The Queer Museum: Radical Inclusion and Western Museology

The Queer Museum examines how relationships between institutions and LGBTQ+ communities function and how they help to define queer museum practice.

Analysing what it means to queer the museum in Western contexts, the book builds upon and challenges texts about inclusionary, activist museum practice and discusses the ways in which Othered communities are engaged with and represented. Arguing that an institution’s understanding of queerness is directly related to the kind, and extent, of change pursued by the museum, the author clarifies that governance structures, staff hierarchies, funding and relationships to queer communities affect the way queering might be pursued. The analysis looks critically at exhibitions and institutions and particularly forefronts the experiences of museum practitioners. It argues that practical changes that positively affect museums’ long-term relationships with marginalised communities are critical. The book also considers the future of the museum by drawing on queer theories of utopia, futurity, failure and amateurism to complicate understandings of the queer museum and its relationship to people and objects.

The Queer Museum will be of interest to students and academics in museum and heritage studies, art history and archival studies. It will also be essential reading for museum and arts sector practitioners who seek to do and engage with this kind of work.

Erica Robenalt (she/her) is a recent graduate from Newcastle University and independent researcher. Her research focuses on intersections between queer theory and museology to better understand the ’queer museum’. Looking at museum exhibitions and programming, community relationships, and institutional identity through the lens of queer utopia and futurity, her work critically engages with inclusivity and social justice oriented museal discourses.