Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics is a theoretically informed
reconceptualization of museum ethics discourse as a dynamic social
practice central to the project of creating change in the museum.
Through twenty-seven chapters by an international and interdisciplinary
group of academics and practitioners it explores contemporary museum
ethics as an opportunity for growth, rather than a burden of compliance.
The volume represents diverse strands in museum activity from
exhibitions to marketing, as ethics is embedded in all areas of the
museum sector. What the contributions share is an understanding of the
contingent nature of museum ethics in the twenty-first century--its
relations with complex economic, social, political and technological
forces and its fluid ever-shifting sensibility.
The volume examines contemporary museum ethics through the prism of
those disciplines and methods that have shaped it most. It argues for a
museum ethics discourse defined by social responsibility, radical
transparency and shared guardianship of heritage. And it demonstrates
the moral agency of museums: the concept that museum ethics is more than
the personal and professional ethics of individuals and concerns the
capacity of institutions to generate self-reflective and activist
practice.