Maintained by communities and utilising participative and collaborative methods, community museums (közösségi múzeum) are institutions whose goal is, on the one hand, to empower, sustain, and self-represent communities, and on the other, to fulfil the function of the museum. Besides the community museum narrative, this article discusses other equally important practices that are often omitted from the dominant discourse, thereby investigating a broad spectrum of museological issues posed by community museums.

 
 
Although academic discourse does not categorise participatory community museums, two fundamental tendencies are generally quite discernible, represented respectively by community museums that prioritise the museum’s functions, and those that prioritise the community itself. This divergence probably stems from different interpretations of the concepts of community and new museology. Focused on the crisis of representation, new museology, as conceptualised by art historian Peter Vergo (Vergo 1989) was founded on the social criticism of the 1960s and the South American new museology movement of the 1970s. By the 1980s, a critical discourse emerged within the English-speaking context, with a primary focus on the crisis of anthropology as both practice and institution, the distance between researchers and source communities, activism and science, and related representational issues and dilemmas. It was, inter alia, this tendency that brought about the idea of the museum as a democratic forum and social institution, a consequence of which was the establishment of social museums. The Santiago de Chile (1972) and Quebec (1984) declarations by MINOM-ICOM had a profound impact on the museology of South America and played an important part in the metamorphosis of many museums in the region into a means of serving the local community (Wilhelm 2013). The museological discourse focusing on the social and activist role of museums has since been termed sociomuseology or public museology. This mentality is particularly important in the community museum practice of South America and Portugal (Moutinho 2016).
 
 
Related terms and practices
 
The variety in the interpretation of the term community has been an important driver for the development and diversification of community museums. The concept has no consensual definition in cultural anthropology and sociology; its usage is culturally and historically determined. Therefore, the museum that is sustained by a community has different connotations in every country, culture, or era. Additionally, in the legal and cultural policy discourses, which have a significant impact on the relationship between museums and communities, there is a lack of scholarly reflection on the term, and it is mostly used in a way that serves the interest of those in power.  

Elian Hooper-Greenhill called attention to the importance of refining the idea of the public as envisaged and addressed by museums, since the interpretation of collective social meanings is highly dependent on one’s interpretative community, and the way an institution imagines communities and works within, for, with, and through them has a direct impact on its daily operation (Hooper-Greenhill 2003). Hooper-Greenhill’s was a fundamentally scholarly proposition that had no effect on the political and cultural policy discourse – a typical scenario in the case of most academic topics.
 
If we look at the different ways in which new museology has evolved in the English-speaking, South American and Portuguese contexts and their different (cultural and scholarly) interpretations of the term ‘community’, then we can distinguish between two main tendencies in community museum practice. In South America and Portugal, community museums are institutions whose fundamental task is to develop, maintain, and represent local communities. In the English-speaking world, the definition of the community museum is more museum-focused: it is understood as an institution displaying local culture, history, and heritage, operated by the local community. While one interpretation prioritises the community, the other prioritises the museum.
 
Besides new museology and the diverse interpretations of ‘community’, the legacy of colonialism has also had an impact on the development of different institutional forms. Museums in countries with a colonial past (New Guinea, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, etc.) are more likely to define their communities against or in opposition to something (majority, oppressive society, hierarchy, colonial powers, etc.), therefore the community museum also takes on an activist role. Where opposition to power and oppression is not so dominant, community museums are rather focused on self-representation, setting themselves more museum-like objectives, such as research, acquisition, preservation, and exhibition. There are also institutions that, much like community museums, have a bottom-up structure and strive to preserve and display local heritage, strengthening local communities through this heritage,  such as the German Heimatmuseum (Davis 1999; Roth 1990) or the French écomusée, both of which are often referred to as precursors of British community museums. Critiques of these museum types, however, call attention to the fact that representation in these cases is often put to the service of nationalist, authoritarian, or cultural policy interests, which also calls into question the bottom-up organisation of such institutions.  

The écomusée (ecomuseum) was born of the idea that cultural identity is closely related to cultural property (patrimoine culturel), and that whoever is the keeper of these identity-shaping goods (a museum, for example) is vested with authority. In the 1970s and 1980s, international cultural heritage organisations like UNESCO and ICOM declared that museum objects should be handled within the social, economic, cultural, and anthropological context of their source communities, and that the job of museums was to serve society. The écomusée was one of the numerous responses to this claim.  

The first ecomuseums were established in France by Georges-Henri Rivière and Hugues de Varine. Embedded in an ecological way of thinking, they are museums with a holistic view in relation to local communities, identity, and cultural heritage (Davis 1999: 90–111). Their aim is to provide interpretations of community and identity with respect to local needs. Both the concept and practice of the ecomuseum have changed a lot in recent decades, and have had a significant influence on the museum practice of other countries, such as the German Heimatmuseum and the British community museum (Davis 1999: 115‒142).
 
Beyond transforming institutions, the idea of the community museum is also a useful tool for reconsidering and refining classic museum methodologies, approaches, or community practices ‒ such as the contact zone, which is one of the most well-known strategies for generating a community around the museum. The audiences involved in a museum’s contact zone project are described by British museum theoretician Sheila Watson as museum communities (Watson 2007). Although these users are in constant interaction and cooperation with the museum, the process does not involve the redefinition of the museum as a tool, a means to achieve something. As a matter of comparison, consider, for example, the collaboration with source communities: here, the goal is to make the institution more accessible, develop the collection, and broaden the utilisation of museum functions. Another such setup involves the museum providing a space for the local community to introduce itself: the emphasis is again on enhancing the accessibility of already existing museum functions (exhibition space, forum, etc.) for a new and different circle of audiences.
 
 
The community museum and its critique
 
According to Sheila Watson’s definition, the community museum is always organised around the preservation of a concrete cultural heritage, its operation is not necessarily lead or supported by professional museologists, and the key role is played by trustees and community members who participate on a voluntary basis. The museum adjusts itself to their needs; it is up to them how the institution and the cultural heritage, which is at the centre of the work process, are managed and developed (Watson 2007).  

In the UK, community museums are often like museums of local history, run by local groups, with predominantly local visitors. Because the institution is used and run by several smaller communities simultaneously, there is an opportunity to conceptualise the museum as a contact zone and realise the ideal of the museum as community space. Museum experts (if they are present) and community members participate in the work process as equals, observing a fair division of labour and a sharing of knowledge, and making all decisions together.
 
The ideal of the community museum requires a community comprised of equal members, yet, as the critique of (mostly British) community museums also emphasises, differences in expertise and wealth can generate hierarchy. This results in conflict (or ambivalence) if the group of trustees prioritises conformity with current professional trends so that the institution can become part of the mainstream museum discourse. Experts working in community museums do find professional development very important, but they consider democratic, non-hierarchical cooperation with the community to be their priority and therefore they often pass on the right to make decisions to community members. It is in the community’s interest to display and pass on their heritage, but (actual or attempted) alignment with trends, considered so important by trustees, does not take centre stage in their decisions. The last word, however, always belongs to the trustees (and the sponsors they represent), undermining the interests of both community members and museum professionals. Divergent, contradictory interests and resulting ambivalences and conflicts are some of the most often voiced criticisms with regard to community museums. Let us not forget, however, that neither trustees, nor museum professionals or communities form homogenous units: their decisions and actions are influenced by personal interests and priorities, which can become part of the decision-making mechanism.  

In the South American context, community museums within the new museology practice take a rather different shape: here, the institution’s pedagogical functions are used much more pronouncedly. Museums are run by local communities, whose goal is not so much to represent local identity, but rather to preserve and invigorate it, while enforcing and emancipating local interests. Instead of the role played by the institution within the scientific context, South American (and Portuguese) community museums focus on the community itself. It is somewhat paradoxical that this originally Western institution, often so alien to local culture, becomes the tool for the self-representation and empowerment of marginalised and socially excluded groups. The European museum prototype, a legacy of colonial times, has been taken over by the source community, who have realised that the institution can function as a useful tool in showcasing identities and preserving culture (Kreps 2003). The simultaneous presence of the colonial past, the complex cultural (material and immaterial) heritage, the opposition to the oppressor, and the museum’s pedagogical functions have led to hybridisation and a new type of community museum. The difference between these museums and their former, colonial counterparts is that they adopt local knowledge and experience ‒ as also stated by Alpha Konare, former president of ICOM and former governor of Mali (Kreps 2003: 42‒43). However, it usually takes decades for these museums, as hybrid institutions, to become the means of sustaining local communities and identities, as they need time to make the local population open to the Western museum type (in other words, to turn them museum-minded). At the same time, the museum also needs to develop a flexibility, willingness, and openness towards the local culture (Kreps 2003: 20‒34). As a result of hybridisation, community museums become embedded in local society, and become important agents not only of preserving and passing on local culture, but also of lobbying for the rights of local people (Kreps 2003; Simpson 2005).
 
British and South American/Portuguese community museums are, however, not two completely separate entities, but rather prototypes with several hybrid, in-between forms. Participation and collaboration play a key role in establishing these hybrid practices.
 
 
Community and professional museums 
 
The community museum discourse raises several questions about the relationship between museology and social responsibility. Who, for example, is the ‘owner’ of the museum? What effect does this ownership have on the museum narrative? Who exactly does the museum’s social responsibility involve? Who should a museum represent, protect, and address; whose voice should it amplify? Which institutional strategy is the most effective in representing communities: grassroots self-sustenance or top-down support? What strategies can be applied to counter the segregating effect of the museum (be it a bottom-up or top-down, a spontaneous or consciously planned format)?  

Community museums usually think of themselves as a means to achieve something. What the museum is used for ‒ creating or sustaining communities, preserving heritage, emancipation, etc. ‒ is largely determined by the dominant discourse surrounding the institution and its community, and by the ‘owner’ of the museum. Whose language does the museum speak and who decides about this? All these divergent perspectives contribute to the unique and complex form of the community museum, and the multifaceted institutional roles it can play in its social responsibility and participative practices.
 
Because of its intensely adaptive setup, the community museum offers an alternative mode of institutional operation: it can serve radical museological and educational needs that the dominant museum discourse and operational structure only cater for under special circumstances ‒ such as in a pop up or experimental lab gallery. Community museums strive to discuss culturally sensitive topics in a deep, even radical manner, to realise participation and collaboration as basic principles, and to turn responsibility and representation into action.
 
However, even community museums cannot avoid the dichotomy of integration/segregation that also characterises the participatory projects of disciplinary, professional museums (Ames 1994). This is, on the one hand, due to the hybridisation process where communities shape the museum according to their own needs, but at the same time, exclude other communities and social classes from using and understanding what is on display. On the other hand, even bottom-up museums are unable to address, exhibit, and represent everyone simultaneously: the totality of the public, the involvement of society as a whole remains an illusion. A related sceptical remark by Sheila Watson questions the sustainability of the conceptual framework and operational mode in the case of both community museums and museum communities. In her critique, she claims that increased mobility and the fragmentation, mutability, and dynamism of communities is in stark opposition to the slow pace, constancy, and large scale of the museum as an institution. Is it possible that collective thinking about the community and the museum was only possible in the context of communities in the ‘classical’ sense of the word (Watson 2004: 18‒19)?
 
Are community museums sustainable in the long run? Or do they become irrelevant and obsolete as soon as they achieve their goal and acquire adequate cultural rights for the community they represent? Can a community museum lose its characteristics and become a professional, disciplinary museum? Maybe it is best to ponder these questions with the multitude of in-between and hybrid forms in mind, considering the wide spectrum between the idea of the community museum and the professional/disciplinary museum. Here, individual elements might become hybridised, but the hierarchy between the endpoints remains stable, yet they still have an impact on each other, resulting in a mix of elements, methods, and forms, and a dialogue between different approaches. Participation and collaboration are fundamental in this process, just as they are indispensable for the operation of community museums. At the same time, the idea of participative collaboration and of community museums in general can also aid professional institutions in developing and using a democratic concept of the museum and its collections ‒ a concept that is inherent to community museums. Constant interaction, experimentation, openness, the emergence of hybrid forms: these are some of the definitive issues that contemporary museums have to face on their paths of transformation. Together with the similarly contradictory heritage discourse, a critical approach to community museums is one of the most important terrains where these thought processes can unfold.
 
Hannah Daisy Foster