Participation at work in the museum

Openness and inclusiveness toward the public are mandatory aspects of contemporary museums. Museum projects and studies responding to this imperative have been frequent in recent years, but how does participation in museums unfold, and how can external partners’ contributions be evaluated and understood? Based on a practice-led and ethnographic study of a participatory collaborative design process in the Danish Museum of Rock Music,11. As of January 11, 2016, the museum changed it's name to Ragnarock - Museum of Pop, Rock and Youth Culture. I argue that questions of how participation works – rather than how much and what type of participation is accomplished – should be asked when studying and reflexively planning for participatory collaborative processes in museums. Using a descriptive, symmetrical approach inspired by actor-network theory, this study exemplifies how tracing the relations between process and end product (e.g. digital tool or exhibition) reveals the contributions of a participatory process. This approach provides an understanding of participation as something that emerges relationally and sets directions for a museum project.