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Foreword. Forty years of the ICOFOM Study Series

Karen Brown et Bruno Brulon Soares
p. 5-6
Traduction(s) :
Avant-propos. Quarante ans de série d’études ICOFOM [fr]
Prefacio. Cuarenta años de la serie de estudios ICOFOM [es]

Texte intégral

1Over the past few years, a lot has changed in the ICOFOM publication realm. Not only has our editorial line expanded and diversified, but it was also marked by critical reflections involving the scope and politics behind museological knowledge produced and circulated in the present world. While recognising our traditions and legacies, the International Committee for Museology embraced the cause for decolonising museology, and through this journey it pursued its own decolonisation. Our main serial publication, the ICOFOM Study Series (ISS), a recognised academic journal first issued exactly forty years ago in 1983, has also felt the effects of such a ‘decolonial’ and reflexive turn.

2As a publication that reflects ICOFOM’s ongoing discussions, including its international exchanges in symposia, the ISS was challenged to diversify the voices in its scope, by considering the geographical distribution of authors, editors, and peer-reviewers, as well as gender representation and a more spread-out diversity of languages within the three official languages of ICOM. Moreover, we have worked to honour the global scope of this journal by encouraging the publication of authors from regions underrepresented in previous issues and in other museology publications. The work of including new voices and recognising a broader diversity of museology is an ongoing one, and it involves some ongoing challenges.

3As part of our mission to open up museological thinking to new visions and approaches, this issue of ICOFOM Study Series is the first open invitation to authors all around the world to publish articles on the topics of their choice and to consider the challenges and reflections indigenous to their own professional and analytical contexts. For the past four decades, since the first ISS was published, the issues in this journal have usually been the result of symposium papers or of previously established topics of discussion in which authors were invited to engage in a global dialogue. This is a fruitful methodology established to engage different thinkers in a common, usually provocative, topic of debate, and we will continue to use it in most issues to come. But in the 40th anniversary of this resilient publication, it was our intention to leave the door open for what is out there in the museological realm, in the hope of being surprised by new approaches.

4The articles present in this issue represent some of the voices of that new, engaged generation of thinkers, including some established academics and the perspectives of PhD candidates or young doctoral graduates who have refreshing views on matters of museology and museum theory. Some of them call attention to the different understandings and dialogic challenges for museologies stemming from radically different contexts of analysis and disciplinary backgrounds. Some interdisciplinary approaches are also questioning what are the limits for a museological debate when themes and case studies can be conceived from different fields of knowledge. It was not our goal to map all the diversity of museological thinking out there. Rather, it was to allow our readers to get a glimpse of an emerging, up-to-date museology, and to invite them to stay attuned to what lies ahead in the next forty years and beyond.

5Looking forwards, the ISS intends to continue to produce special themed issues, with occasional Open Calls. It is currently working in close collaboration with the regional committees, ICOFOM ASPAC and ICOFOM LAC, to define museological priorities for the years ahead, including the role of museological issues in the climate crisis, diversity and inclusion, and the role of museums and the digital in (post-)pandemic recovery. While we have no crystal ball to predict the critical issues of the future, we are also prioritising the role of youth and young professionals’ engagement in museum and heritage spaces in the years ahead.

6This issue was put together thanks to the work of the volunteers on our Editorial Board, whose names appear at the beginning of the issue, the nineteen peer reviewers who graciously volunteered their expertise to review articles, and our editorial team, including Elizabeth Weiser, our managing editor; Allison Daniel, our editorial coordinator; and Walissa Picard and Ana Sol González Rueda, our French and Spanish proof readers.

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Référence papier

Karen Brown et Bruno Brulon Soares, « Foreword. Forty years of the ICOFOM Study Series »ICOFOM Study Series, 50-2 | 2023, 5-6.

Référence électronique

Karen Brown et Bruno Brulon Soares, « Foreword. Forty years of the ICOFOM Study Series »ICOFOM Study Series [En ligne], 50-2 | 2023, mis en ligne le 30 mai 2023, consulté le 23 avril 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/iss/4355 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/iss.4355

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Auteurs

Karen Brown

Chair, ICOFOM
University of St. Andrews, Scotland

Bruno Brulon Soares

Immediate Past Chair, ICOFOM
University of St. Andrews, Scotland

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