Anna Lindh Foundation

Diversity and Inclusion in European Museums - a report in collaboration with Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO)

Diversity and Inclusion in European Museums - a report in collaboration with Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO)

The Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO) collaborated with its Learning Museum Group (LEM) members to report on what Diversity and Inclusion looks like in their organisations. The author of this report is also a member of the Irish Anna Lindh Foundation (and co-chair) who works in the Chester Beatty museum, Dublin.

What is NEMO?

NEMO empowers museums to foster inclusion, equity, diversity, and wellbeing. They provide tools, good practices, and guidelines for engaging diverse communities, while also advocating for museums as safer spaces where historically underrepresented groups are recognised and can connect to discuss their challenges.

The Chester Beatty

The Chester Beatty is the pre-eminent Irish museum promoting the appreciation and understanding of world cultures with holdings of manuscripts, rare books, and other treasures from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. An engaging and welcoming space, visitors from Ireland and overseas will find permanent and temporary displays, an intercultural learning programme and a broad variety of public activities for all ages and backgrounds.

Diversity and Inclusion report

This report was commissioned by the NEMO Working group LEM with a specific focus on diversity and inclusion in museums. It is an attempt to capture the richness and variety of theories and practices that exist in this broad subject area. The report draws primarily on the content provided by members of the NEMO Network and the Working Group LEM.

Currently museums in Europe face multiple challenges in a rapidly changing world; from climate change, decolonisation to cost of living crisis, challenged democracies as well as recovery from the recent Covid-19 pandemic. The sector is being asked to consider diversity and inclusion in both policy and practice.  The report looks at definitions of diversity and inclusion with a survey shared among LEM members. It captures an idea of what this work looks like across the membership of approximately 80. Themes that reflect diversity and inclusion in museums were based on definitions from the European Platform of diversity charter created in 2010 as well as the International Council for Museums (ICOM) International Museum Day celebrations in 2020.

Both the European Platform of Diversity Charter and ICOM define this important work as follows: ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and identity, socioeconomic background, educational level, physical ability, political affiliation and religious beliefs.  Case studies were submitted by members of LEM and they provide insight to the broad range of work and activities supporting diversity and inclusion. There are examples from two members of the Irish Anna Lindh Network - the Chester Beatty and Dublin City Interfaith Forum on their collaboration Faiths in Focus, an interfaith dialogue project looking at how museum collections can support community members of diverse faiths.

The report provides 'spotlights' on inclusive language by a member of Museum Detox UK as well as an interview with Shivan Shazad, Diversity and Inclusion Manager in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. There is a number of recommendations in the conclusion as well as bibliography for further reading.

You can access the report for further reading

Documents

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