaps jealously watching their own particular academic field, that there is no time or energy to start analysing, let alone letting anybody else in to analyse, their museum’s doings from a broader, politically-, philosophically- or museo- logically-relevant point of view.
Deeper reasons for this tacit, and sometimes very loudly outspoken resistance to museology and museological research can partly be deduced from the Marx- ist roots of museology, and the fact that it was in the socialist countries that the theoretical development started in the 1960s, paired with French critical intellectualism (Neustupný 1968; Maroevic 1998; Desvallées 1989; Desvallées 1991). As late as 2001, one of the fathers of modern museology, Zbynek Stránský, felt the need to defend museology against conservative detractors in an article entitled Ist Museologie eine kommunistische Wissenschaft? (Is museology a communist science? Stránský, 2001, pp. 2758–2761). The museums of the so- cialist countries were early regarded not only as collecting and research centres, but also as socio-cultural arenas with strong educational, public and democratic objectives. Indirectly, perhaps originally, it all started in Soviet Russia. Here, the museums were already after the Russian Revolution incorporated into the socialist ideologies and ideals of the state, thus gaining an importance as a tool for socialist cultural policy and propaganda (Ananiev 2016). Museums shifted focus to visitors, teaching and learning, all in line with the socialist ideology of offering education to the masses. Hence, the museums’ political and ideological role and importance in society also started to be problematised and, in a Soviet manner, scientified. Already in the post-revolutionary period of the 1920s, there was a lot of activity among Russian scholars and cultural departments, with the aim of starting up research not only in museums, but also on museums (Ananiev 2016, pp. 173–175). Whether the museums in, for example, the Soviet Union really went in for a social dialogue can be debated, but these ambitions have, I think, repercussions in the activities of the museums today all over the world.
However, this early history is only one line of development, and maybe not even a very strong argument against the need for museology, since not many in the West are even aware of these historical socialist roots.
So, where does museology stand today and why are we where we are? What re- sults has the International Committee for Museology (ICOFOM) achieved during its first forty years of existence and of a theoretical museological discussion? In what way has this debate had an impact on how we, in Scandinavia and Finland, conceive museology? Has ICOFOM solved the question of what museology is? A great deal of books and studies (for example, ISS and the ICOFOM Study Series) have dealt with the substance of museology, the foundations and definitions of museology and museums. But before we start scrutinising the schools of
museology in the Nordic countries, let us trace a bit of the history of defining museological education and research. What do we conceive of as our object of study and research? In order to give a background to the statements in Sweden, I have chosen to mention a couple of international definitions.
Between 1979 and 1989 the foundations of museum theory or museology were laid in an intense international collaboration (most significantly within ICOFOM).
Today, although the discussion goes on, there is some kind of an agreement that museology is defined differently and addresses different types of problems in different parts of the world. Many still focus on the museum as a social and political phenomenon and institution, while others go for the broader definition encompassing the totality of heritage and museality, a term used by Zbynek Stránský. Hence, the object study of museology today could be extended, as Thereza Scheiner states, to encompass “the global museum as the planet Earth, the little spaceship on which we live” (Scheiner 2010, p. 98). This would be transcribed to addressing not only objects and collections, museums and their communications, but also nature/ecology (eco-museums and nature reserves), landscapes, the built environment, etc. In short, I would define museology of today as a philosophy of our existential relationship to material and immaterial heritage.
The definition of museology varies from country to country, and from univer- sity to university, even within the same country. In France, the concept of the term has probably been most profoundly scrutinised (Desvallées 1992; Gob
& Drouguet 2003; Desvallées & Mairesse 2011). There, one still distinguishes between on the one hand museographie, which is the same as applied, practi- cal museum knowledge, and on the other hand museologie, which includes a more theoretical-analytical approach. Museology in the latter sense examines what is called museality or the relation spécifique that exists between man and material reality. However, Gob & Drouget (2003, p. 13) interpret museality as equivalent to the French concept of patrimoine, patrimoine culturel or patri- monialité. This, in turn, comes closest to the English term national heritage, or the Swedish cultural heritage.
In Central Europe, as in Eastern Europe, a distinction is made between practi- cal or applied museology (museography, museum technology) and theoretical museology. The object of museological study here is not only the museum, but the aforementioned museum spectrum in the broad sense, that is, the entire cultural heritage. Tomislav Šola, professor emeritus of museology in Zagreb, has questioned the usefulness of the word museology. Instead, he introduced a new international term, heritology or mnemosophy, i.e., heritage science or memory science. He defines it as a kind of cybernetics of cultural heritage (Šola 1997, p.
26, p. 232). Thus, it was mainly in Eastern Europe and France that the concept of museology came to cover cultural heritage in its totality. In the USA, the UK and most of Western Europe, the subject is still defined as museum studies.
The most interesting, and in the long-term, most capable definitions of the museum’s object of study were presented long ago by Zbynek Stránský (1974,
1980) and Anna Gregorová (1980). In their footsteps Friedrich Waidacher, who in his 800-page handbook, Handbuch der Allgemeinen Museologie (1993), tries to settle the definitions once and for all. Many other theological theorists, such as Peter van Mensch (1992), Eileen Hooper-Greenhill (1992) and Susan Pearce (1992) at the University of Leicester follow along these same lines.
Anna Gregorová is perhaps the one who expresses it most distinctively. She first defines the museum: “A museum is an institute in which the specific relation of man to reality is naturally applied and realized.” And then museology:
Museology is a science studying the specific relation of man to reality, consisting of purposeful and systematic collecting and conservation of selected inanimate, material, mobile, and mainly three-dimensional ob- jects documenting the development of nature and society, and making a thorough scientific and cultural-educational use of them (Gregorová 1980, p. 20).
Gregorová finds three problem areas to study:
• The museum’s relation to reality and time (existential and semiotic di- mension)
• The museum’s relation to society (political and cultural dimension)
• The museum’s practical functions (including the museum’s organisation and aims).
All three are considered as optional fields of research for museology. Museology belongs to the humanities, it is a social-scientific discipline, not a discipline dealing only with practical matters (like classical museography and museum techniques), Gregorová states. She concludes that there are two main focus fields for museological studies: the historical sense of man, and material documents regarding the development of nature and society (Gregorová 1980, p. 20).
The French sociologist and museologist Bernard Deloche complemented some of Gregorová’s definitions when speaking about museology as our relation spéci- fique to reality (Deloche 1999). What narrations do we weave into the concept and what actions do we take in this museal reality for communicative, social, political and ideological purposes? Museums are processes, with the aim of making man’s multifaceted relation to reality and history visible. Deloche ends up in stating that museology is a philosophie du muséal (philosophy of the mu- seality), which can be compared with such disciplines as the philosophy of law or political philosophy. As such, it is a metatheory and not a science. In this way museology is, according to Deloche, also contractuelle, a question of agreement among stakeholders on its objectives (Deloche 1999).
The great influence in Scandinavia regarding definitions and demarcation lines was discussed in the initial volumes of two publications series, firstly Museologi- cal Working Papers 1 (MUWOP 1, 1980), the result of a conference in Stockholm with Czech museologist Vinoš Sofka as driving force, and secondly Papers in
Museology 1, published at Umeå University with the pioneer of Swedish muse- ology, Per-Uno Ågren as a driving force (Råberg 1992). Ågren, the founder of museological courses at Umeå University (in 1981), presents a definition that covers musealising processes, the heritagisation of built and natural environ- ments and history:
Museology studies how the museum object is constituted, what values and decisions guide the museum process from selection and collection to viewing and mediation and thus what historical image, cultural perception and natural vision are projected into protected objects and environments:
thus man’s relationship to both his physical environment as its history (Ågren 1993, p. 63).
Museology in Umeå was rooted in the critical French tradition, where it has since remained. Museology today, in Umeå University’s definition, is called cultural heritage science. However, the task of museology may be even wider.
In Friedrich Waidacher’s opinion, museology would be to determine the laws governing man’s relation to reality and uncover the bearers of museality (die Träger de Musealität), i.e., to reveal the secrets between man and his (mainly physical) reality. Waidacher would not have defined museology as a science, but rather as a methodologisch-aktionale Betrachtung. If it is necessary to call museology a science, then, he says, it is a science that seeks to understand man and can contribute to the solution of humanity’s contemporary crisis and par- ticipate in shaping a future for a more humane society (Waidacher 1993). This is a formulation very close to the definition of what philosophy is, which, in turn, brings the objectives of museology perhaps a bit too far.
In my understanding, the definition of museology is a global-diversity problem that cannot be resolved. There are simply different conceptions and ideas of museology in different parts of the world. The only thing we globally have in common is that we all, in one way or another, deal with museums, musealisation and heritage, and scrutinise the role of all this in society. That should be enough, as far as definitions are concerned.