Curatorship as Social Practice

This article examines changes that have been taking place in the museum world over the past several decades—changes that have been transforming the social practice of curatorship in museums. We are seeing the emergence of more holistic, integrated and culturally relative approaches to curatorial work that acknowledge the relationships among objects, people, and society, and explore these relationships in social and cultural contexts. Through cross‐cultural comparison, curating can be seen as a form of social practice linked to specific kinds of relationships between people and objects as well as to wider social structures and contexts. This approach allows us to transcend debates over whether or not museums and curatorial work should be either object‐ or people‐focused. One approach cannot be separated from the other.