Feeling the Squeeze and Doing It Anyway: Community Engagement in English Museums, 2013 - 2014

Austerity measures put in place by the UK government have been shown to have impacted negatively on England’s museums, with cuts to budgets and service provision, job losses, and closures. Qualitative data collected from museum professionals has illustrated the pain that is being felt by workers and their pessimism about the future. The situation has been described by many as a ‘crisis’. My thesis attempts to take a look behind the statistics and negative press to explore what community engagement practices looked like in museums in England during the cuts in 2013 and 2014. Using qualitative data collected from museum professionals working in a range of roles and museums in England via semi-structured interviews, I argue the cuts have acted as a catalyst that museum professionals are using to develop their practice so community engagement can continue to survive – and thrive – in the current financial climate. Key to the endurance of community engagement practice are museum professionals’ and sector leaders’ strong belief in the social role of museums, partnership working, organisational policies and ethoses that value community engagement, and local and national policies which enable community engagement practice. I use a social-ecological system as a theoretical framework through which to explore and understand my findings, and suggest that resilient community engagement practice is achieved by having the above key factors in place. My conclusion includes potential strategies that could be utilised to ensure community engagement practice in museums continues to be resilient now and in the future.