Museum People: Towards a critical history of museum professionalisation

This article reconceptualises the historical study of museum professionalisation by brings sociological ideals of professionalism and professional identity into new dialogue with everyday practices of museum labour. It offers methodological intervention into the study of the lives museum professionals, examining the conditions of written archives, visual culture, professional literature, oral history, diaries and memoirs for understanding museum people over time. Reading these sources as evidence of professionalisation and as active agents in constituting museum roles, careers and training, we promote expanded histories of museum professionalisation and expanded definitions of museum people. We argue that critical histories of museums must account for the hierarchy and exclusions that have defined ‘museum professionals’, the processes of standardisation and codification that have constructed notions of museum expertise, and the emotions, resistance and everyday realities that condition museum work.