CAPÍTULO II MARCO TEÓRICO
NCUESTA CONTESTADA POR LOS DOCENTES DE LA ESCUELA ISAAC ACOSTA DE LA CIUDAD DE TULCÁN (Ver anexo 1)
The findings of the author’s survey suggest that many museums viewed the creation of a sporting exhibition as an opportunity to create new partnerships. The National Museums Directors Conference (NMDC) undertook research in 2008/9 to establish exactly what museum partnerships were, why they were important to museums, and how they could be better supported in future.55 The results of the research demonstrate that partnerships are vital to the development of museums in England by increasing investment into the sector, widening the understanding of museum professionals on a broad range of subjects, and supporting collections loans across
52 Deaner,R.O., Geary,D.C, Puts,D.A., Ham,S.A.,and Kruger,J ‘A Sex Difference in the Predisposition for
Physical Competition: Males Play Sports Much More than Females Even in the Contemporary U.S’.PLoS ONE 7, no. 11 (2012). Accessed June 1st 2014.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0049168
53 Earnheardt, A., Hadidakis, P., and Hugenberg, B. Sports Fans, Identify and Socialization. Maryland:
Lexington Books. 2012. p.203–205.
54 Hoeber,L., and Kerwin,S. ‘Exploring the experiences of female sport fans: A collaborative self-
ethnography’. Sport Management Review 16 (2013): pp.326–336.
55 National Museums Directors Conference (NMDC). National Museums: Working in Partnership.
London: NMDC. 2009. Accessed June 1st 2013.
http://www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/media/documents/what_we_do_documents/partnerships_report .pdf
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museum organisations. The reasons these three factors are so important to museums is both because of the growing ideological focus of museum profession to ensure greater access to collections for audiences, and also from the pressure applied by cultural policy on museums to engage new and different audiences with their provision, as discussed further in chapters five, six and seven. Consequently, creating new partnerships became a fundamental objective for museums from the late 1990s and was seen by the museum sector as an opportunity to both enhance practice and generate more income.
Thirty-two per cent of respondents to the author’s survey stated that they had chosen to deliver a sporting exhibition with the specific intention of creating new partnerships. For example, the respondent from Surrey Heritage stated that their partnerships were created to enable them to host exhibitions in new venues such as leisure centres and shopping areas and ensure the museum and archive collections reached new audiences as a result.56 Additionally, a representative from the Ironbridge Museums Trust stated that their sporting exhibition in 2012 had allowed them to “build links and relationships with the local community through consultation and focus groups for specific projects and events”.57 They felt that this had had a significant impact on the development of the museum service as a whole and had allowed them to develop new ways of working which involved the community. Finally, Laura Cotton from the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies (CBS) commented that the partnership created by the CBS and disability sports organisations, WheelPower and Accentuate have provided an opportunity to develop a proposal of where and how to house Paralympic sporting collections, with a view to widening this out to include all disability sport.58 By establishing a central holding place for such collections it will support other museum professionals based at museums around the country who wish to develop a sport exhibition to know who to talk to ensure disability sports are represented in their exhibition. These examples suggest that by using sport as a theme, the new
56 Anonymous. Surrey Heritage. Response to the author’s survey. May 12th 2012.
57 Anonymous. Ironbridge Museums Trust. Response to the author’s survey. May 10th 2012.
58 WheelPower is an organisation based at Stoke Mandeville and responsible for the collection, focussed
specifically on supporting and raising awareness of Paralympic sport.
http://www.wheelpower.org.uk/WPower/; Accentuate are the Cultural Olympiad organisation for the South East. Their theme focus is specifically in supporting disability sport and culture.
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partnerships which develop encourage greater community participation in museum development, support better access to collections, and encourage museums to evaluate and enhance their practice.
The case of Toon Times in Newcastle also provides evidence that the use of sport in museums to create new partnerships has the potential to increase revenue to museums. With a specific wish to support greater access to museum collections, Tyne and Wear Museums approached Newcastle United Football Club to work in partnership together.59 The Project Coordinator, Gavin Ferry, asserts that the partnership aims were to uncover the history of the club, improve the knowledge and understanding of the museum collections, work closely with the local community, and increase awareness and participation in both the museums and the football club.60 The partnership successfully secured £50,000 worth of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and £120,000 from the Premier League Community Fund, demonstrating that funding for sport in museum projects is available from both the heritage and sports sectors, providing the aims of the partnership are aligned with the needs of the funders.61 The outcomes of the project included an exhibition about the club but also a reinvigoration of the next generation of supporters. Ferry, believes that the benefits to club, museum, and audiences included more people being involved and interested in the museum and the club, an increased brand profile of both organisations by understanding the clubs heritage and new fans recruited as a result, the ability to embed the club and the museum within the local school education curriculum, and an increased awareness of sporting collections and those who hold them.62 Therefore, the creation of the partnership between the museum and the football club has had a significant effect on both organisations and the general public, with the use of both public and private finances to support the project. It demonstrates that sport in museums has the potential to create increased investment opportunities into the museums sector and support the delivery of cultural policy objectives at the same
59 Ferry, G. Toon Times Project Coordinator. Newcastle United Foundation. Response to the author’s
survey. May 15th 2012. 60 Ibid.
61 The Heritage Lottery Fun is the distribution organisation for the National Lottery to support heritage
projects in the UK; The Premier League Community fund supports communities to address issue concerning education, community cohesion, health and sports participation.
62 Ferry, G. Toon Times Project Coordinator. Newcastle United Foundation. Response to the author’s
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time. Finally, it demonstrates that sport as a topic for museums is relevant to the general public and museums alike by representing previously untold stories of everyday history, and protecting objects and artefacts for future generations. Consequently, the findings outlined above demonstrate that the expectations placed on museums by cultural policy and ideological values to increase audience engagement in museums through new partnerships, has had a direct effect on the use of sport in museums.
Although, the evidence provided so far demonstrates that many museums choose to deliver sporting exhibitions, the findings of the author’s research also establishes that there are a number of barriers which prevent museums from displaying exhibitions about sport. Consequently, the next section will analyse the responses from museum professionals and wider cultural sectors to understand what these barriers are, and why they prevent further development of sport in museums.
4.8 The Barriers to Non-Sport Specific Museum
To identify the barriers which prevent or hinder the further development of sport as a subject matter in non-sport specific museums, the author asked the question “What are the main problems and issues that you currently face in terms of delivering sports heritage research and programming?”63 Of the sixty-one responses, fifty-two people provided an answer to this question which can again be considered to be a significant number and representative of the museum population as a whole. Four of the respondents came from museums outside of England, and although the boundaries of this research are limited to England, the responses were reflective of museum practice in general and have therefore been included in this study. Figure 20 illustrates the barriers identified by museum professionals which prevent them from hosting exhibitions about sport.
63 See appendix II.