Understanding community

The significance of museums and heritage is continually debated, and the links made between museums and community in recent years invite us to reconsider the public role of museums, the contribution of museums to social policy, and how museums and heritage actively contribute to group identity and belonging. The concept of community is recurrent in museum policy and planning. In this context, the word ‘community’ is used almost indiscriminately; there is rarely qualification of what the term means and how that community is identified. Advocates promote the links between museums and community as naturally occurring, mutually beneficial, and of value to the sustainability of both. Others, however, question the reality of this idea of community and whether the goal of community could ever bring the benefits its promoters anticipate.