Museums and the Visually Impaired
The Spatial Politics of Access
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3364009 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kevin Hetherington (Lancaster University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2000 |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 444-463 |
| Publication date | 2000-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-954x.00225 |
| OpenAlex | W2073952895 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 23 |
| References cited | 8 |
Based on a study of 36 museums in London and the South East of England, the paper offers a deconstructive reading of 'access' and its spatial practices by analysing their responses to the visually impaired visitor. Within any discursive space we find aporial, non-discursive moments that introduce ambivalence into an otherwise seemingly ordered and known arrangement. Such forms of presence have been described, amongst other things, under the heading of the figural (Lyotard). In the discursive space of the museum, a space of seeing and conservation, the visually impaired visitor figure tacks its way into the museum as such a figure that we can call (after Mark C. Taylor) an underdetermined not. Through such a figure we can consider the (dis)ordering effects that this ambivalent form of presence can have. The study reveals how such a figure not only introduces a problem of access but is also mobilised by the museum so that access can be addressed as a museum issue. Museums have changed from previously being indifferent to dis/ability needs to now existing in a state of being in-difference with them. This idea reveals the way in which museums shift the (often haptic) challenge that such a figure makes to the (scopic) signifiers of the museum by responding to them through the less troublesome regimes of what is signified. Access in this case is neither granted nor denied but endlessly deferred
Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Art · Linguistics · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Reading (process) · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Visitor pattern · Visual arts · Computer Science · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Spatial and Cultural Studies
Making Sense of Things
The Art Gallery and its Audience
When a bus met a museum
Dumbing down intellectual culture
Accountability and disposal
Objects, subjects, bits and bytes
Improving accessibility to cultural heritage for people with intellectual disabilities
Desarrollo de una Réplica Táctil Para Experiencias Inclusivas de Artefactos Religiosos
Development of a Touchable Replica for Inclusive Experiences of Religious Artifacts
Virtual Museums as Meaning-Modeling Systems in Digital Heritage
Wearing
Doing Dis/ordered Mappings
Enhancing the entertainment experience of blind and low‐vision theatregoers through touch tours
Designing 3-D Prints for Blind and Partially Sighted Audiences in Museums
The Unsightly
Design and evaluation of smart-exhibit systems that enrich cultural heritage experiences for the visually impaired
Whose culture is it anyway? Perceptions of accessibility in museums by professionals working with people with intellectual disabilities in Greece
Articulating Blind Touch
Don't Touch! Hands Off! Art, Blindness and the Conservation of Expertise
Spatial Textures
Rehabilitating unauthorised touchorwhy museum visitors touch the exhibits
Objects, Words, and Bodies in Space
Manchester's Urbis
| Unique citing works | 23 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,96 |
| Citation span | 2002 - 2025 (24) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 18 |