Abstract
In recent years, there has been a growing body of research on young people’s museum learning and participation. Notwithstanding, evidence confirms that younger generations show low interest in museums and perceive them as being didactic, boring, or preoccupied with the past. My paper focuses on the limits and possibilities of inclusive heritage learning in this multidisciplinary and tensional intersection that can be called “youth work of museums.” Funded by The Centre of Arts and Learning at Goldsmiths University of London, my doctoral qualitative research draws from ethnographic methods and two case studies in England to explore whether engagement with heritage in museums matters to those young people living in socially disadvantaged circumstances. The power relations that interplay in the interconnections of museums with youth on the margins of society tend to categorise them into a homogenised subordinated group. An inclusive museum has to acknowledge risks and substitute transmission pedagogies that normalise power-saturated relations and identity fallacies for a more integrated and embodied experiences of heritage as both learning and social practice. Informed by discourses of reflexive modernisation and governmentality, the paper emphasizes the civic role of museums as public institutions within risk society, as complicated by the ways in which culture and heritage are used to differentiate young people into social categories. I argue for a utopian approach in the contemporary museum that activates and recognises the contribution of young visitors to shape inclusive and accessible ways of sharing heritage within, between and beyond the confines of museum spaces.
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