Description
Museums and Societal Collapse explores the implications of societal collapse from a multidisciplinary perspective and considers the potential museums have to contribute to the reimagining and transitioning of a new society with the threat of collapse.
Arguing that societal collapse is underway, but that total collapse is not inevitable, Janes maintains that museums are well-positioned to mitigate and adapt to the disruptions of societal collapse. As institutions of the commons, belonging to and affecting the public at large, he contends that museums are both responsible and capable of contributing to the durability and well-being of individuals, families, and communities, and enhancing societal resilience in the face of critical issues confronting our species. Within the pages of this groundbreaking book, Janes demonstrates how museums and their staff, as key civic resources with ethical responsibilities, can examine the meaning and value of their work, how that work is organized and managed, and to what end. This is a call to action, demonstrating how museums can move the conversation about collapse into society at large.
Museums and Societal Collapse will be essential reading for museum professionals working in museums and galleries, as well as for cultural and civil society organizations around the world. It will also be an essential reading for academics and students of Museum and Heritage Studies, Gallery Studies, Heritage Management, and Arts Management.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Ronald Wright
Introduction
1. Harbingers of collapse
Civilizational overshoot
Ecological overshoot
Climate trauma
Political incompetence and corporate deceit
Blundering hubris – ecomodernism
The madness of humanity
2. The anatomy of collapse
Global scenarios
The five stages of scietal collapse
The truth hurts
3. The myth of sustainability
Curse of the baby boomers
Energy blindness
Clean technology?
Child servitude
The UN’s unsustainable development goals
Comfort or contraction?
Beyond green
4. Why museums?
Civil society and social capital
Branding adaptation
The ethical obligations of museums
Fragmentation is good and bad
A new narrative
5. The museum as lifeboat
Adaptation or a litany of sorrows?
The four questions
Hopeless but not helpless
6. Afterthoughts
Needed: new institutions
Hospicing museums: an alternative
The small picture
The big picture
Calling all museum people
7. Coda
Indivisible benefits
Who will steward the future?
