How visitors relate to the Egyptian and Te Papa Museums: the other roles of traditional and modern museums

Abstract

The roles of traditional and modern museums have been scrutinised theoretically in museum studies, critical theory, cultural studies and other academic disciplines, but there is a lack of empirical insights into their actual functioning from the visitor’s perspective. The claims to simplify and reduce the functions of traditional and modern museums to either educational experiences and preservations or fun learning experiences, attests to the fallacy in the field. In order to offer an empirical interrogation of the other roles of traditional and modern museums, we need to answer the questions of why people go to traditional and modern museums, and what experiences they take from the museums. Buried within the construct we call the museum visitor’s motive and experience lie answers to fundamental questions about the other roles of traditional and modern museums and the differences and similarities between each type of museum. By drawing on the results of qualitative research that examined the visitor’s motive and overall experience at two different museums, this thesis found that the nexus between the physical and personal contexts and the physical and social contexts reveals different roles of the museum to different visitor types. It is found that although The Egyptian and Te Papa Museums exist at different levels or scales, there are more similarities than differences between the functions of the two institutions from the perspective of visitors. The roles of each type of museum are much wider than educating the public, displaying original artefacts in locked glass cabinets, vying with shopping malls, and providing infotainment and leisure for families on a Sunday afternoon. Both museums are important sites for: learning; social interactions; remembering historical and personal events; connecting visitors with the familiar and reinforcing their pre-existing knowledge; and settings for aesthetic, recreational and restful experiences. In this regard, there is no apparent conflict between The Egyptian and Te Papa Museums in relation to different visitors. Behind the obvious similarities between the two museums lies glaring differences between international and domestic participants at each site. Accordingly, this research splits the visitors at each site into two groups: domestic and international.