Policy and Practice
Museum Experience of Visitors with Disabilities: A Case Study in Jordan
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ababneh Abdelkader
Visitors with disabilities are subject to a number of internal and external pressures that are reshaping their experience and the types of barriers confronted by them in museums. This study argues that current heritage and tourism management lacks adequate approaches regarding integration and social inclusion of visitors with disabilities. Very few academic or practice-based studies have been published on visitors with disabilities' museum experiences and none has been conducted in Jordan. This study examines the accessibility and architectural barriers confronted by visitors with physical disabilities in a Jordanian museum. The research question seeks to understand the architectural barriers encountered by visitors with disabilities at the museum. A key focus of the study is on how the museum was designed. Other areas include the impact of accessibility barriers on visitors with disabilities and their visit experience. The study orientation is a qualitative case study. Study material was collected through observations and interviews with people with disabilities, interviews with staff members, observations of museum work, and documentation. Data analysis focuses on generating descriptions and interpretation of the current accessibility situation of visitors with disabilities. Findings reveal that initiative toward inclusion is desired by the museum organization, which is embedded within the work of a broad range of architectural and organizational areas.
Interpretive Threads : The Role of Exhibition Interpretation in Connecting Stories at the Rijksmuseum
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jennifer Locke
In 2013, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam reopened after a ten year renovation that saw its galleries of fine art, history and decorative arts merge and its staffing structure reorganized. The resulting chronological display, produced collaboratively by a range of museum staff, merges historical narratives with the history of fine and decorative art. Key to tying these stories together are the wall texts, information cards and multimedia guides that combine traditionally distinct disciplinary knowledge. Produced by museum interpretation specialists, these resources serve as ‘boundary objects’ that allow many voices to be heard and the past to be more vividly brought into the present. This paper proceeds from the constructionist viewpoint that museum displays are a type of embodied theory – that museums are not merely ‘reflective’, presenting a single truth, but rather utilize displays as a means of representing a particular view or statement of position. This therefore begs the questions: Whose views or theories are presented? Whose voices have been included and whose have been excluded? Based on qualitative interviews with staff and analysis of museum displays, this paper argues that professional social formations within museums affect the production of knowledge - ultimately leading to new ways of understanding and experiencing art and history by both museum visitors and by the wider world.
