Two months ago in Prague, the International Council of Museums adopted a new museum definition—the ninth since ICOM’s founding in 1946. Though ethics and community participation are mentioned for the first time, the definition continues to reinforce the long-standing ideal of a cohesive institution that remains somewhat separate from the public it seeks to serve and improve. But over the past decade, some archivists and museum professionals have started to challenge and reconceptualise the work of GLAM institutions (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) in a more fundamental way. There has been a move beyond consultation and partnerships to more complex relational ways of working, including through lateral networks that disrupt institutional structures and existing models of accountability. In this paper, Dr Mike Jones will use the ICOM definitions as a starting point for a cross-disciplinary exploration of relational GLAM practice. Focusing in particular on the recent history of collecting institutions, he will draw on Indigenous studies, feminist theory, and archival and museological explorations of the ethics of care to trace the emergence of new forms of ethical relationality that could provide valuable models for the future of public humanities work.

Dr Mike Jones is an archivist, historian, and collections consultant. His research explores the history of collections-based knowledge, and the ways in which contemporary technologies and public history initiatives can help to develop and maintain relationships within and between collections, communities, and their histories. Mike is currently Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Deep History (School of History, Australian National University). His first book, Artefacts, Archives, and Documentation in the Relational Museum, was published by Routledge in 2021.