Conceived, Imagined, Lived: Bringing a Theory of Racialized Spaces to the Children’s Museum

• In Event: Critical Theories of Children's Museums: Unforgetting Institutional Harms and Imagining Equitable Futures

Abstract

Purpose: Children’s museums aim to share their playful, educational programs and exhibits with ever-wider segments of their communities. Simultaneously, children’s museums strive to set themselves apart from other institutions (Russell et al., 2013). They also operate within and against the backdrop of a society that continues to organize itself around racialized social structures which shape the life chances of children in unequal ways (Bonilla-Silva, 2021). The purpose of this paper is to examine how children’s museums engage in the production of space, and how that space carries content about childhood, families, and learning, as well as about race, power, and social relations in places of informal learning. Doing so may equip us to imagine a future where children’s museums function as spaces of justice for all children and families.

Theoretical framework: Museums of all types do their work in a society that is organized around a persistent racial hierarchy. Tuttle (2022) marries Lefebvre’s (1991) tripartite theory of the production of space with Bonilla-Silva's (2021) theory of racialized social structures to suggest that the physical, mental, and social aspects of public space are a part of racialized social structures. Racial meaning is ascribed to spaces/places in the same ways that individual bodies are given meaning (Bonilla-Silva, 2021). Expanding on Lefebvre’s framework of the physical, mental, and social space, this paper applies Tuttle’s theory of the racialization of space to the practices, experiences, and material realities of children’s museums.

Modes of Inquiry/Data: Based on the multiple dimensions of Tuttle’s (2022) framework, this paper presents a collage of case studies and data sources which speak to the physical, mental, and social aspects of the racialized production of space. First, spatial analysis examines how the location of one children’s museum is coded as white through its relationship to the racial geography of its home city. Second, content analysis of signage and membership materials from multiple museums highlights the implicit limitations on who can play–and play freely. Finally, an autoethnographic incident from the author’s practice as a museum educator demonstrates how the social aspect of space at a pretend-play exhibit permitted a white woman to express racial animus toward a Black child.

Conclusions: Together, the analyses presented in this paper suggest that children’s museums are racialized as white through the nature of their physical geographies, the symbolism that organizes the museum experience, and the social relations that are enabled within the museum. Examining children’s museums as racialized spaces challenges us to consider a future in which children’s museums are conceived, imagined, and lived (Lefebvre, 1991; MacLeod, 2021) in ways that resist racial hierarchy and truly support the full life of every child and family. Tuttle (2022) argues that the production of space can either “oppress or empower, perpetuate racism or allow for respite and solidarity” (p.1530). Applying this framework to children’s museums challenges us to radically imagine how we embody, think about, and act within the children’s museum to create more just futures in and through these institutions.

Author

• Tarah Connolly, University of Wisconsin - Madison