Museums, Immigrants, and Social Justice 9781138502291, 9781315144832

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Museums, Immigrants, and Social Justice

This interdisciplinary book argues that museums can offer a powerful, and often overlooked, arena for both exploring and acting upon the interrelated issues of immigration and social justice. Based on three in-depth European case studies, spanning France, Denmark, and the UK, the research examines programs developed by leading museums to address cultural, economic, social and political inequalities. Where previous studies on museums and immigration have focused primarily on issues of cultural inequalities in collection and interpretation, Museums, Immigrants, and Social Justice adopts a more comprehensive focus that extends beyond the exhibition hall to examine the full range of programs developed by museums to address the cultural, economic, social and political inequalities facing immigrants. Museums, Immigrants, and Social Justice offers compelling insights on the ability of museums to offer positive contributions to the issues surrounding immigration and social justice at a time when both are pressing issues in Europe. It will be of interest to scholars and students of museum studies, migration studies, sociology, human geography and politics. Sophia Labadi is Senior Lecturer in Heritage and Archaeology at the University of Kent, UK.

Routledge Research in Museum Studies For more information on this series, please visit www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Research-in-Museum-Studies/book-series/RRIMS

Selected titles 7 Climate Change and Museum Futures Edited by Fiona R. Cameron and Brett Neilson 8 Animals and Hunters in the Late Middle Ages Evidence from the BnF MS fr. 616 of the Livre de chasse by Gaston Fébus By Hannele Klemettilä 9 Museums, Heritage and Indigenous Voice Decolonising Engagement By Bryony Onciul 10 Introducing Peace Museums By Joyce Apsel 11 Representing the Nation Heritage, Museums, National Narratives, and Identity in the Arab Gulf States Edited by Pamela Erskine-Loftus, Mariam Ibrahim Al-Mulla, and Victoria Hightower 12 Museums and Photography Displaying Death Edited by Elena Stylianou and Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert 13 Global Art and the Practice of the University-Museum Edited by Jane Chin Davidson and Sandra Esslinger 14 Museum Storage and Meaning Tales from the Crypt Edited by Mirjam Brusius and Kavita Singh 15 Museums, Immigrants, and Social Justice Sophia Labadi

Museums, Immigrants, and Social Justice

Sophia Labadi

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Sophia Labadi The right of Sophia Labadi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-50229-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-14483-2 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

This book is dedicated to all the immigrants in Copenhagen, Manchester and Paris who made this research possible. To the anonymous blood donors who saved my life.

Contents

Acknowledgements

ix

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Museums, immigrants and social justice: why this book?

1

2

Social justice as capability

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Museums, immigrants and representation

37

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Language learning in museums

63

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Work experiences at the museum

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Employment and museums: the occupation of the National Museum on the History of Immigration

107

Conclusions: the future of museums

129

Index

145

7

Acknowledgements

The idea for this book came when I was working on the 2009 UNESCO World Report on Cultural Diversity, and I would like to thank Frédéric Sampson for having included me in his team. At UNESCO, Giovanni Boccardi should be thanked for our discussions on the capability approach, which have shaped my thinking. Above all, I am grateful to Francesco Bandarin and Nao Hayashi for their support for this current project. I would like to thank Nick Merriman, Director of Manchester Museum, for having supported and facilitated my research there. I am grateful to all the staff members from Manchester Museum, past and present, who I interviewed and who provided me with access to program participants and unpublished documents. I also would like to thank the staff members at Manchester Art Gallery who facilitated access to the English Corner sessions and who I interviewed, as well as to the ESOL teachers who allowed me to attend their classes and interview their students. I am grateful to Nana Bernhardt for having offered me a paid fellowship at the National Gallery of Denmark and for having facilitated my work there. I would also like to thank the staff of the National Gallery who I interviewed and Nana, Julie Maria Johnsen and Annette Skov for having held some of their meetings in English just for me. Julie Thesander kindly shared with me her report on language-learning programs. I am grateful for the support my research received from the staff of Thorvaldsens Museum, particularly from Line Esbjørn and Sasja Brovall Villumsen. I would like to thank Ida Brændholt Lundgaard and Sidsel Risted Staun from the Danish Agency for Culture for having taken the time to meet me and reply to my questions. Many languages teachers shared their views on the programs at the selected museums, for which I am thankful. I am grateful to the staff of the Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration (NMHI), past and present, who agreed to be interviewed or to share contacts and opinions, as well as to Benjamin Stora, one of its two presidents, for having shared with me his vision for this institution. Bénédicte Kermadec and trade union members were essential in providing access to the occupiers of the NMHI as well as their networks of supports. I am grateful to the journalists and photographers who shared their experience

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of documenting the occupation, particularly Irène Berelowitch. The chapters on the NMHI benefited from inputs from many colleagues I met during my time at Stanford University. I would particularly like to thank Lynn Meskell for having encouraged me to present my early research and findings and to Lindsay Weiss for pointing me toward many references that have shaped my thinking on this case study. Research on the NMHI was also conducted during my time as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Durham University, and I am thankful to all of the colleagues who provided me with support there. This research benefited from funding from different schemes at the University of Kent. I would like to thank the different colleagues who provided comments on this project, including Gordon Lynch, Paul Allain, Ray Laurence, Lynn Bennett and David Garbin. Thanks are also due to Shane Weller and Karla Pollmann for having facilitated my fieldwork. I am particularly thankful to my students for their critical comments on this project. I am indebted to Bill Logan, Peter Gould, Nicholas Mishkovsky and Gaby Pilcher for having commented on earlier drafts of this book and to Marcus Dean for his edits. Last but not least, Damien and Clarys provided much needed unconditional support.

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Museums, immigrants and social justice Why this book?

The recent influx of migrants in Western Europe has made headlines and sparked debates. Museums have largely been ignored in these news reports or debates, with some notable exceptions, particularly museums in Berlin, Germany. It is indeed often assumed that museums are primarily concerned with matters related to education, the production and presentation of knowledge, national prestige and the appreciation of culture. However, such assumptions can be misleading, as they reduce the social role that museums can play in communities, and render them irrelevant when faced with contemporary societal issues. As such, museums are possibly some of the most overlooked resources that can reduce the inequalities faced by disfranchised individuals (Sandell, 2002b: 3). This social role of museums has developed with the ‘New Museology’ movement that began in the 1960s, that aimed to make museums more democratic, open and inclusive places (McCall and Gray, 2014: 19–35; Vergo, 1989). Although still considered controversial (Museums Association, 2013), this approach has nonetheless been embraced by some museums, academics and governments all over the world (Witcomb, 2003; Kreps, 2008: 28–29; McCall and Gray, 2014: 19–35; Halpin, 2007: 47–52; Vergo, 1989; MacDonald, 2003). This social understanding of museums stands at the heart of the work of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) which represents the global museum community. ICOM defines a museum as a ‘permanent institution in the service of society and its development’ (Desvallées and Mairesse, 2009: 75). It has adopted an impressive range of declarations in full respect of this definition, including the 2010 Shanghai Declaration on Museums for Harmonious Social Development or the 2010 ICOM Cultural Diversity Charter. This social understanding of museums has also been adopted by governments, as is the case for instance by the government of Denmark in the latest version of its Museum Act (January 2014). National museums associations have also put social justice at the very heart of the role of museums, as has been the case for instance with the UK Museums Association (2013). The New Museology and these multiple documents promote diversity, and immigration is a key component of diversity. In our increasingly globalized world, unprecedented migratory phenomena have profoundly changed

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Western nations, not only in terms of volumes of immigrants, but also of diversity amongst and within them, a phenomenon that Vertovec calls ‘super-diversity’ (2007: 1024–1054). In the past ten years, for instance, immigration to France has risen by 1.6% per year, now totaling 11.1% of its total population; with individuals coming from all parts of the world. Another example of super-diversity is Manchester, a former industrial city in the North of England. It has a population of half a million in which at least 153 languages are spoken. Representing the histories, heritage and identity of immigrants in museums is important for social justice because it reflects who is included or excluded and made invisible from the nation and its official narratives (Fraser, 2000: 113). It is no wonder in this context that immigration museums have been built in the past fifteen years to reflect these demographic changes, including the Museo d’Història de la Immigraciò de Catalunya, opened in 2004, the Museo Nazionale dell’ Emigrazione Italiana, opened in Rome in 2009 and the Musée de l’Histoire de l’Immigration, opened in Paris in 2007. Yet, engagement with immigration has not remained the sole domain of immigration museums. The history and heritage of immigrants have been presented in the collections or exhibitions of national museums, the Victoria and Albert Museum for instance, or city or regional institutions, such as the Museum of Copenhagen in Denmark, or the Musée Dauphinois in France (Anderson, 1999; Parby, 2015; Duclos and Marderos, 1999). In addition, in recent years, some museums have attempted to address the social and economic issues faced by immigrants by providing them with opportunities to learn the language of the host country, as well as employment and volunteering programs. Through these programs, museums are focusing on fundamental and daily problems faced by immigrants, in order to become more relevant for societies and to be used by a diversity of populations. This is also a strategy for museums to build more just, equalitarian societies and to fight more holistically against racism and ethnocentrism. Indeed, research has demonstrated that immigrants often face a number of problems in accessing language learning and employment opportunities, which have led them to be overrepresented in low-skilled and lowearning jobs (Papademetriou et al., 2009: 3; Cooke, 2006; Donzelot, 2003; Wyplosz, 1997). This is partly due to the fact that immigrants are exposed to discriminations in accessing employment and education opportunities (Council of Europe, 2009: 84; Touraine, 1991: 166, 171–173; Donzelot, 1991: 6–9). It is also partly due to a shortage of places that offer language services for immigrants. For instance, 80% of the centers that provide English for Speakers of Other Languages courses (also called ESOL courses) in the United Kingdom have significant waiting lists of up to 1,000 students (NATECLA, 2014). Providing these programs in museums can help to redress some of these inequalities. Moreover, the lack of skilled professionals in certain occupations (nurses or doctors, for instance) in many European countries, due in part to falling

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fertility levels and aging populations, has led to schemes that encourage immigrants to apply for such occupations, as is the case, for instance, with the Green Card scheme in Denmark. Programs, such as those offered by museums, which provide immigrants with opportunities to be represented more positively, to learn the language of the host country and to acquire employment skills, are likely to facilitate their subsequent employment in these occupations and help them to move out of their disfranchised positions. Finally, providing skilled immigrants with increased opportunities to learn the language of the host country can help them to be better included within that country's economy, which has been proven to boost research and innovation as well as technological progress and the creation of jobs (Hunt, 2010; OECD, 2014: 4) Analyzing these programs on language learning and employment skills is of fundamental importance, as it is key to assessing whether and how museums have engaged with social justice issues for immigrants in order to become more relevant in societies. However, research on these programs is lacking, as most of the existing publications on this topic focus mainly on the representations of the history, heritage and identity of immigrants in museums (Gouriévidis, 2014; Whitehead et al., 2015; Innocenti, 2014; Lanz, 2014; Mason, 2013; Walsh, Goodwin and Sepúlveda, 2014; Abery et al., 2010; Sandell, 2002a). My research intends to fill this gap. The first aim of this research is to analyze critically whether and how a wide range of museums in three European cities have addressed major issues faced by immigrants: representations of their histories, heritage and identities, issues related to language barriers as well as to unemployment and employment discrimination. The second aim of this book is to analyze how immigrants have used the selected museums in order to address these major issues. The ultimate aim of this book is to identify proposals for research and museum practice that might be able to contribute more effectively to social justice for immigrants. The strategies to address these aims are clearly detailed later on. For now, this introduction turns to analyzing the contributions this research makes to the existing literature on museums and immigration.

Contributions to literature on museums and immigration This book fits within the fast-growing body of research and critical enquiry of the complex phenomena of (im)migration in museums (Levin, 2017a; Gouriévidis, 2014; Whitehead et al., 2015; Whitehead et al., 2012; Innocenti, 2014; Lanz, 2014; Mason, 2013; Mason, 2010; Abery et al., 2010; Walsh et al., 2014; Lanz and Montanari, 2014). This body of research results from the wide-scale changes of migration phenomena, but also from the inherently controversial nature of the topic of immigration in museums (Pozzi, 2013: 7). Indeed, this topic destabilizes, contests and challenges the traditional museum as a modern institution and an ideological state

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apparatus which has tended to represent one exclusive narrative of the past and a homogenized and imagined nation (Bennett, 1995; Macdonald, 2003: 1–16; Boswell and Evans, 1999). It is true that, since the New Museology, museums have moved away from this model of the modern museum, to take better account of issues such as multi-vocality, diversity and social relevance (Vergo, 1989; Merriman, 2007). Yet, the topic of museums and (im)migration is the gateway to address the limits of these more recent approaches and to (re)consider prominent issues. These include issues of multiple identities, counter-narratives of non-hegemonic groups, conflicting claims on the past and memories and politics of representation as well as the relevance of museums for disfranchised communities and the reconfiguration of their roles as agents of social change, social justice and inclusion. Previous academic publications on museums and (im)migration have focused primarily on issues of representation of immigrants, as well as issues of collecting and interpreting artifacts and collections related to these groups. Issues considered have included representations of multicultural and cosmopolitan identities in national museums (Hutchison and Witcomb, 2014; Schorch, 2014; Mason, 2013; Mason, 2010); analyses of the concepts of place, identity and migrations in European museums (Whitehead et al., 2015), in museums and archives (Levin, 2017a); or collecting and interpreting materials related to immigrants memories, histories and heritage (Gouriévidis, 2014; Akbar, 1999; Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration, 2014; Barbe and Chauliac, 2014). Publications have also focused on multi-vocal and participatory approaches to engaging immigrant communities in interpreting existing collections (Lynch, 2011a: 148ff; Chapman and Thiara, 2010: 420–439; Witz, 2006: 107–134), representation of migration in contemporary artistic and curatorial practices (Walsh, Goodwin and Sepúlveda, 2014) and critical considerations of transnational cultural networks in museum practices (Lanz, 2014). The expanding literature on museums, social responsibility and inclusion should also be acknowledged (Silverman, 2010; Sandell, 2002a Sandell, 2007; Janes and Conaty, 2005). However, most of these references do not focus on immigrants or on the discriminations they face. The edited collection by Sandell (2002a), for instance, focuses on making museum exhibitions accessible to, and inclusive of, diverse populations, rather than open only to the dominant groups of societies (O’Neill, 2002: 24–40; Fleming, 2002: 213–224). Delin’s chapter in this volume for example focuses on disabled people and access to museums (2002: 84–97); Venegas on lesbians and gays (2002: 98–109) and Butts on the politics of indigenous recognition (2002: 225–243). Sandell (2007) also considers whether and how museum exhibitions and artifacts help to fight against the stereotypes or prejudices held by their public. In addition, Sandell and Nightingale’s 2012 edited volume considers critically ways in which issues of social justice have moved from an institutional marginalization to the core of cultural institutions. This volume critically assesses categories often related to diversity and social

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justice, including gender, disability and ethnicity, and calls for a more fluid appreciation of these categories. One chapter critically assesses how Italian museums have engaged with issues of diversity and (im)migration, but focuses only on issues of interpretation of collections, shared narratives and new definitions of heritage or identity (Bodo, 2012: 184). Finally, Silverman (2010) details how museums relate to social work, understood as human relationships (self, close pairs, families and groups) and again does not specifically focus on (im)migrants. The idea of museums as therapy, covered in Silverman (2010), is also considered in Pointe (2005: 113–128) and Sutter and Worts (2005: 129–152) but is not applied to immigrants. In comparison to this proliferation of references on representation of immigration in museums and on social inclusion, publications on other socio-economic problems facing immigrants, including issues of unemployment and employment discrimination, poor language skills, and marginalization, have been rather limited with some notable exceptions (Abram, 2002: 125–141; Golding, 2009; Sandell, 2007; Monteiro, 2008: 139–146; Clarke, 2010: 138–164; Sergi, 2014: 209–219). Clarke (2010) details ESOL courses in Scotland. Abram (2002) considers the English classes program provided by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York to recently arrived migrants. Golding (2009) considers how museums can progress intercultural understanding, primarily through inclusive museum education and learning for diverse young audiences. Sandell (2007) considers whether and how museum exhibitions and artifacts help to fight stereotypes or prejudices held by their public (which is often not composed of immigrants). Although important, these existing publications often only focus on one or two cases and therefore might not go far enough into considering how museums respond to social justice issues for immigrants, which are multi-faceted and go beyond the walls of the museums to encompass daily hardships faced by these populations. Drawing inspiration and support from these existing publications, my research fills this gap by considering politics of representations of immigrants in museums, but also issues of language learning and employment for immigrants in museums. This research thus represents a departure from prior studies in this more holistic and comprehensive consideration of cultural, economic, social and political inequalities facing immigrants and the programs developed by museums to address them. This book has engaged not only with academic publications in museum and heritage studies, but also with key publications from sociology, migration studies, political science, economics, education and philosophy related to migration and deemed of relevance to my research. With this approach, I explore the complex and rich theme of museums and immigration whilst breaking new ground through engagement with new topics and research from other fields. I hope that this multidisciplinary approach will make this research more relevant to a wider readership, whilst helping research on museum studies to become more in tune with other disciplines' existing publications on immigration.

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Indeed, the lack of engagement with research concerning social justice and immigration from other fields has caused the wider social relevance of museums for immigrants to be largely omitted by scholars and practitioners outside of the field of museum studies. I am able to confirm this through firsthand experience as member of the editorial team of the 2009 UNESCO World Report on Cultural Diversity, as well as during my time as Associate Editor of the International Social Science Journal (ISSJ; then still a UNESCO publication) from 2007 to 2012. As part of these assignments, I edited and published diverse papers on (im)migrations by leading academics in sociology, political sciences, philosophy or law. None of these papers, not even a full issue of the ISSJ on Cultural Diversity (2009), mentioned the relevance of museums for immigrants and cultural diversity. I hope that my research, through engaging with wider topics of economic, social and political inequalities, will be one step toward making museums more relevant for general debates on (im)migrations, for social justice and for interdisciplinary research.

Definition of immigrants and social justice Before explaining why the case studies were selected and how the data was collected, this section turns to introducing the two core concepts of this book: immigrants and social justice. This research defines immigrants as foreign-born persons who have immigrated to a host country and did not have that country’s citizenship at birth. In addition, immigrants ‘are or intend to be settled’ in their host country (Anderson and Blinder, 2014). All of the immigrants interviewed at the museums in Manchester, Copenhagen and Paris explained that they projected to spend their future in their host country. Using the term immigrants over migrants seemed a natural choice. From my extensive fieldwork, immigrants seemed more concerned about the issues considered in this book – getting represented in museums, learning the language of the host county, gaining employment skills or obtaining a residence permit – than migrants, who, by definition, are temporary residents. The immigrants interviewed for this research corresponded to this concept of super-diversity, presented earlier. They included refugees or asylum seekers from war zones, EU nationals (especially from the new accession countries), newly-arrived spouses or people joining family members, economic immigrants or students. Data have been analyzed, taking account of the characteristics of immigrants, as much as possible. This has helped to identify patterns in the data, including issues of exclusion regarding particular types of immigrants. The second core concept of this research is social justice. Social justice is about fairness, equity and protection of disadvantaged individuals. It is also about enabling all individuals to participate equally in a society free of prejudice, and of educational, cultural and socio-economic barriers. Social justice defined as the fight against inequality has recently achieved great prominence and has been defended by advocates such as Hessel, whose 2010 bestselling

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booklet Indignez-Vous! (Time for Outrage!) demanded more social justice in particular for immigrants. His booklet inspired the formation of grassroots movements all over the world from Los Indignados (the Outraged) in Spain to Occupy Wall Street in the USA. Other recent prominent defenders of social justice have also included the French economist Piketty who has documented increasing wealth and income inequality and has called for more redistributive justice (2013). The prominence of these recent publications should not conceal that different approaches to achieve social justice have been proposed over the past two centuries, as explained in the next chapter, which starts with an explanation of the utilitarian and Rawlsian theories. It then provides an in-depth explanation of the definition of social justice as capability, proposed by Amartya Sen. Capability as social justice provides the theoretical framework and structure for this research. A person’s capability reflects the actual ability and freedom to choose to achieve what she wants to do and be (Sen, 2007: 271). Focusing on this approach is important, as it relates to providing individuals with alternative opportunities and options from which they have the freedom to choose in order to be able to live the life that they have reason to value. According to this approach, goods, services and resources are means to achieve what people want to be and do. A capability approach therefore questions whether and how programs effectively expand individuals’ beings and doings and their freedom to choose the life they want to live. Such an approach also identifies reasons for failure. The capability approach has seldom been applied to the field of Heritage or Museum Studies (with some exceptions, such as Lynch, 2011b: 441–458 or Hodder, 2010: 872–873), whilst it has been applied to a number of other academic fields from education (Walker, 2005; Walker and Unterhalter, 2007b) to gender studies (Robeyns, 2003; Nussbaum, 2000) or development (Dervis and Klugman, 2011; Fukuda-Parr, 2011). By following the capability approach, this research extends theoretically beyond what has been published previously in the themes of museums and (im)migrants, and is interdisciplinary in its engagement with these previous publications on the capability approach. Social justice, defined as capability, is strongly related to the core themes considered in this research. First, issues of representation of immigrants in museums are linked to belonging and affiliation to the nation, which are some of Nussbaum’s central human capabilities (2003: 41–42). In addition, lack of representation or misrepresentations ‘can be a form of oppression’ (Taylor, 1992: 25), and can lead to discrimination and exclusion, preventing immigrants from having the freedom to achieve what they want to do and be. In addition, this research focuses on language learning, which is part of education. Both Sen and Nussbaum have highlighted the importance of education to the capability approach (Sen, 1992; Nussbaum, 2002b, 2006), as it nurtures and conditions the acquisition of other capabilities, such as critical thinking and debating skills, necessary to exert one’s agency in public and

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civic life. Besides, this research focuses on programs which provide unemployed immigrants with employability skills and working experience. As highlighted by Sen, unemployment situations strongly affect the capability of individuals: they can lead to psychological harm; loss of freedom, cognitive abilities and confidence; and social exclusion (1997: 160–161). Finally, this research focuses on the occupation of the National Museum on the History of Immigration in Paris by undocumented immigrants seeking to obtain their residence permits, decent employment conditions, and the freedom to choose the life they want to live.

Museums selected and programs analyzed The following pages explain the choice of museums and then of the countries where they are located. I considered that the best way to fulfill the aims of this research was through intensive study of carefully selected museums in Europe. Europe became the main focus of this research, as social justice is one of its core values. The project of the European Union is indeed based on the ‘humanist inheritance of Europe, which has developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law’, as explicitly explained in the preamble of the Treaty of Lisbon (European Union, 2005: 9). Article I.2 of this document further expresses that the Union’s values are respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, non-discrimination, tolerance, solidarity, equality and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities (ibid. 17). More specifically, in the UK, I selected Manchester Museum, the UK’s largest university museum, with vast collections in archaeology, anthropology and natural history, as well as one of its partner institutions, the Manchester Art Gallery which exhibits art from the 17th century onward, with a particular focus on Victorian decorative art. I also chose the National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for Kunst, henceforth SMK), the nation’s main museum of art, as well as its partner institution, Thorvaldsens Museum, which exhibits the artworks of Danish neo-classicist sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, both of them located in Copenhagen. My last case study is the National Museum on the History of Immigration in Paris (Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration, henceforth NMHI), which presents the last two hundred years of immigration in France. I carefully selected these institutions because they could be considered as representative of museums and art galleries whose mission statements focus on the understanding between cultures and the promotion of diversity (Manchester Museum, 2012; Raffarin, 2003; SMK, 2013). As already explained, the celebration of diversity is a widely shared objective of many museums in Europe, influenced by the New Museology. For instance, the National Gallery of Denmark’s strategic statement indicates that its activities intend to raise awareness of diversity and to prevent ethnocentrism,

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racism and stereotyping (SMK, 2013). Since celebration of diversity is such a widely shared objective of museums in Europe, I decided not to focus only on immigration museums, as in Paris, but also to choose different types of museums. My selection has thus included a large regional institution with a diversity of collections ranging from archaeology to anthropology or natural history, in the case of Manchester Museum, or art galleries, in the case of SMK or Manchester Art Gallery. The diversity of case studies is important for issues of analytic generalization (Yin, 2003: 11), as the final chapter of this book considers the implications of the findings for research and changing museum practice (Sandell, 2007: 20). In addition, I chose Manchester Museum, Manchester Art Gallery, SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum because they offer diverse programs on employment and language learning, which provide rich cases for analyses and fulfill the aims of this research. ‘The differentiating characteristics’ (Sandell, 2007: 20) of each of these programs further influenced my selection. Whilst these programs share the same goals related to social justice as the term is applied in this volume, they are all different in their conception, vision and delivery strategies. Analyses of these different programs will help to assess the diversity of approaches employed by museums to promote social justice, and identify their strengths and weaknesses. More specifically, Manchester Museum has developed a number of innovative approaches to represent and involve immigrants within the space of the museum, including the project entitled ‘Collective Conversations’ (2004–2008). Inspired by James Clifford’s concept of the contact zone, this project focused on filmed conversations by immigrant communities, where museum objects were used as a starting point for these discussions (Chapman and Thiara, 2010: 420–439). These videos have since been displayed in the permanent galleries of the museum and posted on YouTube. The end of this Collective Conversations project has led Manchester Museum to develop more organic, diversified and fluid approaches of engagement of immigrants in interpretation and representation schemes. In addition, Manchester Museum has implemented the ‘In Touch’ volunteer program (2007–2010), as well as the ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ program (2013–2016), which provide training courses, volunteering opportunities and employment-related skills for a diversity of participants, including immigrants, who have suffered from social and economic isolation. Finally, Manchester Museum and the Manchester Art Gallery, through the use of their respective collections, provide regular and free English conversation classes for adults who are speakers of other languages. Entitled ‘English Corner’, these one-and-a-half-hour classes were provided (at the time of my fieldwork in Spring 2014) twice a month at lunchtime and early evening at Manchester Art Gallery and once a month at lunchtime at Manchester Museum and were led by an ESOL teacher. SMK was selected because it provided, along with Thorvaldsens Museum, part-time employment for newly arrived immigrants who were Danish language students, during the winter of 2013. This employment program

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aimed to make language students use the space of the museum and interact creatively with works of art. As part of this project, the employed students had to write a script for a short film about their interpretation and views of an artwork of their choice, all in Danish. These videos are now available on YouTube. This research also considered the follow-up employment program that ran for six weeks in the spring 2016 and employed language students to select and prepare presentations on artworks of their choice in Danish, which they would deliver during guided tours alongside the museum’s usual guides. These programs were of particular interest as they focused on immigrants’ personal interpretation of art and representation of their history and heritage, language learning and employment in the museum, which are the three core topics of this research. In addition, both SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum have provided language workshops for Danish language schools. Entitled ‘Welcome to Language Schools’, these two-and-a-half-hour sessions, led by a member of the education team from the museum, focused on making immigrants who were already learning Danish use artwork for different exercises on interpretation and conversation. Finally, I chose specifically the NMHI as it is a unique, unprecedented and extreme case study (Labadi, 2013), which I believe will enrich this research. Unlike the selected museums in Copenhagen and Manchester, and despite being an immigration museum, the NMHI paradoxically had not developed any significant employment or language programs for immigrants (at the time of writing). Despite this lack of opportunities, this museum was chosen due to its occupation by undocumented workers (sans-papiers), from October 2010 to January 2011. These immigrants were fighting for the legal right to remain in France because they had been employed in France illegally for years (as opposed to demanding the legal right to remain in France for humanitarian reasons). Why did these immigrants occupy a museum? Did this occupation help them to gain their legal right to remain on the French territory on the grounds that they were workers? Did this occupation have any immediate or long-term impacts on the museum, and did it affect the representation of immigrants in the permanent galleries? These are some of the questions addressed in Chapters 3 and 6. Whilst the other programs analyzed in this research were developed and implemented by, or in agreement with, museum staff, this occupation was driven by immigrants and their supporters without the authorization of the NMHI. Moreover, these three case studies were chosen due to the diversity of their political and social situations and the contexts of immigration in France, the UK and Denmark. Although these three countries belong to the European Union (at the time of writing at the beginning of 2017), they have different policies and programs on immigration. France has been a major country of immigration since the industrial revolution. Currently 11.1% of France’s population are immigrants. Immigration, primarily from former colonies, increased significantly from 1945 to 1974, to provide cheap labor for its

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reconstruction. In 1974, France stopped this program of labor immigration. This was partly replaced by undocumented migration; workers without the legal right to remain in France have continued to be employed in physically demanding trades such as construction or catering. Most of these workers are from the former French colonies, as illustrated by the undocumented workers who occupied the NMHI. As far as its management of diversity is concerned, France primarily follows a republican model of integration. This is a process by which individuals subordinate their own culture and particularisms to a universally applicable set of values (Orlando, 2003: 397). However, this French model of integration has been gradually eroding. It has been criticized by the immigrants themselves as an exclusionary discourse and set of procedures that led them to suffer from inequalities and injustices in terms of access to housing, employment and educational opportunities (Lapeyronnie and Kokoreff, 2013). Above all, this model of integration has been attacked from within by French technocrats themselves (Descoing, 2007), who have developed ad hoc multicultural approaches and systems (Kastoryano, 2010: 90–91). The UK, like France, saw major waves of immigration after 1945 from the Empire and Commonwealth, as well as refugees from Eastern Europe fleeing communism. Yet, the net migration rate became positive only in the 1980s. Before then, emigration of British nationals to Commonwealth countries, like Australia or Canada, as well as European countries, such as Spain or France, was greater than immigration to Britain (IPPR, 2007: 8). Migration to Britain has increased sharply from the mid-1990s onward, because of the need for highly skilled workers, its attraction to students and the rise in asylum seekers' applications (Grillo, 2010: 51). Since 2004, Britain has attracted many citizens from the Central and Eastern European countries which recently joined the EU, originally because it was one of the few countries which did not place any restriction on immigration from these nations and also because of the availability of many seasonal jobs in agriculture or food processing (IPPR, 2007: 9). From the 1960s to the beginning of the Millennium, the UK embraced multiculturalism with measures aimed at managing diversity and ensuring that communities were equally and equitably treated by the societies that host them (Labadi, 2010: 10). These included introducing culturally sensitive practices, providing information in multiple languages or ensuring public recognition of diversity through supporting minority organizations (Vertovec, 2010: 84). Yet, this model of multiculturalism has been criticized, particularly for accentuating or preserving cultural differences and leading to community separation. These failures have led to the adoption of a postmulticultural model since the turn of the century, that focuses on reducing socioeconomic inequality for immigrants and the promotion of national identity as well as the marginalization of competing values (ibid. 90–93).

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As far as Denmark is concerned, the diversification of its population is a relatively new phenomenon. According to available figures, 10.4% of the Danish population are immigrants, of which around 6% originate from nonEuropean countries, whereas in 1980 these non-European immigrants made up just 1% (Statistics Denmark, 2013: 5). This increased immigration is partially the result of voluntary policies to compensate for low birth rates and the penury of skilled workers in specific professions. Despite this increased diversity, Denmark has one of the most restrictive immigration policies in the European Union. Most of the immigrants, irrespective of their country of origin, highlighted during their interviews the difficulties they faced whilst immigrating to Denmark. This is partially due to the fact that, when signing the Maastricht Treaty, Denmark opted out on justice and home affairs, so that it is possible for it to have more restrictive migration policies than other EU countries (Adler-Nissen and Gammeltoft-Hansen, 2010: 137–161). Three approaches seem to characterize the way in which Denmark deals with migration and its increasingly diverse population (Hedetoft, 2010: 119). The first approach is assimilation, a position that has been defended by the Danish People’s Party, based on the adoption, by all, of a so-called ‘Danish culture’ in order to ensure homogeneity of the population. The second approach is integration, a model similar to the French approach which aims to treat everybody in a non-discriminatory manner and which divides a line between the public and private sphere. The third approach is multiculturalism, the recognition of ethnic diversity and the accommodation of this diversity within the public sphere.

Methods of data collection Having detailed the reasons for choosing the different museums and programs in Copenhagen, Manchester and Paris, I now turn to explain my strategies for data collection. Intensive case studies and a multi-sited approach were considered the best way to fulfill the aims of this research, as this enabled a holistic and comprehensive understanding of the themes under study (Meskell, 2007: 384–385; Hamilakis, 2011: 405). At each of these museums, I conducted extensive semi-structured interviews with a wide list of stakeholders. This approach aimed to gain a detailed understanding of the programs selected, their impacts on the institutions and on their target groups, as well as to clarify how immigrants used museums to address issues considered in this volume. Conducting interviews with immigrants is one of the strengths of this research. It adds an original dimension due to the fact that the voices of immigrants have tended, with some notable exceptions (see Monteiro, 2008: 139–146 or Bounia et al., 2012 for instance) to be excluded from previous publications on museums and (im)migration (Whitehead, 2015; Gouriévidis, 2014). In addition, I undertook participant observation, held many informal discussions with staff and visitors, attended public meetings and events and organized multiple visits. The aim

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was to gain a more complete understanding of the programs selected for analysis, as well as the values, power relations and dynamics at play in the selected museums (Meskell, 2010: 433). I also accessed unpublished internal documents to understand fully the institutions and programs analyzed. The combination of interviews, participant observation and analyses of unpublished internal documents permitted some distance with the data collected. This was essential to assess critically some statements and views provided by my different informants against other available sources. These interviews, participant observations and data collection took place in blocks of days or weeks between November 2012 and December 2016. In addition, I was a fellow at the National Gallery of Denmark in March and April 2014 and at Manchester Museum from May to July 2014, in order to immerse myself in the ‘richness and diversity of everyday practice’ (Meskell, 2005: 83). More specifically, following the concept of ‘multiple co-existence’, interviews were carried out with the multiplicity of actors who played a part in the selected programs and who co-existed in the space of the museum. (Hamilakis and Anagnostopoulos, 2009: 83). This strategy enabled a deeper and critical understanding of the museums and projects analyzed, as data collected was constantly challenged through engagement with this diversity of stakeholders and perspectives (Meskell, 2010: 434). Through this approach, I was also able to develop some critical reflexivity of the claims made during interviews and in the documents read, as well of my own biases and positioning (Hodder, 2003: 56–59). Targeted individuals for interview included museum staff, ranging from directors to curators, education staff, program managers and front of house staff as well as program funders and language teachers. I also interviewed immigrants, as their views are key to understanding whether and how museums have tackled issues of cultural, economic, social and political inequality. I focused on immigrants who had attended one or more of the selected programs at SMK, Thorvaldsens Museum, Manchester Museum and Manchester Art Gallery. I also conducted evaluation of language-learning programs with selected participants through focus groups and interviews. In Paris, I targeted immigrants who had occupied the NMHI. Although this movement was composed primarily of men, I also targeted and interviewed women, as well as trade union representatives who organized this occupation, activists and NGO representatives who supported this sanspapiers movement, to gain a diversity of perspectives. When undertaking my fieldwork in Paris, I tried to be critically reflexive of the biases of being “at home’’. I took care that my degree of familiarity with this country did not prevent me from having the necessary critical detachment. Yet, being French does not automatically lead to a lack of critical distance in every situation (Hamilakis and Anagnostopoulos, 2009: 74). Any society is by definition heterogeneous (Abu-Lughod, 2011: 131-138) and individual identities are fluid, complex and do not necessarily fit within neat cases of nationalities (Motzafi-Haller, 1997). Concepts including educational or ethnic background, class, gender and so on might make someone

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an outsider rather than a full element of a nation-state. The fact that I am of Algerian background, was partly educated in the UK (where approaches to Museum studies are different to France), have worked internationally for fifteen years rather than for a French company and have spent lengthy periods of time away from France, has helped me develop a critical and distanced approach to the case study of Paris. Besides, rare are those academics from non-European or occidental background writing on museums and immigrations in Europe, and this characteristic represents also a strength and an original dimension of this research.

Structure of the book The book itself is organized into seven chapters. Chapter 2 details understandings of social justice as the capability approach, explaining its relevance for this volume and providing a theory that frames the other chapters. It explains how the capability approach, developed originally by Amartya Sen, departs from previous theories of social justice, primarily the utilitarian movement and the theories of Rawls. The core concepts of the capability approach, such as a person’s capability, functionings or conversion factors are then defined. This chapter then moves on to clarify the notion of agency, considered in this research as a fundamental additional concept that assists individuals in being who they want and doing what they want. The next four chapters have been organized thematically, in order to reflect the rich findings from the data analyses. Chapter 3 focuses on issues of representation of immigrants in the selected museums in Manchester, Copenhagen and Paris. These issues have already been well covered in previous publications, reflecting their importance and the need to engage with them. However, this chapter departs from previous publications as it is guided by the notion of social justice as capability. It starts by explaining how representation can be understood as social justice and capability. Using this framework, the following paragraphs critically analyze how different programs developed at Manchester Museum, SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum have helped to represent the histories and heritage of immigrants in their permanent and temporary galleries, and how useful participating immigrants have found these schemes. The last section turns to analyze how undocumented workers have reacted to the building and permanent exhibition of the NMHI. It also details how this institution has subsequently integrated this unplanned event within its interpretation and permanent exhibition. Chapter 4 focuses on an increasingly core function of museums: the provision of language learning workshops and programs for immigrants who want to learn the language of the host country. It starts by detailing the importance of education and of speaking the language of the host country for the capability approach as well as for the development and strengthening of the agency of individuals. It then analyses whether and how programs proposed at Manchester Museum, Manchester Art Gallery, SMK and

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Thorvaldsens Museum improve the real opportunities offered to immigrants to learn and speak the language of the host country. In doing so, this chapter pays particular attention to analyzing critically whether and how the workshops offered by the selected museums differ from, but also complement, educational offers by more traditional language schools. A final section identifies the reasons why some immigrants do not attend these programs, identifying issues and patterns of exclusion from the museum. Following a similar structure, Chapter 5 focuses on critical analyses of volunteering or employment programs provided at Manchester Museum, SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum. These programs provide work experiences but also key employability skills for participants. This chapter starts by detailing how employment relates to capability and agency, as a way of framing and guiding the following pages. It then analyzes whether and how museums have been able to provide immigrants with valuable work experience and key skills needed to thrive in our difficult and volatile working environment, including resilience or adaptive behavior. These paragraphs also detail whether participating immigrants consider these programs useful in providing them with relevant experiences and skills. Finally, this chapter focuses on identifying and critically examining issues concerning the exclusion of certain immigrants from these employment or volunteering schemes and opportunities, as well as the limits of these programs. Chapter 6 continues the exploration of the theme of employment and museum but considers it from a different angle than previously. Whilst Chapter 5 analyzed employment programs solely developed by the selected museums in Manchester and Copenhagen, Chapter 6 comes back to the unauthorized occupation of the NMHI by undocumented workers or sans-papiers. In its first section, this chapter considers how this occupation helped to build and strengthen the agency and capability of the working sans-papiers. It then moves on to consider why and how these immigrants have used the NMHI to address issues of employment discrimination and legal status. The following parts turn to consider the different reactions of the museum staff, from tolerance and support in the first instances to rejection of this movement and its termination after almost four months of continuous occupation. To end, a critical analysis of the long-term impacts of this occupation for the occupying immigrants in particular and working sans-papiers in general is provided. Finally, Chapter 7 starts with a summary of the key findings from the research and highlights in particular the shortcomings and issues identified. Using these results, five innovative proposals are made, targeting researchers and museum professionals so that they might be able to contribute more effectively to social justice for immigrants. These proposals range from innovative approaches to language learning, to the provision of employment skills or representation of diversity in museums, to better understanding of audiences and of the reasons why some audiences cannot or do not visit museums and participate in their programs, and organizational changes to ensure synergies and coherence between different programs museums provide.

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The Oxford English Dictionary defines social justice as ‘justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society’, in other words, ‘social justice’ is concerned with fairness, equality, protection of disadvantaged individuals as well as policies concerning the distribution of wealth and income. Diverse and at times divergent approaches have been proposed to achieve social justice. This is illustrated in the famous words of Lord Mansfield, an 18th century English judge, (maybe better known to the general public as the owner of Kenwood House and its painting collection in London), who advised a colonial governor to: ‘consider what you think justice requires and decide accordingly. But never give your reasons; for your judgment will probably be right, but your reasons will certainly be wrong’ (quoted in Sen, 2009: 4). The bulk of this chapter focuses on detailing understandings of social justice as capability, an approach developed primarily by Sen and Nussbaum, adopted as the structuring theory of this book. To explain better how radical and innovative the capability approach is and how relevant and original it is for my research, this chapter starts by explaining briefly the definitions of justice Sen criticizes and departs from, including the utilitarian movement and the theories of Rawls. The following section moves on to explain the core concepts of the capability approach, including a person’s capability or the notion of functionings. A final part focuses on the concept of agency. Following Sen, agency is considered as one element of the capability approach. However, I also consider agency as an additional concept to capability, as it is very difficult for individuals to develop their capability if they are not agents of their own lives. The following chapters will then each provide more detailed and specific analyses of capability and agency as applied to representation, language learning and employment.

Utilitarian and Rawlsian approaches to social justice Sen’s concept of social justice as capability focuses on individuals having the freedom to choose different viable ways of living that they have reason to value (Sen, 1980, 1992, 1999; Nussbaum, 1995, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004).

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At the heart of the capability approach stands the question: ‘What is one person actually able to do and to be?’ and how free is this person to choose what she wants to do and be. In other words, the capability approach considers which effective opportunities individuals are able to choose from. Sen’s approach departs from traditional approaches to justice, such as utilitarianism. Utilitarians, like Jeremy Bentham or John Stuart Mill, argued for a distribution of societal goods that would maximize the happiness of the greater number of people. They believed that actions that are right and just tend to promote happiness; actions that are wrong produce the inverse (Mill, 1863: 5). For Mill, happiness is the only ultimate goal and end of life, both at collective and individual levels, and the utility of things or actions is determined by the degree to which they contribute to the happiness of a greater number of people. However, the maximization of the happiness of a greater number of people might result in the unfair consideration of vulnerable members of society (Funge, 2011: 74; Reamer, 2006). For instance, to maximize the happiness of a greater number of people, members of society with severe cognitive disabilities may be isolated or hospitalized because they ‘may be viewed as having limited moral status and, therefore, may be less deserving of a society’s resources’ (Funge, 2011: 75). In addition, this approach does not account for the diversity of human beings who might not all have the same goals of life, the same conception of happiness or of the utility of things. For Sen, ‘utility does not adequately represent well-being’ (1987: 47). He illustrates this point by explaining that poor or disfranchised people might be living in squalid conditions and experiencing exhausting working conditions, thus not being in a state of well-being, but they might have been able to find happiness in their conditions and personal lives through having developed survival strategies. Having identified issues with utilitarianism, Sen’s approach also departs from John Rawls, one of the foremost theorists of social justice (Sen, 2009: 52ff). For Rawls, principles of justice ‘define the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation’ (Rawls, 1971: 4). He considers justice as a contract between members of a clearly defined and selfcontained society in which individuals are born. However, this definition and contract do not take account of immigrants, the topic of this research, who are not born within the host society. For Rawls, justice exists as one, unique and transcendental judgment of fairness. Fairness is a judgment taken under a ‘veil of ignorance’ (Rawls, 1971); it is devoid of bias, separated from our interests and concerns as well as those of others and can be equated to impartiality. However, Sen points toward the difficulties of such a unique and impartial approach to justice that can be applied uniformly and universally. For Sen, there might indeed be different and competing claims to justice with similarly impartial and justifiable judgments of fairness (2009: 12 and 57). To illustrate his point, Sen uses the example of three children, Ann, Bob and Carla, who are fighting for a flute, with Ann wanting the flute on the grounds that only she can play it (effective use), Bob because he has

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no other toys (distributional fairness) and Carla because she made the flute in the first place (entitlement to one’s own products) (2009: 13–14; Brown, 2010). Using this simple example, Sen illustrates the fact that one ideal and universal model of a just society does not exist, but that there can be different impartial and non-arbitrary decisions behind one single situation (2009: 15). For this reason, justice cannot only be considered as confined to institutions; individuals and the life that they live need to be taken into account (ibid. 18). In addition, according to Rawls, institutions should enable fair treatment for all in being able to access primary social goods. These primary goods are ‘things that citizens need as free and equal persons’ (Rawls, 2005: 180). These goods expand people’s freedom and equality and are divided into natural primary goods, such as being healthy or being able to develop one’s imagination as well as social primary goods, which include ‘income and wealth’, ‘basic liberties’, ‘freedom of movement and choice of occupation’, ‘powers and prerogatives of offices and positions of responsibility’ or ‘the social bases of self-respect’ (Rawls, 1971: 60–65). These goods can be equated to rights, resources or means available to people to lead the life they want (Sen, 1990: 114–115). In comparison to the utility approach presented above, Rawls focuses on equality of procedures and opportunities provided to individuals, rather than on their outcomes. To ensure an equality of opportunities, Rawls also calls for redistribution of resources to the socially and economically disadvantaged members of society (Funge, 2011: 74). However, for Sen, equality in accessing those primary goods may hide a number of inequalities in using them and transforming them as the means to achieve the life one chooses to live. For instance, an immigrant might have access to more primary goods (in terms of income and wealth for instance) than another individual but have less ability to convert them into freedom to achieve the life she values. For example, she may not speak the language of the host country or have an understanding of its cultural norms and values. These primary social goods do not take sufficiently into account human diversity and the trajectories of individuals, just like Rawls’ definition of justice. For Sen, not focusing on individuals is a source of inequality and unfairness (1990: 112), this being the reason why he has developed the capability approach.

The capability approach Previous understandings of social justice have included a focus on the utilitarian outcomes of actions (happiness) or on fair treatment by institutions and access to primary social goods. Sen has been able to change the focus of the debate onto people themselves. His theory of social justice as capability centers on the actual ability and freedom of people to choose to achieve what they want to do and be (Sen, 2007: 271). Therefore, his focus is on the opportunities offered to people and on removing obstacles so that individuals have

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the freedom to live the life which they have reason to value. In other words, Sen focuses on the capabilities of people to convert means into whatever they value. Sen pays particular attention to the fact that some individuals will require more resources or a different approach to achieve their goals due to obstacles they may face, such as mental health issues or disability. More specifically, Sen differentiates between different ideas: functionings, a person’s capability and a capability set. Functionings are various aspects of being and doing an individual values and can currently achieve (Sen, 2007: 271; 1999: 75). These functionings cover different aspects of life, and include being adequately nourished, having decent work, being able to speak a language or being culturally or socially part of a community. Individuals do not acquire all functionings at the same time. Some functionings are necessary to be acquired first, before the acquisition of other ones. For instance, I interviewed a nurse freshly arrived from the Philippines who was learning Danish and who had been offered a short-term employment contract at the National Gallery of Denmark to prepare a video on her chosen work of art. Her goal was to obtain a nursing job. However, in order to practice nursing in Denmark, it was compulsory for her to become fluent in Danish and pass a series of specific tests. Functionings are therefore what people accomplish, their actual achievements and how they actually live. A person’s capability reflects the different options open to her from which she is able to choose (Crocker and Robeyns, 2010: 63; Robeyns, 2005: 95). According to Sen, ‘the capability of a person reflects the alternative combinations of functionings the person can achieve, and from which she can choose one collection’ (2007: 271). In other words, a person’s capability relates to the alternative lives and opportunities open to her (Gasper, 2007: 9), but also to her ability to achieve such a life. A key dimension of the concept of capability relates to removing obstacles to people’s lives, so that they have the freedom to choose the life that they value (Robeyns, 2005: 94). These obstacles might be multiple, as detailed in this research: they can relate to a lack of childcare, as explained in Chapter 4, to language learning, or to issues with mental health, as detailed in Chapter 5, in relation to employability. Capability as freedom means that people should be able to access a diversity of valuable opportunities and options they can choose from, without any constraints, according to what they value most. Capability thus reflects the freedom to access and make choices over one’s life. For instance, an immigrant should have the freedom and ability to take part meaningfully in the life of museums in the host country, to learn the language of the host country as well as the freedom to choose to have a meaningful job of her choice. Capability also reflects well-being, the match between the life an individual is living and the life this person wants to live. Capability as freedom also means that there must be a number of alternatives provided to people. This is reflected in the notion of ‘capability set’, defined as ‘the various alternative combinations of beings and doings’ (Sen, 2007: 277) a person can choose from. An individual must also have the

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freedom to choose from these different combinations. For this reason, two individuals with access to the same list of functionings can have very different lives, due to the choices they make and the different combinations of functionings they choose. What matters in the capability approach is that individuals are able to make choices of functionings that expand their wellbeing. For instance, the volunteering program at Manchester Museum aims to provide participants with a number of core skills which expand their capability and their freedom to choose a job that they value and can perform, as well as to improve their well-being. The number of these alternative combinations of functionings and options or capability available to people will be rather small in some contexts, for instance in some low-income countries (e.g. being well nourished and sheltered, being healthy and being educated), whilst in more developed economies, the list of functionings and capability will be much longer. Social justice defined as the capability approach centers on the actual ability of people to achieve what they choose to do and be. A related notion is thus evaluating these functionings and the ability to function. There is therefore a focus on the end results, and not only on the means to achieve these ends. For instance, Manchester Museum and Manchester Art Gallery provide free English language classes for non-native speakers. The availability of this service is important in itself, as this contributes to expanding people’s freedom to choose different options in life, including the possibility to learn English, to socialize in this language or to find a job. Yet, individuals might not necessarily attend these classes; or they might attend these classes but learn little. A number of individual circumstances and conversion factors (see below) might affect the outcomes of these programs for these participants. Importantly, how those educational programs are conceived, organized and delivered have a major impact on the actual ability of people to achieve what they choose to do and be. In other words, a capability approach questions whether and how programs really and effectively expand individuals’ functionings and freedom to choose the life they want to live through an analysis of individual achievements. Such an approach will therefore also identify reasons for failure. This is exactly what this research intends to do, that is, to provide in-depth critical analyses of different programs and projects developed in museums that aim to address ‘real problems’ facing immigrants, including representations of their histories and heritage but also problems of poor language skills, unemployment, employment discrimination and marginalization. This question cannot be addressed without close analyses of immigrants’ opinions of the programs being studied, as well as official evaluations of these programs, when available. Indeed, these immigrants have been able to assess whether and how museums’ programs have enabled them to achieve what they want to be and do and to expand their freedom to choose the life they value. The functionings and capability of a person can be positively or negatively affected, among other things, by personal, environmental or social conversion

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factors. These conversion factors determine how goods and services can be converted into functionings. Personal conversion factors concern the personal characteristics of an individual and include physical conditions, psychological makeup and reading and writing skills (Nambiar, 2013: 223). For instance, a class based on reading documents will not enable an illiterate immigrant to learn much, because she would not possess the necessary conversion factors. On the other hand, someone with a high level of education in their country of origin will often learn more easily the language of the host country than an illiterate student will. Environmental conversion factors include the provision of infrastructures, public transport systems, climatic conditions or the provision of public goods ensuring the mobility of people (e.g. street lighting). The absence of public transport systems or street lighting, for instance, might restrict the mobility of some individuals (e.g. women) and therefore restrict the different options and opportunities open to them. Social conversion factors include public, legal, social and cultural norms and policies, discriminating practices, assigned gender roles or stereotyping (Robeyns, 2005: 99). These social conversion factors can be external or internal to an individual. Legal norms enacted by governments are external social conversion factors. These norms can enhance or drastically reduce the alternative combinations of functionings a person can access and achieve, and her freedom to choose what to be and do. In other words, a social justice approach to capability needs to take account of social powers and structural measures and mechanisms which can be oppressive or enabling. Chapter 6 explains that the lack of the legal right to remain in France affected negatively the capability of the undocumented workers who occupied the National Museum on the History of Immigration (NMHI) in Paris. During interviews for this research, most of these workers emphasized that having a residence permit had expanded their capability set and the different choices they could make. These workers had accessed more employment choices and the ability to travel without fear of being arrested, to live freely or to be able to get an education. This occupation of the NMHI also demonstrates the importance of the concept of agency, fully considered below, for those individuals whose capability is negatively affected by conversion factors. Indeed, as agents, individuals can be aware of those oppressive mechanisms and situations and of the possibility to challenge and change those external and negative social conversion factors. These social conversion factors can also be internal to a person, in the form of stereotypes or deeply ingrained social or cultural norms which will drastically reduce the alternative combinations of functionings a person believes she can achieve. During my fieldwork sessions, I met many individuals who believed ‘museums were not for them’, because they considered them as places for the elite. These individuals did not want to go to the museum, which demonstrates the need for museums to alter their image in order to stop stereotypical misunderstandings they might suffer from. This will be addressed particularly in the last pages of this book on changing museums.

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Whilst Sen has always refused to define any specific list of capabilities, because they will differ according to each individual and situation (2005: 157–160), other authors and organizations have identified different lists. For example the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) developed a list of ‘dimensions of human development’ (Fukuda-Parr, 2011; UNDP, 2014), Nussbaum developed a list of ‘core capabilities’ (2003: 41–42; Robeyns, 2005: 105–106) and Finnis of ‘basic human goods’ (1980). This research focuses on representation and being able to feel some affiliation in a nation, language learning and obtaining decent employment and employability skills. These three topics are central for human beings, which is one of the driving motives of this research. They are covered by UNDP in the dimensions ‘access to knowledge’ and ‘decent standard of living’, and by Finnis in the dimensions ‘knowledge’, ‘play’, ‘aesthetic experience’, ‘sociability’ and ‘practical reasonableness’. These three topics have also been covered by Nussbaum in her list of ten core capabilities, which act as criteria of a just society (2001). They include the dimension ‘Senses, Imagination, and Thought’, defined as individuals having an adequate education and being able to use imagination and thought to express themselves freely; the dimension ‘Practical Reason’, about engaging in critical reflection; the dimension ‘Affiliation’, that is being able to feel affiliated to a country and live with and toward others; the dimension ‘Play’, that is to be able to enjoy recreational activities and, finally; the dimension ‘Control Over One’s Environment’ which includes being able to ‘seek employment on an equal basis with others’ (Nussbaum, 2003: 41–42).

Institutions and agency Another core concept of the capability approach developed by Sen is the notion of agency, a notion increasingly used in the field of museum studies (Sandell, Dodd and Garland-Thomson, 2010; McAlister, 2013: 1–27; Herle, 2012: 295–310). Agency is often associated with notions of self-direction, voice, empowerment or meaningful participation (Sen, 1992: 56; Sen, 1999: 19), against the deterministic model of human action controlled by institutions and structures (Dornan, 2002: 304). This is the reason why this research also considers agency as a standalone concept, accompanying the notion of capability. Indeed, if individuals are considered in a deterministic manner and as controlled by institutions and structures, then they cannot choose freely what they want to be and do. This concept of agency has emerged through the tensions between individuals and the constraining or enabling influence of institutions, values and structures. Yet, this concept cannot be understood outside of institutions, which provide structure as well as social, economic and cultural opportunities for individuals (Nambiar, 2013: 223). As stressed by Sen: ‘Individuals live and operate in a world of institutions. Our opportunities and prospects depend crucially on what institutions exist and how they function’ (1999: 142). Conversion factors presented above often originate from and are implemented by institutions.

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These factors reflect the crucial role of institutions, ranging from legal organizations to museums or charities, in providing the structure through which individuals can realize their functionings and choose the life they value. In addition, people act in accordance with social and cultural norms and structures, what Bourdieu called habitus (1984: 170). These habitus or reflexes can reflect the doxa, that is what is taken for granted and do not get contested in a society. For instance, it has been taken for granted that undocumented individuals or sans-papiers, because of their legal situation, cannot and do not work in France and live off benefits, an uncontested situation that has been perpetuated by political speeches and the media. In turn, this taken for granted belief has often led to a consideration of sans-papiers as ‘taking advantage’ of the system and to some resentment. By occupying the NMHI, a public institution, undocumented workers have challenged this ‘truth’ and doxa by explaining that they actually work more than most people and are not entitled any rights because of their undocumented situation. Agency thus relates to the fact that individuals might not only act and think according to the doxa and dominant values perpetuated by some institutions and structures but can have their own personal views and motivations. More precisely, Crocker and Robeyns have identified four elements of Sen’s conception of agency (2010: 80ff). The more fully an individual acts in accordance with these elements, the closer she is to acting as an agent of her own life. First, self-determination means that individuals have personally decided and are motivated to act and undertake specific actions. Individuals should not be lead or forced to undertake an activity without their will. In other words, self-determination can be associated with freewill and intentionality (see also Shanks and Tilley, 1987; Hodder, 2000: 21–33). The immigrants who took part in the employment programs at the National Gallery of Denmark and Thorvaldsens Museum made a conscious choice to change their lives, as they became more fluent in Danish and were able to work toward achieving their ultimate goal of finding a job in their own trade in Denmark. These immigrants personally decided to follow these programs and demonstrated self-determination. Second, agency takes place when individuals have the power to ‘question and reassess the prevailing norms and values’ (Drèze and Sen, 2002: 258). This means that individuals must be able to engage in reflection. They must also be able to exert their freedom of speech without fear and therefore be protected against the uninvited control of others over what they say. Institutions can join individuals in questioning and reassessing the norms and values defining them. This demonstrates that institutions can play, in some cases, a key role in enabling individuals to become full agents of their own lives. By organizing, for instance, a contemporary art show at Manchester Museum, immigrants have been able to question and reassess the boundaries between an art gallery and a museum, the prevailing definition of immigrants in the UK as well as the role of museums in shaping knowledge on non-Europeans, migrants and refugees.

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The third element defining agency for Sen is action. This means that individuals not only have to decide to take action to realize their goals but also actually need to act. An example can be the meaningful participation of immigrants in language-learning programs run at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum in order to realize their goal of learning the language of the host country. The fourth and last element defining agency relates to the impact on the world made by individuals. For some theorists (McCall, 1999), individuals become agents according solely to the actual impacts or consequences of their actions. Some of these impacts or consequences are intentional and others are not. However, it is often difficult to foresee the consequences and impacts of one’s actions on the world. Indeed, someone’s intentions and related actions might not have the predicted outcomes, since intentions and outcomes are often disconnected (Fuchs, 2001: 27). To be able to change a situation or impact on the world, individuals need to comprehend the limits of the doxa and of specific institutions and how these can be used to their advantage. For instance, the undocumented workers who occupied the NMHI in Paris certainly understood the limits of the official, public and stereotypical narratives that defined them as unemployed and receiving social benefits. They also clearly saw both the potential of the NMHI as a public and national symbol of positive immigration to France and its limits, as this organization does not recognize the existence of undocumented workers in its galleries. These immigrants also became agents of their own lives and destiny when they decided to occupy this public and national institution to obtain residence permits, and to no longer hide due to their legal situation as undocumented immigrants. To be agents of their own lives, individuals need to believe that they have and can use a certain degree of freedom of expression and freedom of movement. This case of the occupation of the NMHI demonstrates the importance, in some cases, of social structures that can help individuals to fully realize their own goals. Indeed, without the assistance of trade unions and a supportive network of NGOs, which organized and coordinated this movement, these sans-papiers would surely not have undertaken such a public occupation, because they did not know they could use their freedoms and their power to change their situation. These four elements of agency seem to be only realizable in democratic contexts, as fully recognized by Sen (Crocker and Robeyns, 2010: 84). Agency is based on individuals being equally able to participate freely in various institutions, to speak freely as well as to be able to reassess and publically question norms and values. Democracy is also based on respect for the rule of law, on laws and procedures being applied fairly and equally to all citizens and on all citizens being able to exercise power on an equal basis. This concept of equality is often only a façade, as there are many inequalities individuals and communities face, including ethnic minorities, immigrants or women, in democratic contexts (see Chapter 6 for further analyses). For Rancière, democracy resides in the power of contestation of those who are not entitled to exercise power and who face discriminations (Rancière and

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Chambat, 2008). Using this understanding of democracy, I have considered the occupation of the NMHI in Paris by disfranchised sans-papiers as an exercise of democracy and as an expression of agency. Due to the high levels of discriminations immigrant communities face, which are often perpetuated by French institutions and the legal system, some have considered France as being ‘a state of apartheid’ (e.g. Balibar, 2004). Even Manuel Valls, during his time as Prime Minister in 2015, stressed that France lived under a territorial, social and ethnic apartheid (Zappi, 2015). This situation makes the occupation of the NMHI a fascinating case, which will allow the examination of the role of museums in fighting against institutionalized discriminations and inequalities. Whilst this research uses the concept of agency, it is also important to be aware of its limits and criticisms. Too often, agency and structure have been essentialized and presented as separate, or even opposite, concepts (Fuchs, 2001: 26). Yet, as just explained, this research recognizes the fluidity and connection between agents and structures. Museums in Manchester and in Copenhagen were selected precisely because of their self-reflexive approach to their nature and roles in societies, as well as their flexibility and willingness to transform themselves through engagement with disfranchised communities, such as immigrants. In addition, the usefulness of the concept of agency has been criticized, as it has been considered to be too broad (Dobres and Robb, 2000: 3–18). Self-determination and free will can indeed explain the actions of a lot of individuals. Are most human beings living in democracy not self-determined and using their free will to undertake actions? This question and the potential issues it raises demonstrate, first, the need to consider the multi-dimensions of agency presented above, and not to single out one element of this definition, as much as possible. Besides, this research focuses on the ability of individuals to choose the goals they value and to realize them effectively. When agency is understood within a capability approach, an important additional element to take into account is the effective achievement of the actions that individuals willingly decide to do. Such achievement is not as automatic as one may think; it can be indeed difficult for immigrants to actually achieve the goals they value and expand their freedom to choose what to be and do. For instance, can language learners at the museum really learn Danish or English? This additional element makes agency a valid structural concept of this research. The distinction made by Sen between well-being and agency helps to delimit further this latter concept and justify its usefulness. Indeed, in specific circumstances, individuals might not act as agents, as they might have other values they rank higher, for instance their well-being. The case of the occupation by undocumented workers of the NMHI in Paris can be taken again as an example. Some of this museum's staff members exerted their agency. They supported the strike, brought moral assistance to the occupiers and used the opportunity of this occupation to attempt to change the representation of sans-papiers in the permanent galleries, as well as to make

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this museum more in tune with its original objectives and vision. Yet, other staff members did not support this occupation. They might have feared that exerting their agency in this instance and being openly critical of the museum where they work might have been detrimental to them on various levels. For instance, this could have affected their career plan, their choice of remaining in this institution or of obtaining a promotion. It could even have negatively affected their well-being, as this occupation might have caused a strain on their working life and on the options that could be available to them in the future. This example demonstrates that an individual can decide not to act as an agent to protect her own well-being and capability. This example also demonstrates that agency is contextual, that it develops through specific actions, events or relations and that it is not an inherent characteristic of individuals (Robb, 2010: 502). Indeed, the museum staff who did not support the occupation might have developed agency in other instances and through other connections or dimensions of their lives. The rest of this book will take careful account of this contextual dimension of agency.

Summary and conclusions This chapter has explained the concept of social justice as the capability approach, the structuring theory adopted in this research. At the heart of the capability approach stands the question: What is one person actually able to do and to be, and how free is this person to choose this? In other words, the capability approach considers which effective opportunities individuals are able to choose from and removing obstacles so that they have the freedom to live the life they have reason to value. The capability approach has also been presented as the perfect theory for this research, as it questions whether and how museum programs have effectively helped immigrants to achieve what they want to be and do, as well as to expand the diversity of options they can choose from to live the life they value. This will be achieved through analyzing whether and how museums have tackled issues of cultural, economic, social and political inequality facing immigrants. In addition, this chapter has explained the central place occupied by the concept of agency in this approach and detailed the following four elements used by Sen to define this notion: self-determination, the power to question and reassess the prevailing norms and values, action and the impact individuals make on the world. This notion of agency is fundamental to address the second aim of this research, which analyzes how immigrants have used the selected museums to address their own issues of representation, language learning and access to employment skills and opportunities. Finally, how the functionings and capability of a person can be positively or negatively affected by personal, environmental or social conversion factors have been made clear. These factors will be carefully taken into account, as much as possible, in analyses of the data, as they can affect the impacts of museums on the life of immigrants.

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This book has so far provided generic details on the capability approach. The following chapters will each start by providing thematic analyses of the application of a capability approach to representation, language learning and employment, before analyzing how issues of cultural, economic and social inequality facing immigrants have been tackled in and by museums.

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Nussbaum, M. 2000, Sex and Social Justice, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Nussbaum, M. 2001, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Nussbaum, M. 2002, “Capabilities and Social Justice”, International Studies Review, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 123–135. Nussbaum, M. 2003, “Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements: Sen and Social Justice”, Feminist Economics, vol. 9, no. 2/3, pp. 33–59. Nussbaum, M. 2004, “Beyond the Social Contract: Capabilities and Global Justice”, Oxford Development Studies, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 3–18. Rancière, J. and Chambat, G. 2008, “Émancipation et éducation, entretien avec Jacques Rancière”, N’Autre Ecole, vol. 19. Available from: http://www.cnt-f.org/ nautreecole/?Emancipation-et-education [accessed on 05/07/2017] Rawls, J. 1971, A Theory of Justice, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Rawls, J. 2005, Political Liberalism, Columbia University Press, New York. Reamer, F.G. 2006, Social Work Values and Ethics, Columbia University Press, New York. Robb, J. 2010, “Beyond Agency”, World Archaeology, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 493–520. Robeyns, I. 2005, “The Capability Approach: A Theoretical Survey”, Journal of Human Development, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 93–114. Sandell, R., Dodd, J. and Garland-Thomson, R. (eds). 2010, Re-Presenting Disability – Activism and Agency in the Museum, Routledge, London. Sen, A. 1980, “Equality of What?”, in McMurrin, S. (ed). The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Salt Lake City, UT. Available from: http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/ [accessed on 04/07/2017] Sen, A. 1987, On Ethics and Economics, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. Sen, A. 1990, “Means Versus Freedoms”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 111–121. Sen, A. 1992, Inequality Re-examined, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Sen, A. 1999, Development as Freedom, Knopf, New York. Sen, A. 2004, “Capabilities, Lists and Public Reason: Continuing the Conversation”, Feminist Economics, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 77–80. Sen, A. 2005, “Human Rights and Capabilities”, Journal of Human Development, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 151–166. Sen, A. 2007, “Capability and Well-Being”, in Hausman, D.H. (ed). The Philosophy of Economics; An Anthology, Third Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 270–294. Sen, A. 2009, The Idea of Justice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Shanks, M. and Tilley, C. 1987, Re-Constructing Archaeology: Theory and Practice, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. UNDP. (ed). 2014, The 2014 Human Development Report – Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience, UNDP, New York. Zappi, S. 2015, “Manuel Valls, l’apartheid et les banlieues”, Le Monde, 26 January. Available from: www.lemonde.fr/banlieues/article/2015/01/26/manuel-vallsl-apartheid-et-les-banlieues_4563754_1653530.html [accessed on 03/07/2016].

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Issues of representation of immigrants in museums have already been well covered in previous publications. This chapter borrows from these previous publications, but it also departs from them in considering representation in museums from the angle of capability and social justice, using Fraser (2000, 2003, 2005) as well as Smith and Fouseki (2011: 97–115). In doing so, I analyze not only different programs on representation developed at SMK, Thorvaldsens Museum, Manchester Museum and the National Museum on the History of Immigration (NMHI), but I also pay particular attention to the voices and views of immigrants themselves who participated in these projects. This adds another layer of originality to my research, as previous publications have tended to analyze representations of diversity from the standpoint of museum staff or visitors only. This chapter starts by explaining how representation relates to social justice. It then discusses programs on representation of immigrants that follow the idea of the contact zone, a concept which has had a major impact on postcolonial museums (Clifford, 1997: 188–219). After explaining the limits of this approach, I discuss fluid and critical processes of engagement of immigrants developed by Manchester Museum and SMK. But what happens when immigrants use museums on their own terms, without the museums' authorization? The last paragraphs analyze the views of the immigrants that occupied the NMHI on its building and permanent exhibition. I will also analyze how this museum subsequently interpreted and represented this event.

Representation as social justice This research focuses on social justice as capability, that is the actual ability of people to achieve what they choose to do and be (Sen, 2007: 271). In other words, an approach to social justice needs to focus on the real opportunities of individuals and on removing obstacles so that they have the freedom to live the life that they can value. This chapter analyses different programs and politics of cultural participation and representation of immigrants within the permanent and temporary galleries at Manchester Museum, SMK, Thorvaldsens Museum and the NMHI. Some authors

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share the view that these politics and programs of cultural participation and representations are unimportant (Kymlicka, 2012; Kymlicka, 2010: 98). Kymlicka, for instance, believes that the recognition and celebration of ethno-cultural diversity, as displayed in museums or performed in festivals, is a problematic model of multiculturalism (2012: 4). Dubbed the '3S model of multiculturalism', focusing on ‘saris, samosas and steel drums’ (Alibhai-Brown, 2000), this representation and celebration of diversity has been understood to be rather shallow, as it ignores and conceals the unequal economic and social treatments faced by immigrants, which are the real issues of concern. On the other hand, Smith and Fouseki, using Fraser, have linked representation of diversity in museums with social justice (Fraser, 2005: 73; Smith and Fouseki, 2011: 97–115). Fraser articulates forcefully that the politics of participation and representation of minorities, including immigrants, is not neutral. Participation and representation of immigrants in museums is important for social justice because it reflects who is included or excluded from the nation and its official narratives. When people are not represented or misrepresented, they can be considered as excluded, inferior, silenced or invisible (Fraser, 2000: 113). For Charles Taylor, Non-recognition or misrecognition . . . can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, reduced mode of being. Beyond simple lack of respect, it can inflict a grievous wound, saddling people with crippling self-hatred. Due recognition is not just a courtesy but a vital human need. (1992: 25) Such non-recognition or misrecognition, and the conception of individuals as inferior, constitutes a real obstacle to realizing capability and enabling the freedom to live the life one chooses to live. These misrecognitions or misrepresentations can indeed lead to discrimination, as well as to negative personal conversion factors, including low self-esteem or self-exclusion from cultural, economic or social opportunities and institutions. Fraser argues that implementing a social justice agenda requires arrangements which enable the participation and the representation of individuals from different social spheres. In order to do so, ‘institutionalized obstacles that prevent some people from participating on a par with others, as full partners in social interactions’ need to be dismantled (Fraser, 2005: 73; Smith and Fouseki, 2011: 97–115). These obstacles can include institutionalized misrecognition of individuals or groups, as is the case for instance with (im)migrants (Kerner, 2010: 43). As further detailed below, museums used to be spaces of exclusion. However, over the past forty years, a number of projects have been developed in these institutions involving communities in the interpretation and representation of their own cultures, heritage and identity. These approaches to participation and representation aim to change

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the museum from a place of exclusion to one that fosters a feeling of belonging and affiliation (how people are able to live with and care for others), which has been identified by Nussbaum, as detailed in the introduction, as one of her core capabilities (2003: 41–42). Participation and representation also lead to recognition, or reciprocal relationships so to speak, where each subject sees each other as equal and as having the same rights and duties. Such recognition ‘can actually aid struggles for economic redistribution and access to social goods and benefits’ (Fraser, 2003: 23; Hobson, 2003: 10) as well as ensuring the redistribution of power from the dominant classes to the rest of the population (Fraser, 2000: 109). The case of the occupation of the NMHI is a good illustration of the power of recognition of immigrants in museums. Indeed, the undocumented workers occupied this museum because the space represented immigration in a positive light and helped to legitimize their right to remain in France. I have just highlighted the importance of representation as social justice: it enables immigrants to be considered as equal to the rest of the population. Indeed, representation fosters feelings of belonging and affiliation, leads to recognition and can aid claims for economic redistribution and access to goods and benefits. Representation in museums can thus be an important element of a capability approach, as it helps to remove obstacles and negative conversion factors so that people have the freedom to live the life they have reason to value and they can be and do what they value. I will now consider whether and how the programs of participation of immigrants at SMK, Thorvaldsens Museum and Manchester Museum, as well as the occupation of the NMHI, have represented immigrants and how these individuals have in turn used these institutions for their own claims to representation and recognition.

From exclusive to inclusive museums Up until the 1970s and the New Museology, museums were used to shape and embody an exclusive and exclusionary understanding of the nation and of national collective identity (McCall and Gray, 2014: 19; Bennett, 1995). The nation-state is an ‘imagined community’ made up of thousands of people who do not know and will never meet each other (Anderson, 1991). Creating sentiments of belonging, affiliations and brotherhood must move beyond notions of direct experiences and of social relations. Generating such sentiments rests on cultural relations made of shared symbols (e.g. a flag), knowledge and representations, as well as on a shared and long-term history (Macdonald, 2003: 2). Museums play essential roles in creating those cultural relations, bonds and symbols that embody the nation. It is rather symbolic, for instance, that Le Louvre Museum in Paris was turned from a royal and private collection into a national, public and free space in 1793, to enact the fall of the Ancient Régime, its systems of privileges and the birth of a democratic nation (Duncan, 1991: 93).

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Museum collections, classifications and displays thus presented, narrated and embodied the stories of nations in an objective manner (Bennett, 1995: 77; Bazin, 1967: 169). This process was not neutral; political decisions were made regarding collections (as it is impossible to collect everything), what to exhibit and how to exhibit artifacts and cultures (Vergo, 1989: 2). Creating sentiments of belonging, affiliations and brotherhood led to focus on one single community. The experiences and histories of minorities were omitted or marginalized (Scorrano, 2012: 346). When mentioned, minorities or non-Europeans were often represented as different (as the Other), inferior and primitive (Bennett, 1995: 77). Museums therefore became exclusionary spaces; places of epistemological injustices because of the very ethnocentric narratives and typologies they used. Besides, entering and visiting these institutions also became an exclusionary process, as they worked as ‘secular rituals’ (Duncan, 1991: 91). Museums work as secular rituals as they force visitors to behave in a specific, contemplative manner, ready for a learning experience. For Bennett, the museum’s aim was to civilize and discipline the public. This ritualistic, civilizing and disciplinary approach led to exclusion, as some members of society did not possess or master the right codes. The novel l’Assomoir by the French writer Zola contains a precise description of a visit to the Louvre by lower classes in the 19th century who did not master the necessary behaviors and codes, and are portrayed rather humorously as being out of place (1877). Moreover, Bourdieu, Darbel and Schnapper demonstrated how these disciplinary and ritualistic approaches have made the museum become not only an exclusionary institution, but also an elitist one (1991: 95–99). The lower and uneducated classes as well as those who had not benefited from a European education did not have a place, because the museum validated one narrow type of knowledge and could only be appreciated by those with prolonged exposure to schooling and Western art, culture and knowledge. This prolonged exposure, called 'cultural capital' by Bourdieu, Darbel and Schnapper, was likely to be high for the dominant classes (ibid.; Barr, 2005: 103). In the past forty years, museum staff, experts and academics have become aware of these issues and have tried to shift the museum from ‘being about something to being for somebody’ (Weil, 1999). Such a move has involved a reflection and redefinition of the role of museums in societies, which have increasingly aimed at raising awareness and appreciation of diversity, and generating a sustained feeling of belonging for minorities (Kreps, 2008: 23–41). In an attempt to achieve these objectives, museums have widened their access to a more diverse public and have become more receptive to multi-vocal interpretations of collections and more inclusive curatorial practices (Kreps, 2009; McCall and Gray, 2014: 20; Silverman, 2015). Community consultation, engagement and co-curation is key to multi-vocal approaches to museology, as is the recognition of cultural and community diversity, in order to reflect their diverse views (Kreps, 2003: 4; Sandell, 2002, 2007; Witcomb, 2003; Smith and Fouseki, 2011; Message, 2008:

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755–768). At the heart of this process is also the recognition that objective knowledge and truth may not exist.

Developing contact zones at Manchester and Copenhagen One strategy concerning the involvement of immigrants in the representational processes has been achieved through employing multiple interpretations of collections within museums. This is a way of moving from epistemological injustices to multiple knowledge creation. This concept of multiple knowledge further helps to move away from the concept of cultural capital. Indeed, if there is a diversity of interpretation of artifacts, based on a diversity of epistemologies, then each visitor can interpret artifacts in her own way based on her own knowledge and background. She does not need to benefit from the mediation of the curator or from sanctioned and specific prior expertise. In my fieldwork, I have observed two related approaches to multiple interpretation and knowledge creation, with Manchester Museum being directly inspired by the concept of the contact zone, as originally defined by Marie-Louise Pratt (1991: 33–40) and borrowed by James Clifford (1997: 188–219) and the National Gallery of Denmark being indirectly inspired by this concept. The contact zone aims to transform the museum from a space of top-down and authoritative interpretation and one-way transmission of knowledge by the curator, to a more circular approach where communities are invited to the museum to choose artifacts and use them for conversations and cross-cultural exchanges. More specifically, the aims of these conversations as contact zones are not for individuals to interpret the chosen objects. Instead these artifacts are used as aide mémoires and mediators for cross-cultural conversations between the participants, telling stories and singing songs (Clifford, ibid.). Through this approach, the museum is no longer a place to sanction or strengthen one objective knowledge and truth. It instead becomes a space for the expression of different types of knowledge, ontologies, values and worldviews (Ang, 2005: 4). As made clear by Pratt and Clifford, these conversations occur in ‘highly asymmetrical relations of power’ (Pratt, 1991: 34) and are used to deconstruct the dominant narratives. Ultimately, these conversations lead to challenge the ways in which communities are either silenced in the museum space or represented as backward or inexistent, and to express stories of struggle, resistance and revival (Clifford, 1997: 109). These conversations might correspond to what Lynch and Alberti have termed ‘radical trust’, defined as shared authority and ‘multiple and contested perspectives that invite participants and visitors into further dialogue’ (2010: 16). The concept of radical trust first appeared in relation to principles of Web 2.0. It refers to the empowerment of online communities who, through blogs, wiki and social media, can provide feedback and input on organizations, and directly impact on their management (O’Reilly, 2005).

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As a way of creating a contact zone, Manchester Museum started Collective Conversations in 2004, a project that lasted four years. The aim of this project was to involve a wide range of communities in intercultural dialogue as well as in interpreting and documenting collections. In order to do so, the museum invited interested individuals to visit the collections to select objects of their choice, first from the stores (mainly from the anthropology collections) and, from 2006 onward, from the whole museum. In the words of the professional who set up this project: ‘What we were interested in was conversations between . . . whoever it was we were working with, and the curators’.1 These conversations were filmed and put online and in the museum’s galleries. When explaining why this project was so important, this professional stressed that ‘It was that shift from the pressure of interpretation to being able to speak from the heart’.2 However, the video Introducing Collective Conversations at Manchester Museum explains that this project aims to engage people with objects and encourage these individuals to explain what they know about them, as well as the feelings and ideas that might be triggered from engagement with these artifacts. More specifically, these videos focus, for instance, on a woman from the Mohawk Nation of North America talking about the First Nations collections, a Ghanaian woman discussing the African slave trade in Ghana or a textile artist explaining Asanti cotton cloth and African textiles. Before critically analyzing this Collective Conversations project at Manchester, I will present the interpretive projects at the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) and Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen. The three-minute videos, created by language students at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum who had just arrived in Denmark were similar to the Collective Conversations project. These videos were filmed interventions by non-experts who expressed what artifacts they had personally chosen, why they had chosen them and how they experienced these objects. This project let people talk about an artifact and through the artifact, as a way of self-formation and identity-making. Learning Danish was an integral part of this project but is analyzed in the next chapter; similarly, the employment dimension of this project is considered in Chapter 5. The following pages focus solely on analyzing the side of this project dealing with representation of diversity and interpretation of collections, as this is the theme of this chapter. For the Head of School Programs at SMK, Nana Bernhardt, who set up this program, the aim of this project was to ‘develop a sense of belonging and the possibility of participation’3 for these newly arrived immigrants. This can be related to Nussbaum’s core capability of affiliation. This project was also strongly inspired by Bakhtin and his concept of ‘multivoicedness’, or polyphony, where different voices can express themselves independently, and are not subordinated to an expert’s voice or point of view (1984: 293). For the Head of School Programs at SMK, this program aimed to ‘make space for a lot of different experiences and narratives’,4 so that the voice of the expert is only one of the polyphonic narratives of artifacts. Through

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these projects, the object becomes the mediation between personal histories and alternative interpretations on the one hand and the more official and national narratives on the other. For instance, one of those participants, a dentist who recently arrived from Iran, chose to discuss the 17th century sculpture Hercules Wrestling with Antaeus by an unknown artist. In the video he scripted, he discusses that these two characters made him think of the sport of wrestling, as he himself is a wrestling referee. He also noted how the teeth of the two figures had been made in such a natural way, despite being mere details of the sculptures. The videos prepared by the immigrants at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum, as well as Collective Conversations at Manchester Museum, represent some important changes for museums. These projects demonstrate that knowledge and meanings are fundamentally relative and that they are constructed through the encounter between the visitor, the work of art, the museum and its larger context (Dysthe, Bernardt and Esbjørn, 2013: 36). These projects are obviously moving away from the concept of cultural capital as one sanctioned and narrow type of knowledge. These projects are also important for the realization of immigrants’ agency, defined here as the awareness of one’s identity and of the self, ‘between internal identification and external ascription’ (Howard, 2000: 375; Rounds, 2006: 133). As the Head of Education at Thorvaldsens Museum, Line Esbjørn, explained, the video projects are ‘not about knowing about Thorvaldsen from A to [Z]; it is about . . . experiencing something that is important for you and making you think’.5 These projects help individuals to self-reflect and to gain a better understanding of their identity, their life trajectory between different countries as well as what they value. In addition, the concept of agency relates to the fact that individuals can have their own personal motivations, and might not only act and think according to the doxa and dominant values perpetuated by some institutions and structures. These videos encouraged immigrants to become agents through being able to develop their own voice, their freedom of expression, and to think and express themselves in ways that do not conform with dominant values. These projects also relate to the realization of one’s capability, the ability of individuals to choose and realize intentionally the goals they value, in this instance learning a new language and understanding Denmark better. However, these projects present a number of shortcomings. First, these videos did not fundamentally challenge the methods of interpretation or the representation of immigrants in the museums. For instance, the videos prepared at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum are only watchable online. Whilst some of the Collective Conversations videos are still in the ‘Living Culture’ galleries at Manchester Museum, they are displayed on very small screens and can be easily missed. These videos appear to contain peripheral messages to the main interpretation of the galleries. It seems as though these conversations have not been fully integrated as alternative interpretations of the collections.

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In addition, these two projects of video creation and collective conversations were not devised in collaboration with immigrants themselves. They were planned on the museums’ own terms and prior to the identification of participants. It is true that most of the immigrants I interviewed in Copenhagen were satisfied with this project, but it is also because it provided them with a job and the opportunity to learn Danish in a working environment, in addition to interpreting collections. However, their full participation from the planning stage of the project might have made them feel more in control. Such full participation has been highlighted by Sen and others as essential for making individuals become agents of their own lives (Sen, 1999; Bifulco, 2013: 174–187). This lack of participation meant that the projects did not reflect immigrants’ concerns, or the way they wanted to use the museums or the collections. Besides, these multi-vocal interpretations did not develop in a natural way. The process of scripting, standing in front of a camera and being filmed, led to a staged and static approach in the creation of these multiple narratives. Individuals lose their spontaneity and start behaving in a particular way in front of a camera, as filming is often orchestrated and therefore not natural. This process of filming is rather reactive, and does not allow things to be captured as they occur. This process of making videos as a way of transforming the museum into a contact zone in fact perpetuated asymmetric distributions of power between immigrants and museum staff. During these projects the immigrants worked under the museum’s terms and objectives, that is, for the museum and not with the museum (Boast, 2011: 63), with the parameters of the projects having been set up by the museum itself without any consultation with participants (Lynch, 2014: 87–100). This section has focused on interpretative projects in the form of video making at Manchester Museum, SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum. Directly inspired, in the case of Manchester Museum, by Pratt’s and Clifford’s concept of the contact zone, these projects focus on immigrants choosing artifacts and using them to engage in self-reflection or to recall related stories. These initiatives contribute to realizing the agency of immigrants by making them more aware of their identities, their own values and their goals in life, as well as expressing themselves in ways that do not conform with dominant values. However, these programs are also problematic, as they did not really change the representation of immigrants. They did not really take account of immigrants’ concerns, or the way the latter wanted to use the museums. More importantly, these videos and multiple interpretations did not develop in a natural manner, but were staged and static.

Critical and fluid processes of engagements Fully aware of the issues with the filmed projects, both SMK and Manchester Museum have moved toward a more critical museological approach. This critical approach is more experimental in its construction of multiple

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knowledge and perspectives. It strongly advocates subjectivity of interpretation and representation against an objective past and history. Fluid, open and ephemeral projects are also privileged to ensure that museums move away from the fixity of (neo)colonial representations and interpretation, towards new forms of engagement and representation (Shelton, 2001: 147). In this approach, ‘accessibility is the most important thing, really, and making sure objects are physically and intellectually accessible to whoever wants to use them’,6 as explained by Stephen Welsh, the curator of Living Cultures at Manchester Museum. In addition, museum staff and project participants are guided by a reflective stance (Szczerski, 2012: 68; Lorente, 2016: 120). They are critical of their own practice, but have also developed a ‘sustained incredulity’ (Shelton, 2011: 35; Shelton and Houtman, 2009: 8) towards, and detachment with, (modern) museums, their functioning and the Eurocentric metanarratives they still produce (see also Lyotard, 1984: xxiv). More specifically, Manchester Museum has recently multiplied the diversity of collaborations with immigrant communities. Another major change has been to transform the degrees of reciprocity, elements of collaborations and the terms under which the museum works with immigrant organizations. As explained in the previous section, collaboration for Collective Conversations was organized under the museum’s own terms and created asymmetrical power relations. In the past few years, the museum has attempted to shift these relations by being more open to the needs and requests of immigrants and representative institutions (Morgan, 2013: 158–171), as well as develop more sustainable and long-term working relations with local communities. This is the result of funding cuts that have led Manchester Museum to rethink its role and its relations to its publics. As a result, the museum has developed more flexible and fluid processes of reciprocal engagements, where immigrants can use the museum under their own terms, but where the museum can also approach immigrants with its own requests for interpretation and participation. For instance, the Virtual Migrants network approached Manchester Museum to organize, as part of the 2013 Platforma Festival, an art show of different partners on arts and refugees in the temporary exhibition space of the museum. The name Virtual Migrants aims to describe ‘the sense of displacement among those peoples who are constantly reminded that their area of residence is not necessarily their home, a sense of an incomplete migration and which is perpetuated along racial lines’ (Chuhan, 1998: 27). Entitled '90 Degree Citizen', this event displayed, in the temporary exhibition space of Manchester Museum, six artists who used photography, painting and print-making to consider issues of homeland, destination, migration, diaspora or cultural hybridity, from 10 October to 17 November 2013. According to Tracey Zengeni, one of the artists who took part in this show,7 the aim of this event was also an opportunity for immigrants to exhibit their art in a different space than an art gallery, in order to engage with new audiences.

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The preparation of this exhibition followed a fluid process of engagement (Ames, 2003). During this preparation and process, the participating artists and Stephen Welsh, the Curator of Living Culture, visited the museum stores. In the words of this curator, the aim of these visits was to ‘generate a debate about migration, critiquing things, asking questions, exploring why all this material was here and how it inspired or otherwise migrant artists’8. Discussions also focused on how objects could be incorporated in future events, as a means of ensuring the long-term engagement between the museum and these artists. These fluid, flexible conversations and the ephemeral knowledge created but not recorded can be considered as challenging and changing the very nature of the museum. Indeed, this institution is moving toward new approaches of knowledge creation which are not fixed. By refusing to film these conversations and fix them on video, the museum is abandoning ‘the (impossible) ideal of comprehensiveness’ (O’Neill, 2006: 44). This is also a move away from the concept of eternal truths in the interpretation of collections, and the recognition of the relativity of knowledge production and understanding, which depend on circumstances, location, people or time. The fact that these conversations were not filmed made them more spontaneous and meaningful. During the project Collective Conversations, discussions with immigrants became the means to the video, which was the actual and final product. Yet, in the preparation of the exhibition with the group Virtual Migrants, these conversations were an end in themselves. In this process, collections accessed became the means for self-reflection and identity-making, as well as explorations of conflicting issues of spoliation, migrations or unequal power relationships. The fact that these conversations were not staged and filmed also meant that museum staff were more receptive to responding to what they heard and saw during these meetings, making them more aware of the views, opinions and needs of community members (Halpin, 2007: 51). It is true that the exhibition itself reflected those conversations. The Curator of Living Culture identified and exhibited specific museum artifacts that resonated with the contemporary artworks prepared for the event and the conversations held. As explained by the project director and manager from Virtual Migrants: Alongside the selected objects was a key piece of text written by Stephen [Welsh] ], which deconstructed the colonial context in which museum objects are acquired and placed into categories according to boundaries devised by European colonizers. This was a parallel narrative exploring the categorization of cultures and nations, so resonating with the way humans are categorized within the migration process as a result of a similar historical process. (Chuhan, 2013: 4) Nonetheless, during their interviews for this book, both this Curator of Living Culture and Andrea Winn, the Curator of Community Exhibitions

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at Manchester Museum, stressed that the exhibition aimed to display contemporary works of art by migrant artists and that the artifacts from the museum stores and the accompanying text were second staged.9 This was a real recognition that this exhibition was fully owned by Virtual Migrants and undertaken on their own terms, rather than appropriated by the museum. The museum’s commitment to multiple knowledge meant that two additional events accompanied this exhibition. The first one, entitled ‘In Conversations’ occurred on the opening night of the exhibition (10 October 2013) and included a talk about the exhibited artwork, a tour of the exhibition and an opportunity for the public to meet with the artists. The second event, ‘Re-presenting Refugees’ (30 October 2013) was a ‘multimedia discussionperformance event’ (Chuhan, 2013: 6) exploring issues of displacement and politics. This multiplicity of events reflected the museum’s commitment to facilitating fluid and multiple ontologies as well as the creation of complex webs of knowledge. Unlike Collective Conversations, which tried to capture these multiple webs of knowledge in just one room at one specific time, these different events (exhibition and accompanying events, conversations in the store rooms) captured them in different environments, at different times and in many different ways. The exhibition and accompanying events were considered by some of the participating artists as having reinforced their agency. Most of the artists that I interviewed from Virtual Migrants had an overtly positive experience of this collaboration with Manchester Museum. These immigrants, in particular, felt some ownership of the museum space, through the possibility of organizing their own exhibition and accompanying events. This feeling of ownership was strengthened by the opportunity for these artists themselves to organize the layout of the exhibition space and the displays of artworks. Until this point, the participating artists were used to working with galleries which organize exhibitions entirely. This in-depth engagement in the preparation of the exhibition created a full sense of affiliation between the immigrants and the museum. During this phase of preparation of the exhibition, the immigrants I interviewed felt that they were considered as artists and not as immigrants, although the work was about refugees and art. One of them, for instance, explained to me that she had gained a sense of self-dignity in this process.10 This process of transformation was strengthened by engagement with a different audience than what the artists usually encounter in galleries or at events they organized. This experience was a way of challenging one’s own perception of oneself as an artist, who might not need to exhibit only in galleries. In addition, the group of artists understood this experience as challenging the boundaries of the museum, as it engaged with contemporary artwork from refugees, whilst it does not usually engage with such pieces. Importantly too, this exhibition challenged the type of knowledge learnt in a Victorian institution like Manchester Museum, with collections in archaeology, ethnology or natural history. The comments received on the exhibition and

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the two events revealed that the public enjoyed learning about firsthand experiences of artists, how the latter engaged with loaded terms such as ‘refugees’ or ‘immigrant’ in the construction of their own identity and how they negotiated their multiple identities (Chuhan, 2013: 8–10). Finally, this exhibition and the museum played an important role as facilitator in strengthening the agency of the participating artists through challenging those norms and definitions associated with immigrants, demonstrating that institutions do not necessarily stand in opposition to individuals as agents. However, one of the artists interviewed for this research was critical that the museum was not very serious or committed about this temporary exhibition. The labels of the exhibited contemporary artworks fell off the walls and were not put back for days (Chuhan, 2013: 10). In addition, this artist believed that the exhibition, its preparation and its accompanying events did not really challenge the traditional conception of the museum as a space of production of hegemonic knowledge.11 Indeed, this exhibition was temporary and was not displayed in the permanent galleries; therefore it only marginally impacted the museum. Besides, no member of the senior management team came to any events; the critical engagement with deconstructing the museum, challenging its boundaries and engaging with the intellectual work of the artists was therefore limited to the three museum staff directly involved in this project. Therefore, both the project Collective Conversations and the more recent and fluid engagement with immigrants are considered by some as not having a real impact on the museum as an institution producing hegemonic knowledge. Some interviewees recognized the importance of these novel and fluid engagements, but that more needed to be done. For them, the only way in which the museum can be fundamentally transformed is through more regular and deeper engagement of immigrants with museums (see also Levin, 2017b: 13). SMK has also attempted to move beyond the limits of the fixed approach to video-making. In the spring 2016, it employed six immigrants and language students for six weeks. These students had to select and prepare presentations on artworks of their choice in Danish, which they would deliver during guided tours alongside the museum’s usual guides. This approach follows a traditional method of interpreting artifacts in museums whilst simultaneously challenging it through the introduction of multi-vocality and interpretation by six non-experts. This is what Bhabha calls ‘mimicry’, which is about copying the Western world, but also, in this process, introducing some difference (1994: 85–92). Mimicry is therefore a sign of a double articulation: on the one hand reproducing one reality or order of things and on the other disrupting it. More specifically, applying this process of mimicry to the methods of interpreting artifacts can be considered as a neo-colonial endeavor, as it is about adopting the cultural values of the West. Yet, this is also a subversive endeavor: it is about disfranchised communities being able to claim ownership of expressions of power and therefore to deconstruct

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them. This use of mimicry as subversive and transformative mirrors Pratt’s concept of the contact zone. Indeed, for her, the contact zone refers to how marginalized communities use concepts and representations produced by dominant groups, and how they also transgress these norms through the process of reuse (1991: 35). These multiple interpretive approaches seem to ensure that immigrants participate ‘on a par with others, as full partners in social interactions’ (Fraser, 2005: 73), which is a condition of social justice, as explained at the beginning of this chapter. In addition to preparing these presentations and delivering them during guided tours, the language-learning immigrants had to shadow an employee of SMK as a means of ensuring that this project with immigrants did not only concern a limited number of staff within the education department and did not only remain at the periphery of the institution. However, the evaluation of this project revealed that some involved members of staff did not really understand the immigrant’s role nor the reasons why they had been employed and the tasks that they were supposed to undertake. Some staff were also requested to participate in the project at very short notice and without having been provided with much detail, making it difficult for them to provide immigrants with meaningful tasks or information (Thesander, 2016: 10–12). Conscious of the limits of the contact zone, Manchester Museum and SMK have thus developed more fluid and flexible engagements with immigrants in recent years. SMK has also made conscious efforts to ensure the engagement of immigrants with the institution as a whole, rather than their peripheral participation in the life of the museum. Yet, I have just explained the limits of these new participatory approaches. Having explained the limits of projects on representation undertaken by the selected museums, I now turn to the case of the occupation of the NMHI undertaken by immigrants on their own terms.

Occupation of the NMHI: undocumented immigrants’ views on the collections The occupation of the National Museum on the History of Immigration (NMHI) in Paris was undertaken by sans-papiers who demanded their legal right to remain in France. I will start by analyzing the occupying immigrants’ attitudes toward the building and some of the artifacts in the permanent exhibition before assessing how this occupation has been represented in the museum galleries over the past few years. These two parts focus on representation and will be completed by a full analysis, presented in Chapter 6, of these immigrants' use of the museum to gain the legal right to remain in France and fight against employment discrimination. This case of an occupation fully fits this research, as denying the legal right to remain in France for these immigrants prevented them from developing their capability. They were not free to choose what they want to do and be, they were not able to have decent working conditions nor could they think about their future.

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I have presented elsewhere the NMHI (Labadi, 2013). Opened in 2007, it is housed in the former Palace of the Colonies, a vast Art Déco building, constructed for the 1931 International Colonial Exhibition. This space was originally the Musée Permanent des Colonies and then housed the Musée des Arts Africains et Océaniens. It became a vacant space when its collections were transferred to the Quai Branly Museum in 2006. On 7 October 2010, 500 undocumented workers, most of them from French-speaking Africa (primarily from Mali and Senegal), occupied the NMHI. This date was symbolic as it coincided with the World Day for Decent Work. Until 8 December 2010, it was a continuous day and night occupation of the public spaces of the museum. From 12 December 2010 until 28 January 2011, the NMHI closed at night, so the immigrants had to leave every evening and return the following day. An end was put to this occupation on 28 January 2011, on the grounds of the non-compliance of undocumented workers with internal rules (Labadi, 2013: 322). In the first two months of the occupation, the undocumented immigrants stayed in the 900-square-meters function room, the biggest room on the ground floor of this building. Its walls are entirely painted with frescoes, executed by Pierre Ducos de la Haille in 1931. These frescoes celebrate, using allegoric figures, the civilizing and positive contributions France brought to its then colonies, including freedom, justice, science and medicine. This iconography had a clear role of propaganda: to highlight the benefits of the French colonialist mission and to hide all the negative, dark and repressive dimensions (Jarrassé, 2007: 64). These frescoes present the French as the superior and powerful masters, whereas these colonized people, some of them modern-day immigrants, are presented as subaltern ‘good savages’, close to nature and in need of civilization (Murphy, 2007: 29 and 33; Thomas, 2013: 51). On the second floor of this building is located the permanent exhibition which, at the time of the occupation, narrated the journeys of immigrants from their arrival in France to their integration within the French society, in an objective manner, without making much space for individual testimonies. This approach contradicts the aims of this institution which are to represent the positive impacts of immigration in France and to strengthen social cohesion through giving immigrants some markers of identity, which could have been best achieved through providing individual examples and role models (Labadi, 2013: 319–321). During my interviews, I wanted to understand particularly how immigrants reacted to the frescoes of the function room. Indeed, one might have thought they would have been shocked and upset by these stereotyping frescoes of semi-naked and savage natives reflecting a colonialist propaganda (ibid. 313–314; Stevens, 2010: 115–125). However, most of the interviewees did not relate at all to the frescoes and did not consider them as racist, shocking or degrading. The lack of concern for the frescoes indicates that the immigrants rejected the categorizations and hierarchization made by the colonial order. In addition, most of the immigrants rejected

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these hierarchical and stereotyping representations by explaining that they considered themselves to be French. For one interviewee called Adama, for instance, When I saw the comrades sad and discouraged, I told them that we are more French than [some people], because we are from a former French colony, Senegal which acquired its independence not so long ago in 1960. My maternal grandfather fought for France during the Second World War . . . I’m here in France now, I work, I contribute to the French economy; so somewhere there is something in me which is French.1213 This quote destabilizes this order between French and others, due to the long colonial and post-colonial histories shared by most of the undocumented workers, and the key role played by natives from the colonies (particularly ‘Senegalese Tirailleurs’) during the two world wars. On the other hand, Fousseni Sacko, a representative of the undocumented immigrants on strike as well as one of the most vocal and public figures of the movement established a personal connection with the permanent exhibition, on the second floor. Whilst occupying the NMHI, he found displayed in this exhibition a photo, taken by Patrick Zachmann of his primary school in Troula, his native village in Mali, with all the schoolchildren, himself included, and teachers. This photo was taken on the day of the inauguration of the school in the 1990s. This school had been financed by remittances sent by emigrants from Troula living in Seine-Saint Denis (a suburb of Paris) who were all ‘blue collar’ workers, including Sacko’s close relatives. Through financing this school, these immigrants had hoped to ensure a better life for their children. This encounter between Sacko and his photo represents a connection between the permanent collection, which aims to present a history of immigration, and contemporary phenomena of immigrations. This photo highlights the difficulty of separating the history of (im)migration and its contemporary manifestations, since they often overlap. During his interview for this book, Sacko explained that, for him, this photo symbolically represented the hypocrisies of the NMHI: on the one hand, this museum focused almost exclusively on the positive aspects of immigration, including the positive contributions of immigrants to Africa and their countries of origin. On the other hand, Sacko was shocked that ‘there is no mention whatsoever (in the NMHI) of what migrants have to endure’, ‘their lack of rights’14 as well as the darker aspects of contemporary phenomena of migrations. However, these misrepresentations on the frescoes of non-Europeans as inferior, and the silencing Sacko highlighted, were addressed to some extent by immigrants during their occupation of the NMHI, as will be explained in Chapter 6. The next section now focuses on how the NMHI has portrayed the working sans-papiers movement and the museum’s occupation within its permanent collections.

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The representation of the occupation in the permanent galleries The representation of the sans-papiers occupation in the permanent collections has changed over the past few years, but has suffered from some forms of censure on the part of the NMHI. At the time of writing (March 2017), no mention is made of the occupation or of undocumented immigrant workers in the permanent exhibition Repères. Mentioning this event was planned as part of the revamping of this exhibition which took place during the summer 2014. During her interview for this book, the then conservator of ethnographic collections at the NMHI indicated to me that she had worked, in collaboration with other colleagues, on the representation of this occupation for this revamped permanent exhibition: ‘In the permanent space, as it was thought in this new version, we actually added a little reference that specified this time of the occupation of the NMHI’.15 Although she had left before the opening of this space, she indicated that such direct reference was supposed to be included as part of the section on the union-led struggles. The museum had indeed made a conscious effort to document the occupation and to collect some of the artworks that depicted this period. For instance, the museum requested one of the film directors I interviewed, Irène Berelowitch, to document, in a broad sense, the occupation. The idea was to make a short film about the occupation but also to gather as many testimonies (of sans-papiers) as possible. . . . We conceived our work especially as giving a face, a voice to this occupation. So we aimed to understand: who were the people (sans-papiers)? What was their story? Why were they there? How did they get together?16 This film was produced and sent to the museum in January 2011. Yet, no mention has been made of the occupation, and this film has never been shown (but another of her films on Sacko Fousseni is shown in the Donation Gallery, as explained below). During my regular visits at the museum, I was continuously referred to a small glass cabinet on the first floor of the museum (in one of the mezzanines), away from the permanent exhibition (located on the second floor). No sign indicates the relevance of this small display, which contains objects left by the immigrants at the end of the occupation in January 2011. The cabinet forms part of a wider display on the history and previous collections of the NMHI, although it is difficult to determine why it was not included in the main exhibition. The then conservator of the ethnographic collections who prepared this glass case stated that the cabinet’s location made sense, as the occupation was an event in the history of the NMHI. It thus needed to be presented in the section on the history of the museum. In addition, she justified the size of the exhibit as follows:

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it could not take more space than the other events of the museum. For example, the colonial exhibition and the history of the Palace itself could also have occupied the entire space of the mezzanine because they are a big part of the history of this establishment.17 However, the peripheral location of this small cabinet and the lack of references to the working sans-papiers movement in the permanent space of the museum also highlight the uneasiness of the museum staff to deal with this occupation. For a representative of the CGT-Culture (the branch of the Confédération Générale du Travail trade union dealing with cultural affairs), the museum’s goal is to distance itself as much as possible from this occupation, since it considers it as negatively impacting on visits.18 The museum is indeed positioning itself as ‘apolitical’ (CNHI, 2011a: 12–13) and neutral in order to be attractive to as wide a public as possible (ibid.). More than an uneasiness, this peripheral location also suggests a refusal on behalf of the museum to recognize the importance of this occupation and of the phenomenon of undocumented workers, maybe to respect the government’s positions which funds this institution. This distancing resulted in some censure, which is clearly visible by the choice of objects displayed in the glass cabinet. The objects focus on the ‘social’ aspect of the occupation and include a teapot, a jerry can to carry water, a prayer mat and a tape. Those objects were selected because they illustrated how life in a community was orchestrated during this occupation. The prayer mat illustrated times for prayer, the jerry can those times of libation and preparation of the tea, the teapot a time of sharing around the tea which was also offered to visitors and museum staff. Most of the immigrants interviewed thought that this was a good display of the social dimension of the occupation. For Konaté, one of the interviewed immigrants, ‘just seeing the jerry can again makes me go back over the time spent at the NMHI’.19 Yet, the cabinet presents also a number of shortcomings. First, it was prepared without the knowledge or the participation of any immigrant, trade union or NGO involved in the occupation. This way of proceeding relates back to the traditional museography of exclusion and objectification. None of the immigrants or trade union representatives I interviewed were aware of this small exhibit. Second, no displayed artifact refers to the CGT, the main trade union which coordinated the movement, whilst immigrants left many leaflets, badges and stickers displaying the symbol of the CGT behind them when the occupation ended. In addition, the cabinet makes no reference to the other ten organizations which supported the movement or the occupation. As highlighted by one of the representatives of the CGT and a former occupying sans-papiers,20 it seems that there has been a deliberate ‘re-writing of history’ by silencing the coordinating and organizing role played by the CGT, and the supporting role played by the other organizations, in order to obscure the fact that this was a well-structured workers’ movement. The display thus perpetuates the traditional stereotyping image of immigrants as

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non-workers, detached from politics and lacking any substantial network of support. Of course, the cabinet might also denote the difficulty for museum staff to select meaningful objects among those left by the sans-papiers (Battesti, 2012: 17). Yet, the display overemphasizes the religious and social aspect of the occupation, which can be seen to downplay the significance of its other aspects. It is very difficult to understand the choice of objects selected for the display, especially in the context of the recent (2014) reorganization and reopening of the ‘Gallerie des dons’ (Donation Gallery). This gallery, curated by the then conservator of ethnographic collections who also selected the objects for the glass case on the occupation illustrates the first, timid recognition of the occupation through the voice of immigrants themselves. This gallery displays objects donated by immigrants as well as descriptions, by these donors, of the symbolic nature of these artifacts. Whilst the gallery used to be very small, housing only seven objects, it was reorganized thematically and expanded to house around 50 donations in mid-2014. ‘Immigrants at work’ is one of the themes chosen; it displays a diversity of testimonies, including that of Sacko Fousseni, mentioned previously with his striker’s card, or the working contract of the Moroccan Abdeslam Lahbil who died of an accident in France in 1976, accompanied by testimonies of his children. As I have explained elsewhere (Labadi, 2013: 319–320), firstperson testimonies from immigrants present them as active agents of their lives rather than objectifying them through presenting third-person accounts of immigration (see also Lafont-Couturier, 2007: 43; Lonetree, 2012: 27). This direct participation and first-person narration is rather rare and unique but essential for visitors to understand the multiplicity of immigration experiences and for moving from monologism to a plurality of voices (de Jong, 2013: 299). This approach to subjectification is a clear way of shifting expertise, power and authority from curators to immigrants. This process recognizes the value of immigrants’ own knowledge, rather than relying on objective and detached facts. According to the conservator of this space, the donation of a personal object is a powerfully symbolic act. Using Marcel Mauss, she believes that the gift creates a mechanism of obligations and reciprocity around equal members of societies and around giving and receiving (du Mazaubrun, 2014: 8–13). As explained by Mauss ‘the unreciprocated gift still makes the person who has accepted it inferior, particularly when it has been accepted with no thought of returning it’ (2002 [1950]: 85). In conceiving this gallery around this notion of the gift, the curator of this space wanted to create reciprocity between immigrants who donate objects and the museum, which represents the nation (du Mazaubrun, 2014: 12). In this exchange, the immigrant donates an object and a personal testimony of the symbolic attachment to it. The museum accepts this gift and enters into a process of reciprocity in recognizing and fully integrating these immigrants within the official history of France (du Mazaubrun, 2014: 13). This reciprocity in

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the gift leads to a process of legitimacy where the foreigner becomes part of France and its collective identity (Grognet, 2007: 8). Above all, the reciprocity of the gift means that The whole society, the French society acknowledges receipt of these gifts and thus recognizes the history of immigration in the history of France. So, in fact, the very status of the gift is part of this process which is unique in itself, and aims to have this history of immigration recognized in the history of France, as explained to me by the conservator of this space21. In order to enter into this process of recognition, Sacko Fousseni gave his striker’s card to the museum, to be displayed in the Donation Gallery, and contributed to a small film on the importance of this object and the wider sans-papiers movement. For him, this card was like his first residence permit (he obtained his actual residence permit in 2012), as it enabled him to be visible for the first time and to be treated like a worker and not an ‘illegal’ person with no rights. The fact that Sacko gave his card is a very strong recognition of his legitimacy to be in France, his attachment to France, as well as his identity as a worker. This artifact, exhibited in the Donation Gallery, counters the glass cabinet display on the occupation. Quite ironically, this striker’s card and its accompanying testimony highlight all that was omitted in this case: the central role played by the CGT, the highly structured organization of the occupation of the museum by migrant workers as well as the presentation of working sans-papiers as resilient, active and politically aware. This donation and accompanying testimony also contradicts the explanation of the Donation Gallery by the then Director of the Museum, Luc Gruson, for whom immigrants are in an in-between place between their home country and their nation of adoption; they are attached and detached, ‘enracinés et déracinés’ (Gruson, 2014: 5–6). Yet, against this categorization of immigrants divided between two worlds, Sacko clearly stressed that, for him and many sanspapiers, working and living legally in France was of paramount importance and that they did not feel divided between two countries. Although this gallery is certainly a first step toward a more truthful representation of undocumented immigrants, it is also problematic. Since the gallery’s reopening in 2014, Sacko’s striker’s card is still the only testimony of the occupation of the museum. Moreover, this space is officially separated from the permanent exhibition and seems like an annex rather than the core space of the museum. In addition, immigrants, and in particular Sacko, were rather critical of this space. Despite having his striker’s card displayed, Sacko highlighted that this space sent a hypocritical message, because it still does not recognize the unjust treatment and the poor conditions faced by many immigrants, especially working sans-papiers in France.22 He actually felt this hypocrisy during the inauguration of the Donation Gallery in 2014, as the official speeches focused primarily on the positive aspects of migrations

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in France and the fact that this country is a land and symbol of asylum and human rights. For him, these speeches demonstrated the inadequacy of a solitary exhibit in changing the mentality and the representation of immigrants in France. In addition, these contradictory approaches to the representation of the NMHI occupation in different sections of the permanent galleries demonstrate the difficulties the museum faced in dealing coherently with this event. One reason for these difficulties relates to the lack of involvement of the former occupying sans-papiers on how to represent the occupation. Such meaningful involvement might have helped to facilitate decisions concerning what to collect, preserve and display. Indeed, it has been widely documented that meaningful participation and contributions from communities facilitate decisions on their representations (Haworth, 2012: 204–211; Battesti, 2012: 19–23). In addition, the museum also seems to struggle with implementing one of its main goals which is to represent immigration as a historical process as well as a contemporary socio-economic phenomenon (Poinsot, 2012: 214). As a national and public institution, it seems difficult for the museum to adopt positions concerning sans-papiers that would conflict with the government, the main funder of this institution. The museum appears to have adopted a similar ambiguous approach to working sans-papiers as the French government, concomitantly recognizing to some extent their importance (in particular through the display of Sacko’s card), but also denying them, in many cases, the legal right to remain in France. These ambiguities will be further considered in Chapter 6 as well as in the conclusion.

Summary and conclusions A number of initiatives for the representation of immigrants, as deployed in the selected museums, have been critically analyzed. Such representation is necessary for social justice, as it can reflect who is included and excluded from the nation and its official narratives. Lack of representation can also lead to discrimination and constitute an impediment to ensuring the realization of the capability of immigrants. In-depth analyses of the collected data have revealed a number of shortcomings with the programs the selected museums proposed and a sense that they are not yet doing enough on the representation of immigrants. This means that the selected museums are not fully contributing to social justice. This is the case for instance with the projects developed at SMK, Thorvaldsens and Manchester Museum that followed the concept of the contact zone where immigrants were invited to develop their own interpretation of artifacts or discuss them whilst being filmed in this process. These approaches present a number of inadequacies, mainly because they were museum-led and did not develop in a spontaneous manner. In recent years, Manchester Museum and SMK have been committed to addressing these shortcomings by developing more fluid and flexible processes

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of engagement with immigrants, as well as by being more receptive to their own needs. A recent project at Manchester Museum, for instance, included an immigrant-led exhibition and events, as well as discussions with museum staff around the ethics of collecting. Yet, some participants of this exhibition felt that this was not sufficient, as it was a peripheral project that did not really challenge or change the museum or involve many staff members. As for the National Museum on the History of Immigration, it must be recognized that its mere existence as a national and public institution is already a strong symbol of the recognition of the positive contributions of past immigrations to France. This strong symbol was in fact one of the reasons for its occupation by undocumented workers from October 2010 to January 2011, as they sought full recognition of the contemporary phenomena of immigration, and more specifically, of the working sans-papiers and for their legal right to remain on the French territory. Yet, the stereotyped glass cabinet which portrayed the occupation, and the marginalization of this event, which is still not mentioned in the permanent exhibition of the NMHI, demonstrate the difficulty that museums have in representing immigrants in their collections and in providing voices that clash with official discourses, particularly in national museums receiving public funding. Having critically analyzed programs on the representation of immigrants in permanent and temporary collections, I now move to consider language learning opportunities the selected museums provide for immigrants.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Interview, 17 December 2014 ibid. Interview, 6 March 2014 ibid. Interview, 10 March 2014 Interview, 27 May 2014 Interview, 10 June 2014 Interview, 27 May 2014 Interview, 27 May 2014 Interview, 10 June 2014 Interview, 5 June 2014 Interview, 17 November 2014 All of the interviews related to the case of the NMHI were in French and are my own translation Interview, 3 May 2014 Interview, 19 February 2015 Interview, 13 February 2015 Interview, 19 February 2015 Interview, 24 February 2014 Interview, 18 January 2014 Interview, 24 February 2015 Interview, 19 February 2015 Interview, 3 May 2014

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Levin, A. 2017. “Introduction: Global Mobilities”, in Levin, A. (ed). Global Mobilities: Refugees, Exiles, and Immigrants in Museums and Archives, Routledge, London, pp. 1–26. Lonetree, A. 2012, Decolonising Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. Lorente, J.P. 2016, “From the White Cube to a Critical Museography: The Development of Interrogative, Plural and Subjective Museum Discourses”, in MurawskaMuthesius, K. and Piotrowski, P. (eds). From Museum Critique to the Critical Museum, Routledge, London, pp. 115–129. Lynch, B. 2014, “Challenging Ourselves: Unconfortable Histories and Current Museum Practices”, in Jidd, J. et al. (eds). Challenging History in the Museum: International Perspectices, Routledge, London, pp. 87–100. Lynch, B. and Alberti, S. 2010, “Legacies of Prejudice: Racism, Co-production and Radical Trust in the Museum”, Museum Management and Curatorship, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 13–35. Lyotard, J.-F. 1984, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester University Press, Manchester. Macdonald, S. 2003, “Museums, National, Postnational and Transcultural Identities”, Museum and Society, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1–16. Mauss, M. 2002 [1950], The Gift, Routledge, London. McCall, V. and Gray, C. 2014, “Museums and the ‘New Museology’: Theory, Practice and Organisational Change”, Museum Management and Curatorship, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 19–35. Message, K. 2008, “Reflecting on the New Museum Through an Antipodean Lens: The Museum of Sydney and ‘The Imaginary Museum’”, Third Text, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 755–768. Morgan, J. 2013, “Examining the ‘Flexible Museum’: Exhibition Process, a Project Approach, and the Creative Element”, Museum and Society, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 158–171. Murphy, M. 2007, Un palais pour une cité: du musée des colonies à la Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration, Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris. Nussbaum, M. 2003, “Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements: Sen and Social Justice”, Feminist Economics, vol. 9, no. 2/3, pp. 33–59. O’Neill, M. 2006, “Museums and Identity in Glasgow”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 29–48. O’Reilly, T. 2005, What Is Web 2.0? Available from: www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/ oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/ 30/what-is-web-20.html [accessed on 16/02/2017]. Poinsot, M. 2012, “La Cité nationale de l’Histoire de l’immigration, une initiative pionnière au cœur des enjeux de société actuels des musées”, in Battesti, J. (ed). Que reste-t-il du présent? Collecter le contemporain dans les musées de société, Coédition Musée Basque et de l’histoire de Bayonne, Société des Amis du Musée Basque, Fédération des écomusées et musées de société, Le Festin, Paris, pp. 212–212. Pratt, M.L. 1991, “The Arts of the Contact Zone”, Profession, vol. 92, pp. 33–40. Rounds, J. 2006, “Doing Identity Work in Museums”, Curator, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 133–150. Sandell, R. (ed). 2002, Museums, Society, Inequality, Routledge, London. Sandell, R. 2007, Museums, Prejudice and the Reframing of Difference, Routledge, London.

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Scorrano, A. 2012, “Constructing National Identity: National Representations at the Museum of Sydney”, Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 345–362. Sen, A. 1999, Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Sen, A. 2007, “Capability and Well-Being”, in Hausman, D.H. (ed). The Philosophy of Economics; An Anthology, Third Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 270–294. Shelton, A. 2001, “Unsettling the Meaning: Critical Museology, Art and Anthropological”, in Bouquet, M. (ed). Academic Anthropology and the Museum: Back to the Future, Berghahn Books, New York, pp. 142–161 Shelton, A. 2011, “From Anthropology to Critical Museology and Vice versa”, Museo y Territorio, vol. 4, pp. 30–41 Shelton, A. and Houtman, G. 2009, “Negotiating New Visions: An Interview With Anthony Shelton by Gustaaf Houtman”, Anthropology Today, vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 7–13. Silverman, R. (ed). 2015, Museum as Process – Translating Local and Global Knowledges, Routledge, London. Smith, L. and Fouseki, K. 2011, “The Role of Museums as ‘Places of Social Justice’”, in Smith, L., Cubitt, G., Fouseki, K. and Wilson, R. (eds). Representing Enslavement and Abolition in Museums, Routledge, London, pp. 97–115. Stevens, M. 2010, “Still the Family Secret? The Representation of Colonialism in the Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration”, in Thomas, D. (ed). Museums in Postcolonial Europe, Routledge, London, pp. 115–125. Szczerski, A. 2012, “Curating and the Importance of an Artwork”, in Nabergoj, S. and Borčić, B. (eds). Dilemmas of Curatorial Practices: World of Art Anthology (lectures, Season 14), SCCA, Ljubljana. Taylor, C. 1992, Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Thesander, J. 2016, At høre til. Evaluering af ansættelsesprogrammet for sprogkursister. Unpublished Document. Thomas, D. 2013, Africa and France: Postcolonial Cultures, Migration and Racism, Indiana University Press, Indianapolis. Vergo, P. 1989, “Introduction”, in Vergo, P. (ed). The New Museology, Reaktion Books, London, pp. 1–5. Weil, S.E. 1999, “Being About Something to Being for Somebody: The Ongoing Transformation of the American Museum”, Daedalus, vol. 128, no. 3, pp. 229–258. Witcomb, A. 2003, Re-Imagining the Museum: Beyond the Mausoleum, Routledge, London. Zola, E. 1877, L’Assomoir, G. Charpentier, Paris.

4

Language learning in museums

Education stands at the heart of museums. Some of the original functions of museums in the 19th century were to ‘help people better themselves’ (Hein, 1998: 4; Hooper-Greenhill, 1991: 25). In other words, one of the roles of museums at that time was to give a chance for self-improvement to people who had not received an education, because education was available to so few. With the democratization of education, museums have become committed to supplement and enhance classroom learning. We can all remember a visit to a museum from our childhood. In more recent years, museums have become increasingly committed to adult education. Manchester Museum, Manchester Art Gallery as well as SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen have, in recent years, received requests from adult language schools for tours of their collections and galleries for their students. However, as further detailed below, the education staff of these museums believed that such traditional guided tours provide limited learning opportunities for students. They therefore developed more engaging programs for immigrants wanting to learn the language of their host country. In this chapter, I focus on some of these innovative programs which are different in their organization, yet very similar in what they aim to achieve, that is practicing conversation, becoming more confident when speaking a foreign language as well as gaining some key social skills and enjoying art. These programs were selected because they illustrate different methods of using museums for language learning. In addition, they go beyond the sole provision of sessions that follow and support language courses. Indeed, these museum sessions have faced some criticisms (for discussions, for instance, on the shortcomings of events that follow the ESOL core curriculum, see Sergi, 2014: 209–219; Clarke, 2010: 138–164). More specifically, in Copenhagen, I analyzed the part-time employment programs for language learners at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum, already discussed previously from the angle of representation. The one-off two-hour language-learning sessions organized at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum, which were booked and paid for by language schools for their students, have also been studied. In Manchester, I analyzed the English Corner program, a one-and-a-half-hour conversation class provided and hosted by Manchester

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Museum and Manchester Art Gallery. It is a regular offer, provided three times per month (at the time of my research on this program in 2014), is free and can be attended by anybody without prior booking (except for groups). These programs attracted different socio-economic profiles of language learners, as discovered during my observations and interviews. The students who regularly attended the English Corner sessions offered at Manchester were rather affluent, well-educated learners who had decided to come to England of their own free will, despite the fact that this program had originally been prepared for refugees and asylum seekers. The three-month projects on language learning and video making as part of a paid job at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum concerned highly educated, upwardly mobile and young professionals from all over the world, whilst the follow-up project on an artwork interpretation and presentation involved more diverse participants. The students who attended the one-off language-learning session at SMK and Thorvaldsens were also socially, culturally, economically and ethnically diverse, but they attended the programs with their language schools and not independently. These socio-economic profiles will be analyzed in greater depth, as will these patterns of attendance. In addition, these language-learning opportunities are assessed according to the capability approach, addressing the following questions. How do the selected museums improve the real opportunities offered to people to learn and speak the language of the host country? Which teaching approach works best? Are the workshops in museums different from learning a language in school? Are some immigrants excluded from these workshops and, if so, why? To address these questions, the relationship between language learning and capability as social justice is explained. Then, the pedagogical approaches adopted by the selected museums in Manchester and Copenhagen are assessed. A final section identifies whether some immigrants do not attend these programs as well as the reasons for such exclusion from the museum.

Language learning and competency as capability Language learning and competency is part of education. Both Sen and Nussbaum have highlighted the central importance of education to the capability approach (Nussbaum, 2002, 2006; Sen, 1992; Walker and Unterhalter, 2007: 8). Sen considers education as being a ‘basic capability’ as it relates to central doings and beings, which is crucial to well-being. Language learning and competency also relates to a number of Nussbaum’s core capabilities. These include being able to use the senses, to imagine, to think and to reason; to be able to engage in critical reflection and visualize life plans; to be able to engage in various forms of social interaction or to have control over one’s environment (Nussbaum, 2003: 41–42). Flores-Crespo further associates education with being able to feel confident and self-reliant, to develop

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further abilities and to transform commodities into valuable functionings (2002, 2007: 51). Above all, being able to speak a language impacts not only on people’s well-being, it also has wider consequences on their family life, and on intergenerational communications (Terzi, 2007: 32; Schuller, Preston, Hammond, Brassett-Grundy and Bynner, 2004). Fatima Elayoubi, for instance, a Moroccan immigrant in France, wrote about the frustration of not being able to speak French for decades. She found this a particular issue not only because she could not express herself, be respected or find a decent job, but also because she could not communicate properly with her two daughters who were born and raised in France (2006). Her life and books were the inspiration for the film ‘Fatima’ by Philippe Faucon, who won the Best Film accolade at the 2016 César Awards (the French equivalent of the Academy Awards). Besides, language learning and competency enhance freedom of choice, a concept at the heart of the capability approach, as they expand the different opportunities available for individuals and make ‘one’s life richer with the opportunity of reflexive choice’ (Sen, 1992: 41). Speaking a language enables individuals to be able to access more opportunities. It can give people the confidence to reflect upon which opportunities are right for them, and reject those which are not (Walker and Unterhalter, 2007: 6). In addition, education and language leaning have an instrumental aspect, since they nurture and condition the acquisition of other capabilities or better career opportunities (Terzi, 2007: 31). In other words, language learning plays a key role in the expansion of capabilities and of freedom of choice (Saito, 2003: 27). For instance, Lezel, a nurse who arrived from the Philippines to Denmark, needed to be fluent in Danish before being able to work as a nurse there. Being able to learn Danish both at school and at the museum from 2013 onward expanded her choice of careers and enabled her to choose what she valued in life. I have just demonstrated that language learning and competency strengthen agency. Through being able to speak the language of the host country, an immigrant will be able to make more deliberate decisions, rather than being shaped by external circumstances and environment (Vitanova et al., 2015: 2). Through speaking the language of the host country, an individual will also be able to have a voice and participate in public and civic life. Importantly too, language learning can strengthen agency through its transformative effects. Some of the immigrants I met during the language classes at Manchester Museum and Manchester Art Gallery, for instance, wanted to learn English in order to change their current conditions, such as bettering their working situation or gaining employment, or being able to feel confident and be self-reliant. Some of the women I met associated learning the language of the host country with greater freedom, empowerment and making choices, rather than having to depend on their husbands (as also highlighted in the literature, see for example Rockhill, 1987; Gordon, 2004). Language learning can thus assist with social mobility, fighting poverty and raising aspirations (Ward, 2008: 8).

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Language learning and competency are also, for immigrants, a strategy for fighting against some common stereotypes and misjudgments that affect them. This is another way of strengthening the agency of immigrants and creating the conditions enabling them to have the freedom to choose what they want to be and do. Indeed, in the three countries considered in this research, some politicians and opinion makers have accused both European and non-European immigrants of refusing to learn the language of the host country. However, there is no empirical evidence to support this case (Cooke, 2006: 58). This so-called refusal has been used to define immigrants as inferior, uneducated and uncivilized, as they cannot properly speak the language of the host country (Cameron, 1995). This has been presented as leading to an eventual breakdown in social cohesion, as language acts as a symbol and cement for the nation (ibid.; Blackledge, 2005). This refusal has led politicians and opinion makers to argue that, since immigrants do not want to master the national language, one of the key elements of ‘national identity’, then they have no legitimate reason to stay in their host country (Cooke, 2006: 58). On the other hand, learning the language of the host country and being able to speak it can be, for immigrants, an empowered way of fighting against these stereotypes, political maneuvers and the common belief that they cannot be part of their host society. But what does analyzing language learning opportunities offered by museums from the capability approach really mean? To address this question, the difference between capability and functioning needs to be recalled: ‘The difference between a capability and a functioning is one between an opportunity to achieve and the actual achievement, between potential and outcome’ (Walker and Unterhalter, 2007: 4). Firstly, this means that the language classes offered to immigrants, and the different opportunities to learn the language of the host country, need to be analyzed (Walker and Unterhalter, 2007: 4). Secondly, the achieved outcomes, that is to be able to speak the language of the host country, will also have to be considered. In doing so, the social, cultural or physical environments that enable a person to learn a language must also be evaluated. In other words, is someone really free to learn a foreign language or attend courses, or are they limited by outside factors? Focusing on the capability approach will thus help to identify real education advantages for learners and the teaching approaches which work best, as well as situations of disadvantage, marginalization and exclusion (Walker and Unterhalter, 2007: 5). This is exactly what the rest of this chapter aims to do, starting with an analysis of the main pedagogical approaches adopted in the language-learning workshops at Manchester and Copenhagen.

Constructivist approaches to teaching and learning The language-learning programs analyzed at SMK, Thorvaldsens Museum, Manchester Museum and the Manchester Art Gallery have followed a constructivist approach which considers knowledge as constructed by learners

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(Hein, 1998: 18; Freire, 1973). This is very different from the traditional approach to museum education which considers knowledge as independent and external from the learner. According to this traditional, didactic and expository approach to teaching and learning, individuals learn by absorbing information (Hein, 2002: 197–214). A description of this didactic and expository model of learning is provided in the opening scene of Hard Times by Dickens: The speaker, and the schoolmaster [Mr Choakumchild], and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim. (Dickens, 1854: 2) Learning in this didactic and expository model is not only external to individuals, it is also incremental, adding to the passive mind bit by bit. A classic example of this didactic expository model is the traditional museum visit. A guide, who possesses a full knowledge of the collections, transmits this knowledge to an audience who learns by absorbing the information (through careful listening or taking notes). During her interview, the Head of School Programs at SMK, Nana Bernhardt explained that the demand for traditional types of museum visits are actually very popular with language schools, as they are interested in getting a classical introduction to Danish culture. Teachers and students who visit SMK often like a guide to provide them with some ‘kind of authoritative narrative of what the visual history and the cultural history of Denmark is’, as she explained .1 During such a visit, teaching is unidirectional; the guide transmits her knowledge to visitors who listen and learn passively. Often, questions can be asked by the audience, but the answer and knowledge comes from the guide. It can therefore be argued that even when the audience can ask questions, teaching is unidirectional. The selected museums in Manchester and Copenhagen have clearly stayed away from this traditional didactic and expository approach in their educational offers for immigrants. They have adopted a constructivist approach to teaching and learning (Hein, 1998: 155–180; Hooper-Greenhill, 2000: 24–25). This approach rejects grand authoritative narratives and the existence of objective truth and singular knowledge held by guides or teachers. Most importantly, this constructivist approach recognizes that individuals need to be actively engaged and construct knowledge in order to learn and build their own meaning of the world (Hawkins, 1994). As already detailed, the video scripting as well as interpretation of an artwork to be presented during guided tours at SMK focused on this meaning-making approach to learning. The language classes at the selected museums also aimed at encouraging students to use the artworks and artifacts from galleries in order to

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make their own interpretation of the artwork. Through this process they could express themselves in the language of the host country and learn new vocabulary (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000: 30). At Manchester Art Gallery and Manchester Museum, students were asked to discuss a painting or artwork chosen by the teacher and were guided by her questions. The workshops analyzed here thus focused on participation and interpretation centered around self-expression, multi-voicedness and self-reflection from the learners (Dysthe, Bernhardt and Esbjørn, 2013: 36). These workshops were also based on the consideration that meaning is not intrinsic or inherent to a work of art but is constructed through the encounter between the visitor and the artwork, the museum and the wider context. These workshops, whether at Copenhagen or at Manchester, were also based on connecting with the prior knowledge of participants and the familiar in a first instance, and then moved on to the acquisition of new knowledge. This is another aspect of the constructivist approach to teaching and learning (Roschelle, 1995: 37; Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 1999: 10). The workshops at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum, for instance, evolved from exercises centered on the prior knowledge of Danish, held by learners, to tasks where students had to work and play with unknown words. More specifically, the first exercise of the workshop focused on students choosing their favorite words, a clear reference to their prior knowledge and familiar world. As a second activity, students were asked to describe a selected artwork or painting and to prepare sentences, starting, for instance, with ‘The artwork makes me think of . . . ’, or ‘The painting does not make me think of . . . ’ and focus on words that they already knew. All the words used by students were written down. This was followed by collective discussions during which students had to select words from all those already identified by the group, that they would associate most strongly with the painting or artwork under study. In this exercise, some students did not necessarily use words or concepts that they knew prior to their visit to the museum. In a final exercise, students had to choose their ‘new favorite word’ from the lists established during the workshop and were encouraged to choose a word they did not know before the museum visit. But what were the evaluations of these workshops by language students and their teachers? I collected written evaluations of these workshops from students, followed by one-on-one interviews with some teachers and students, and also gathered reports on the 2016 interpretation project at SMK (Thesander, 2016). Some of the teachers, who brought their students to SMK from a language school in Copenhagen, were convinced that students were able to remember more words than in a traditional museum visit. They considered that, because all the words used during the workshops originated from students themselves, they were more memorable and built on their prior knowledge. One of these teachers from the IA Sprog did some tests in class a few weeks after the workshop session, and the students indeed had remembered around half of all the words learnt during the workshop, which

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was more than for other visits undertaken. I also conducted an evaluation a week after students had attended an English Corner session at Manchester Museum, and noted that they were able to remember around three-quarters of the words learnt during the workshop. All of the six students employed in 2016 to write an interpretation of their chosen artwork for public presentation at SMK insisted that this employment provided them with far more occasions to practice Danish and learn new vocabulary than at their language school (ibid. 16) The seven students employed at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum to script a video of their chosen artifact remembered the language workshop that they attended during the fall of 2013. Even though I carried out interviews with them in March and April 2014, they could easily recall different words that they had learnt during the workshop. A few students explained that the reason for this was that learning in the museum was fun, playful and surprising. As explained by a student learning Danish: ‘We had a lot of fun and I think that’s also important. It gives you more energy and motivation, and makes you connect with your classmates in a different way’.2 Probing them further on this issue of a fun, playful and surprising experience, these students explained that they originally thought that a visit to the museum would be boring and dull. These students and teachers might have had in mind a guided tour of the museum that would have followed a didactic and expository model of teaching and learning. They were also surprised that knowledge was coming from the students themselves, rather than from the museum staff. Besides, they were challenged by the fact that there was not a towering expert explaining to them the meaning of the painting or installation and framing the exercises around this expert’s interpretation. This equalitarian situation seems to have liberated some of the students who realized that there was no right or wrong interpretation of the paintings. However, I was constantly reminded that the overall aims of these language learning workshops at SMK, Thorvaldsens Museum, Manchester Museum and Manchester Art Gallery were not only about increasing the vocabulary of students or improving their grammar. These workshops aim at making students aware of the dynamic, personal and complex aspects of language as a communication tool, as well as providing them with some soft skills, through the use of dialogues. This dialogical approach to language learning and practice, as developed in the selected museums, is analyzed next.

Dialogical approach to language learning and practice Dialogue and communication is another tool identified for the acquisition of a new language, by the constructivist approach (Vygotsky, 2012 [1962]; Hein, 1998: 149; Bruner, 1986). Through such dialogues and interactions, students are exposed to the fact that language is not fixed and shared by all, but that it is highly personal and complex (Shohamy, 2007: 5). In other words, through the workshops organized at the selected museums in

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Manchester and Copenhagen, students were confronted with what Bakhtin calls heteroglossia (1981). Heteroglossia reflects the idea that language is not neutral nor a set of autonomous skills acquired in school. It is a sociocultural practice, embedded within and reflecting our status and social relationships (Garibay et al., 2015: 4; García, 2009; Pennycook, 2010). In fact, someone’s social or economic group might often be reflected by her use of a specific vocabulary and language. This was quite obvious during my interviews with sans-papiers in Paris who sometimes did not understand academic vocabulary. Students were also confronted with different ways of talking during museum workshops, notably with the art experts, the museum educator or a recently arrived immigrant. This conception of heteroglossia helps to explain that language is more complex than just a set of words or grammatical structures acquired in school, and demonstrates the importance of a diversity of settings and situations for effective language learning and practice, thus further justifying the role of museums. More precisely, the English Corner sessions at Manchester Museum and Manchester Art Gallery were organized around egalitarian dialogues and social interactions between language learners. These sessions aimed to encourage students to interact with a diversity of workshop participants in order to expose them to this heteroglossia. As explained by Lisa, the ESOL teacher who helped to set up the English Corner program and delivered some of its sessions: because it was a language practice, I was keen that people came in and straightaway [were given] the opportunity to talk to somebody else during the session (. . .) so, the idea [was to] sit in a semi-circle around a painting so that everybody is next to somebody rather than behind somebody. Then, also, once they were seated, I would always ask them to swap places so that they would be talking to somebody else.3 At Manchester Art Gallery, students were thus asked to form a pair with someone they did not know and address a number of questions given by the teacher on a specific painting or artifact. Each pair then had to explain their answers to the whole group. New pairs were formed with a new exercise. A first goal of this workshop was to build the confidence of students to speak to someone they did not know. Building confidence was facilitated by the egalitarian exchange of ideas, with control exerted by the language learners, to shape and influence the narratives created on the collections (Jones, 2013). This is quite different from the traditional hierarchical setting of school teaching where information is transmitted from the teacher to the student. Another key goal of this exercise was to make students aware of the diversity of thoughts, perspectives and beliefs held by different learners. This helped to reinforce the subjectivity of learners, but also their understanding of differences and their ability to move beyond them, using dialogue as a means for

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sharing ideas (Burbules and Rice, 1991: 407–409; Jenlink and Banathy, 2005: 11–12). These dialogues developed ‘the capacity for moral agents to talk appreciatively with each other regardless of fundamental differences’ (Noddings, 1994: 5). These workshops were also used as social events, where participants could meet new people and learn about each other. This was visible at the end [of sessions] where you would see phone numbers being exchanged and [participants] arranging to meet up. A couple of them [wrote in their evaluation] that they liked that it was an opportunity just to meet other learners, particularly if you’re a new arrival in the city,4 as explained by one of the Manchester Museum staff conducting these workshops. It is true however that these dialogues based on heteroglossia and differences of opinions can also be encountered in a classroom setting. So how are these dialogues in a museum different than in a classroom setting? Museum collections are unique, as their meanings are not fixed, but are always up for interpretation and negotiation. Each participant in a dialogue can come up with a different understanding or interpretation of a specific artifact, influenced by their own culture, background or prior knowledge (Turgeon, 2007: 19). For instance, one dialogical exercise at SMK focused on the 1995 video called ‘Afrivning af Løg’ (Grinding Onions) where the two female artists Hanne Nielsen and Birgit Johnsen sit side by side, each holding a grater, next to a pile of onions. They spend the entire video fixing the camera and grating onions, with their faces increasingly grimacing in pain and tears. This video was the subject of intense debate among the students. They question whether this is really art; what is art, what is the purpose of this video or why would artists go through so much pain in order to film a video. Learning in an authentic and real environment rather than in the constructed environment of the classroom was another difference highlighted during interviews and evaluations, both in Copenhagen and Manchester (see also Thesander, 2016: 16). This was well explained by Ruth Edson, the Learning Manager for Communities responsible for the English Corner program at Manchester Art Gallery: we often get people saying that it’s the first time that they’ve given a genuine opinion about something, whereas in classroom learning, they might give an opinion but it would be in a . . . false sort of setting, like going into a role play type thing. Whereas they are actually in a real setting, talking about art.5 Indeed, these programs and language sessions are organized around different artifacts and not on invented texts or dialogues, which often are the basis for discussion in a classroom setting (Durbin, 1999: 95; Cooker and Pemberton, 2010: 89).

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For Dysthe, using Bakhtin, ‘learning is greatest when different points of view confront each other’ (2013: 61). This was actually attempted at Thorvaldsens Museum, where one exercise in the workshop focused on making language students confront their views. The starting point of this exercise was the sculpture entitled Thorvaldsen Leaning on the Statue of Hope. In this sculpture, Bertel Thorvaldsen presented himself as a tall figure, holding in each hand a hammer and pitching tool. He is leaning on the slant and smaller figure of a woman, allegorically representing hope. Students were asked to debate whether they thought this sculpture was misogynistic or depicting a relation of support and trust between a man and a woman. The choice of a universal, controversial and often discussed topic, as well as a relatively easy artwork to understand, was a good way of generating a debate between students and confronting views on the representation of the idea of equality, support between women and men as well as of misogyny. I have just explained the uniqueness of museum collections for dialogues centered on heteroglossia and the confrontation of views. Above all, museum collections used for non-directive dialogues can play a fundamental role in meaning making and confidence building, as fully discussed next.

Non-directive dialogues for meaning making and confidence building Existing literature differentiates between directive dialogues related to the school curricula and dialogues with ‘no pre-planned endpoint’, which for Dysthe are the only real dialogues (2013: 71). Unfortunately, as confirmed for instance by the language teachers I interviewed in Copenhagen, language schools often have a very strict program to follow. For this reason, directive dialogues are often used in schools as they need to prepare students for exams, to increase score tests or to ensure that a specific point of grammar has been understood (Matusov, 2014: 2; Simpson, 2011: 12). Yet, dialogues organized in the space of the museum do not tend to relate to any curriculum; they can follow their own dynamic and develop freely, which is a way of helping students to acquire a number of competencies (Matusov, 2014: 4; Taylor, 1968). This was well expressed by Lisa, the ESOL teacher from Manchester Arts Gallery quoted previously, when she explained that the English Corner program is about: being able to express opinion and preference, having the confidence to do that, learning how to do that with somebody who you don’t know, . . . sharing ideas, listening to other people’s opinions, and all those sorts of soft skills that come along with taking part in a group discussion as well. Sometimes, I think, in a classroom, you’re so focused on prepping for an exam or learning a particular grammar point that your language

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may become quite narrow. You may be able to speak with correct grammar, but your broader understanding might not be that great.6 Students I interviewed at SMK, Thorvaldsens Museum and at Manchester Art Gallery also highlighted that, in the workshops at the museum, the focus of dialogues was on what students were saying rather than how they said it. It was thus about meanings making (Rowe, 2005: 20). This is the first dimension of dialogue as conversation, as identified by Bohm, which focuses on talking and listening to others, respecting other people’s opinions and understanding their experiences (Cayer, 2005: 173–174). In other words, very different dynamics have developed in the selected museums compared with the classroom. Maija, a Latvian language learner who was employed to script a text for a video at SMK and who also attended one language workshop there, explained this clearly to me: in the classroom, there is a constant tension between the teacher and the student, since the teacher is often – if not always – correcting the student when she speaks. According to this informant, in a classroom, you’re always thinking about the grammar and then whatever you say is secondary.7 However, in the workshops at the museum, she stopped thinking about the grammar to focus on her ideas and conversations. She recalled at one point, just sitting here and talking, just discussing something with the whole group and being quite amazed at that, [and thinking] “I didn’t know I could make sentences like that.” All of a sudden that motivation, that willingness to explain something, because I was passionate or interested in what I was talking about, helped me pull together what resources I had and suddenly [these ideas] came out that may not have otherwise.8 Museum collections are unique learning spaces for these non-directive dialogues and reflection. Museum artifacts play key roles in original meaningmaking and communication through helping students to develop cognitive interpretation rather than just encouraging them to repeat what has been learnt elsewhere (Davis and Gardner, 1992; Cayer, 2005: 181). This is primarily because the meanings of artifacts are not fixed, but are always open to interpretation. Therefore artifacts lend themselves perfectly to meaning making. Such meaning emerges through a reflection between different individuals through dialogues and engagement with artifacts, or as a selfreflection taking shape from the materiality of the object and abstract thinking (Turgeon, 2007: 23). This self-reflection or dialogue emerges through continual ‘checking and rechecking, revising ideas, trying new ones and rejecting [. . .] those that do not work’ (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000: 22–23). For Vygotsky, making meanings using collections emerge best as social activities, through co-constructions and dialogues by multiple participants (1978).

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Indeed, a continuous movement of questions and answers helps different meanings to emerge and become more precise. This process is however never fully completed as meaning is never static and can be changed or questioned (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000: 23). For instance, Maija, the Latvian student presented earlier, decided to focus the video she prepared at SMK on the notions of the nation, national feeling and patriotism. She had struggled with these ideas as a cosmopolitan who had lived in Germany and England, before moving to Copenhagen. She chose the video entitled The Nation, by J&K, of a performance on this topic that questions these ideas related to the nation, using Danish art from the Golden Age. This video, is, for her, definitely very tongue in cheek. Actually, the performance happened here at the museum. They [the artists] walked around the Golden Age art and they pretended they were these people from the future who did not understand what a “Nation” was. They were half-analyzing [this concept], half-critically interacting with it. They have costumes on, they engage the audience.9 This artwork helped Maija to discuss many questions she had with her coworkers and the public: Can an artwork provide a specific impression or definition of the nation? Can this definition of the nation through art have any consequences? She does not provide any answer to these questions, but invites museum goers to use art to construct their own meaning and come up with their own answers. Meaning making, self-reflection and self-expression were thus, for the students interviewed, key differential elements between learning a language at the museum or in school. Raising the self-confidence of language learners was also a key element of workshops at the selected museums. Lezel, the Filipino nurse mentioned previously, who scripted a video for SMK and who also attended a language workshop, came to the realization that, by focusing on dialogues and interacting with strangers, people could actually understand her. Before her experience at the museum, when in class, she thought she would not be able to learn Danish because of the grammatical mistakes she made, which lowered her confidence. Indeed, one of the hardest stages in language learning is to get over the fear of talking or making mistakes. However, the workshops at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum have precisely created a setting where this student and other participating learners were able to overcome this fear and become more confident, because what they expressed about a painting or an artifact was more important than how they said it. Using artwork to discuss widely shared topics such as misogynistic behaviors can also encourage learners to express their own personal views, rather than what they have learnt in their textbook, and in this process build their self-confidence (Heller, 2007: 1, Jørgensen, 2010; Makoni and Pennycook, 2006).

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The previous two sections have detailed constructivist approaches to teaching and learning foreign languages in museums. They have also highlighted the difference between dialogue-based approaches in the classroom, which tend to be directed and structured, and dialogue-based approaches in the museum, which are open-ended, focused on meaning making and tend to raise the confidence of language students. In addition to a constructivist and dialogical approach to language learning, ‘bringing the outside in’ has been recognized as a fundamental element of multilingual learning environments.

‘Bringing the outside in’ Baynham defines the expression ‘bringing the outside in’ as strategies where learners can bring into the class their everyday experiences, their life stories or pressing issues that they are confronted with (Baynham, 2006; Baynham, 2011). These can include issues such as housing, employment or the legal right to stay in the host country. Such experience of bringing the outside in should result in a more ‘dynamic, agentive and contingent learning environment’ (Baynham, 2006: 38). Baynham considers that through such experiences students exert their agency because they interrupt ‘the orderliness of the lesson’. Students are then able to focus on what they themselves consider to be important topics or pressing issues, which may not have been taken into account by teachers in their plans for the language session (Lytra and Møller, 2011: 1). Such experiences seem essential for language learning, as proven by the threeyear study of teaching and learning in adult ESOL classrooms conducted by Baynham, Roberts, Cooke, Simpson and Ananiadou (2007). This research found out that students are able to construct more complex sentences, undertake more complex thinking mechanisms as well as speak more fluently when they can bring the outside in but also when they can ‘claim control of classroom discourse’ (Simpson, 2011: 12; Roberts and Cooke, 2009: 620–642). Integrating those experiences, life stories and pressing issues into languagelearning classes allow ‘learners to construct a sense of who they are and to negotiate and resist identity positions assigned to them by cultural, social and political contexts’ (Simpson, 2011; Jones, 2013: 22). Bringing the outside in during language learning sessions is thus important for strengthening the agency and identity-making processes of students. As already explained, the identity positions assigned to immigrants are often stereotyped and negatively connoted. This approach of ‘bringing the outside in’ and enabling students to take control of what they discuss during classes help them to be engaged critically with these stereotypes from a position of strength. This is the position of someone who is able to subjectify and externalize their views and trajectory, and is able to make sense of it (Norton Peirce, 1995: 28). In addition, to make sense of their identity, individuals need to construct ‘[a] stable mental state derived from a sense of continuity and order in events’ (Bilton et al., 1996: 665). This sense of continuity, stability and

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sameness, also called 'ontological security', is constructed first and foremost in everyday life, through our personal routines, and through our structured interactions with others (Bourdieu, 1977; Goffman, 1969; Wrong, 1994; Silverman, 2010: 59). Museum objects can play fundamental roles in creating this sense of continuity, stability and sameness in the life of individuals. Museum objects can evoke memories or meaningful past experiences (Paris and Mercer, 2002: 403) and can serve as a link between the past and present of individuals. They can help to create order in the lives of individuals (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, 1981: 16). Besides, whilst individuals have the impression that they change all the time through their daily experiences, they can retrieve a sense of sameness from being related to the same object, be it a chair or a painting (Arendt, 1958: 137). This process of bringing the outside in and of identity construction occurred the most clearly during an English Corner session organized for a group of refugee women at Manchester Museum. I conducted interviews with these women one week after the session. I found it quite telling that the first woman who talked to me was from Somalia and spoke almost solely about a bowl from her community used as a handling object during the museum session. She obviously felt very proud that such an object was at the museum and that she was able to touch it and explain to the group its different meanings and functions. This Somali woman definitively brought the outside in during this English Corner session, through bringing into class her life stories and experiences related to one of the handling artifacts. She also disturbed the order of the session, changing the power relations through captivating the attention of the other women and monopolizing discussions around this object from her own culture. Through this connection to this everyday object, she was also able to affirm her identity and ontological security as a sense of continuity, stability and sameness (Turgeon, 2007: 24). This object was used to bring memories and build an emotional transition, as a tangible point between her past and her present. More than this, this bowl became a point of intersection between her past, present and spatial experiences and helped to structure them (Lepaludier, 2004: 118). Following Barthes’ notion of the punctum, this object, through bringing out memories, became a point of intersection between different spatialities and temporalities (2; Hirsch and Spitzer, 2006: 358). It was very clear, during this encounter, that this object was an aide, a basis and incentive for this refugee to communicate her thoughts and feelings in English. Of the numerous English Corner sessions and one-off language workshops at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum I attended and observed, this was the only clear case where a student brought the outside in and took control of the class. Whilst these one-off workshops were very successful at implementing a constructivist and dialogical approach to teaching, learning and practicing a language, as explained in the previous pages, their format did not seem to encourage bringing the outside in and reinforcing issues of identity and agency, which requires more time and lengthy self-reflection.

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‘Bringing the outside in’ seemed to have happened more naturally during the Danish three-month employment program where students had to script a video interpreting their selected work of art at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum, as well as the follow-up project on presenting an artwork. Indeed, it might be difficult for students to interrupt the orderliness of the lesson and for teachers to let this happen during short-term language-learning workshops. On the other hand, bringing the outside in might be easier to achieve when students are assigned a specific task to undertake over a few months. They can set their own agenda about how to undertake it and share, during regular meetings at the museum, their everyday experiences and their life stories and can discuss pressing issues they are confronted with. In addition, this task can help students to build bridges more easily between their former lives and their new ones in Denmark. This is the case for instance for Lezel, the Filipino nurse already presented, who chose to write a script for her video on the artwork called Silver Sculpture (1961–1962) by the German artist Arthur Köpcke, exhibited in the permanent galleries at SMK. This sculpture is comprised of a group of daily objects including a shoe, part of a wooden chair and a bucket, all covered in silver paint. She used to be a diver in the Philippines, where she collected disposed objects from the sea. She picked this artwork because she could make a connection with her life in the Philippines and could mention her life stories when scripting the video. Using this exercise, she was able to construct a sense of who she was, her identity, using her experiences from the Philippines and Denmark, whilst at the same time learning a new language and expressing herself in it. In this process, she was able to derive a sense of continuity, stability and sameness. Most importantly, the students employed at SMK and Thorvaldsens for the video scripting exercise and those employed to prepare a presentation on an artwork also explained how important it was to learn in a natural environment, that is not in the artificial setup of the classroom. As explained to me by Maija, the Latvian student presented earlier: ‘Linguistically, day in and day out, being able to talk to Danish people in a natural environment gave me an immeasurable boost, much more even than I expected’.10 Learning in the real environment of the museum through this employment program is a way of bridging the divide between the outside world of students and the established world created in the classroom. However, learning a foreign language in a working environment needs to happen when immigrants have acquired basic knowledge of this language. At this stage, such an approach to language learning is highly beneficial, as this helps to boost the confidence of language learners and the trust they have in speaking the language of the host country. As explained by Lezel, this confidence came from knowing that I know I can speak the language and people can understand me. Before I felt like it’s way too far to know the language, so it

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Language learning in museums lowered my confidence. Because I know that it’s essential for me to learn the language in order for me to work.11

The previous paragraphs have thus demonstrated the importance not only of a constructivist and a dialogical approach to teaching and learning, but also of bringing the outside in to ensure that students are able to learn a language effectively, which is at the heart of the capability approach. This includes using artifacts as objects of reminiscence, as well as adopting a longterm approach to learning and teaching a new language through the use of museum collections. More importantly, a long-term approach to learning languages in museums through employment programs, for instance, helps to bridge the divide between the outside world of students and the classroom where they learn the language. However, observation of the voluntary shortterm workshops on language learning reveal patterns of exclusions. Why are less-privileged immigrants, including refugees or asylum seekers, not voluntarily taking a greater part in these opportunities?

Mechanisms of exclusions The English Corner program was set up in 2009 and organized around the language needs of asylum seekers and refugees, as revealed during my interviews. However, asylum seekers and refugees did not constitute the core of the group or the regular participants of these sessions. Instead, the workshops were primarily made up of immigrants who had decided to move to the UK of their own free will, who chose to pursue their education or who came from affluent backgrounds. No information seems to have been gathered by the participating institutions on the reasons why this program failed to reach its main target population. Even though the English Corner program was set up in collaboration with community groups, the studied museums in the UK do not seem to have fully understood the needs of their target population, which are key steps in building long-term relationships with these constituencies (Stein, Garibay and Wilson, 2008: 184). The first reason for this self-exclusion may be that people have a negative perception of the museum, or might think that this is not a place for them (Stein, Garibay and Wilson, 2008: 185). For one ESOL teacher: ‘I’m not sure [my students] would go alone [to Manchester Museum], because it is quite an overwhelming environment, it’s a huge place, a very grand building’.12 Indeed, an outdated understanding of museums, as exclusionary places solely for learned individuals, is still prevalent in popular consciousness. This demonstrates that museums have not necessarily communicated effectively on their recent changes. Another reason why asylum seekers and refugees did not attend these language sessions at the museum include issues of well-being and mental health. Some individuals might suffer from trauma due to the extreme events that they went through in their home countries, including torture, death threats

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or war-related experiences (Roberts et al., 2004). Depression, isolation and anxiety have also been identified as obstacles to language workshops participation, as immigrants often lack social connections and social capital in their new country, and their futures are often unclear. These people can also suffer from migration stress, which is caused by being forced to move to a new, unfamiliar country, often reluctantly. In addition, the experience of uncertainty seems also to create some anxiety (Roberts et al., 2004: 40). These situations can lead to concentration problems, lack of interest and confidence, low motivation, low self-esteem or low expectations (Kaur, 2011: 8; Schwarz, 2005). These serious issues have been considered by Manchester Museum. It has developed a whole series of programs dedicated to well-being, based on its collections. Indeed, museums are increasingly recognized as places that can help with well-being issues. Whilst it was not openly used as a structuring element of these language sessions, the five ways to well-being, that also structure the ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ program (see next chapter for more information), could easily have been applied to the English Corner sessions, delivered at Manchester Museum and at Manchester Art Gallery. These five ways are: connect, be active, take notice, keep learning and give. More specifically, language class participation is a great way for immigrants to connect with people around them and to break away from isolation and depression. It also gives a reason to be active, to leave the house and to break unhealthy routines. In addition, the dialogical exercises presented earlier are also based on individuals observing and taking notice of museum collections and artworks. As explained previously, these exercises can further relate to self-reflection and identity making, which might reinforce aspects of an individual’s agency. Learning a language is also a way of becoming more self-confident and self-reliant. Finally, the dialogic approach to learning, as developed in Manchester museums, is based on sharing ideas between participants and on helping each other learn through unstructured dialogues. Enhancing the well-being of language learners is thus an integral part of these workshops, although well-being issues might not be what prevents immigrants from attending. Indeed, the evaluations I conducted with the women refugees, a week after they attended the English Corner session, indicated that they all thoroughly enjoyed it and engaged with the five ways to well-being. Yet, none of these women attended the next English Corner sessions, despite it being clearly advertised at their language center. Their ESOL teacher explained to me that for the past few years she has been organizing language sessions at the museums with her different refugee and asylum-seeker groups, yet none of them ever came back to the English Corner sessions on their own. My observations and interviews have led me to realize that childcare and/ or domestic responsibilities were an additional important impediment to such participation in the English Corner sessions. Childcare and/or domestic responsibilities have already been identified as being a main barrier to

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access language classes for women refugees or asylum seekers, and these barriers are even greater for single mothers and widows (Aspinall and Watters, 2010: 45; Brahmbhatt, Atfield, Irving, Lee and O’Toole, 2007; Bloch, 2004: 17; Altinkaya and Omundsen, 1999). I experienced such issues during the English Corner session with women refugees at Manchester Museum. This session happened at lunchtime, and the women who attended were all accompanied by their children who were all too young to attend school, because free childcare was only available in the morning. No provisions had been made for these children, who were set free in the room where the session took place. A volunteer helping with the session could have provided activities for these children but did not. This demonstrates that the scenario of welcoming these women with their children had not been foreseen. But is it the role of a museum to provide programs for young children? During her interview, the Head of Learning and Engagement,13 Esme Ward, explained that Manchester Museum had attempted to build sustainable relationships with communities through engaging with whole families rather than single and isolated individuals. The museum recognized the need to provide activities not only for parents, but also for their children and other members of the family (although not necessarily at the same time). The museum would then become a space that would sustain visitation by different members of the family. Both Esme Ward and Nick Merriman, the Director of Manchester Museum, detailed in their respective interviews that pre-school children were one of their targets, partly because children from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to be a long way behind other children when they access school at age five. Therefore, this museum was also aimed at pre-school children, since ‘the more (educational) intervention [one] could do earlier, the better’, as clarified by Dr Merriman(14), in order to widen opportunities for all, and to move toward a more equitable model of societies. Yet, the example of the language lesson I observed demonstrates that the museum was not fully able to work across different programs and to identify activities for pre-school children when their parents attended language classes. Therefore, there seems to be a need for a more integrated approach to implementing programs at the museum, although this might have financial and administrative consequences.

Summary and conclusions This chapter has made two major findings. First, it has detailed the relevance of both short-term language workshops and longer programs for language learning, as a complement to classroom learning. Second, these workshops and programs tend to attract mainly immigrants with a good level of education in their home country, who are in full control of their lives and who had voluntarily decided to immigrate either to Great Britain or Denmark for economic or personal reasons or to further their studies.

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More specifically, I have critically analyzed teaching and learning the language of the host country in museums as a fundamental element for strengthening the capability of students. I have detailed how the constructivist approach adopted in the selected museums in Copenhagen and Manchester have engaged students in making their own meaning and interpretation of artworks and collections. My evaluations revealed that this student-led teaching definitively encouraged students to learn new vocabulary. Moreover, the workshops provided a vital communication tool as they helped students to build their confidence by engaging with strangers and exploring the complexity of the language being learnt. This was undertaken through unplanned dialogues between students, which encouraged them to stop thinking about the language and to focus on what they were saying instead. These are different from directive dialogues used in school to learn a particular point of grammar or to prepare for an exam. I have found that museum collections were particularly fit for learning a language as a communication tool, because the meanings of artifacts are not fixed, but always up for interpretation and negotiation. In addition, the use of museum objects from the learners’ home countries evoked memories which seemed to encourage them to become active speakers and construct complex sentences. Whilst these workshops seemed beneficial to students, the longterm approach to learning a language in a museum through employment, as offered in Copenhagen at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum, appears to have been the most effective. This method helped students not only to learn through bringing their own daily and life experiences into the space of the museum, and using collections in this process, but also by being able to learn in a real working environment which can provide more opportunities than a classroom. However, the chapter’s second main finding is that these short-term workshops, attended voluntarily, or longer opportunities to learn a language seem overall to exclude less affluent and less educated immigrants as well as those who did not choose to come to the host country. Therefore, the selected museums offer adult language-learning opportunities that primarily appeal to specific immigrants. These participating immigrants tend to share characteristics with traditional museum goers, including their levels of education or socio-economic status. Even when programs were organized with refugees and asylum seekers as a core target group, as is the case with the English Corner workshops at Manchester, these immigrants did not tend to return to the museum. These exclusionary patterns are obviously problematic, as these museums are not fully maximizing their social impact, whilst I have demonstrated how potentially important these places could be for these excluded immigrants in building their confidence and empowering them. Having analyzed language courses offered by the selected museums, the next chapter focuses on programs proposing employment skills for immigrants.

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Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Interview, 6 March 2014 Interview, 24 March 2014 Interview, 17 June 2014 Interview, 1 July 2014 Interview, 14 July 2014 Interview, 17 June 2014 Interview, 12 March 2014 Interview, 6 March 2014 Interview, ibid. Interview, 6 March 2014 Interview, ibid. Interview, 8 July 2014 Interview, 7 July, 2014 Interview, 8 July 2014

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Roberts, C. and Cooke, M. 2009, “Authenticity in the Adult ESOL Classroom and Beyond”, TESOL Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 620–642. Roberts, C., Baynham, M., Shrubshall, P., Barton, D., Chopra, P., Cooke, M., Hodge, R., Pitt, K., Schellekens, P., Wallace, C. and Whitfield, S. 2004, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) – Case Studies of Provision, Learners’ Needs and Resources, National Research and Development Centre, London Rockhill, K. 1987, “Gender, Language and the Politics of Literacy”, British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 153–167. Roschelle, J. 1995, “Learning in Interactive Environments: Prior Knowledge and New Experience”, in Falk, J. and Dierking, L. (eds). Public Institutions for Personal Learning: Establishing a Research Agenda, American Association of Museums, Washington, pp. 37–52. Rowe, S. 2005, “The Role of Objects in Active, Distributed Meaning-Making”, in Paris, S. (ed). Perspectives on Object-centered Learning in Museums, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, London. Saito, M. 2003, “Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach to Education: A Critical Exploration”, Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 17–33. Schuller, T., Preston, J., Hammond, C., Brassett-Grundy, A. and Bynner, J. 2004, The Benefits of Learning: The Impact of Education on Health, Family, Life and Social Capital, Routledge, London. Schwarz, R.L. 2005, “Taking a Closer Look at Struggling ESOL Learners”, Focus on Basics: Connecting Research and Practice, vol. 8, Issue A, pp. 29–32. Sen, A. 1992, Inequality Re-examined, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Sergi, D. 2014, “Critical Objects: Museums, Refugees and Intercultural Dialogue”, in Innocenti, P. (ed). Migrating Heritage: Experiences of Cultural Networks and Cultural Dialogue in Europe, Ashgate, Surrey, pp. 209–219. Shohamy, E. 2007, “Reinterpreting Globalization in the Multilingual Contexts”, International Multicultural Research Journal, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 127–133. Silverman, L. 2010, The Social Work of Museums, Routledge, London. Simpson, J. 2011, “Telling Tales: Discursive Spaces and Narrative”, Linguistics and Education, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 10–22. Stein, J., Garibay, C. and Wilson, K. 2008, “Engaging Immigrant Audiences in Museums”, Museums and Social Issues, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 179–196. Taylor, R. 1968, “Dare to Be Wise”, The Review of Metaphysics, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 615–629. Terzi, L. 2007, “The Capability to Be Educated”, in Walker, M. and Unterhalter, E. (eds). Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach and Social Justice in Education, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp. 25–44. Thesander, J. 2016, At høre til. Evaluering af ansættelsesprogrammet for sprogkursister. Unpublished Document. Turgeon, L. 2007, “La mémoire de la culture matérielle et la culture matérielle de la mémoire”, in Debary, O. and Turgeon, L. (eds). Objets et Mémoires. Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme et Presses de l’Université Laval, Paris and Québec, pp. 13–36. Vitanova, G., Miller, E.R., Gao, X. and Deters, P. . 2015, “Introduction to Theorizing and Analyzing Agency in Second Language Learning: Interdisciplinary Approaches”, in Deters, P., Gao, X., Miller, E.R. and Vitanova, G. (eds). Theorizing and Analyzing Agency in Second Language Learning: Interdisciplinary Approaches, Multilingual Matters, Bristol, pp. 1–16.

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Vygotsky, L.S. 1978, Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, edited by Cole, M. John-Steiner, V., Scribner, S., and Souberman, E., Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Vygotsky, L.S. 2012 [1962], Thought and Language, MIT, Cambridge, MA. Walker, M. and Unterhalter, E. 2007, “The Capability Approach: Its Potential for Work in Education”, in Walker, M. and Unterhalter, E. (eds). Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach and Social Justice in Education, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp. 1–18. Ward, J. 2008, ESOL: The Context and Issues. Available form: www.niace.org. uk/lifelonglearninginquiry/docs/Jane-Ward-migration-evidence.pdf [accessed on 27/06/2016]. Wrong, D.H. 1994, The Problem of Order: What Unites and Divides Society. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

5

Work experiences at the museum

Volunteering opportunities are traditionally offered by museums. Yet these tend to be mostly filled by retired white people from higher socio-economic groups (Holmes, 2003: 347; Hewlett, 2002: 48; Goodlad and McIvor, 1998: 5) who work in the museum as a ‘serious leisure activity’ (Holmes, 2003: 345; Orr, 2006: 194), or postgraduate students looking to gain work experience (Smith, 2002: 11). Moving away from these traditional volunteering schemes, both Manchester Museum and Manchester Art Gallery, as well as SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum, have devised specific programs that aim to provide work experiences as a way of engaging non-traditional participants (including immigrants) and increasing workforce diversity. These programs are important for immigrants; unemployment is a major issue for them, as they often suffer from discrimination or lack of specialized skill sets (Council of Europe, 2009: 84). This situation leads to isolation and the privation of freedom of decision in public life (Sen, 1997: 160–161). It can also negatively affect the ability of individuals to act as agents, as this situation can cause damaging psychological harm, leading to stress, anxieties, depression, lack of self-worth, negative identity and isolation. This chapter analyzes the program developed at the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) and at Thorvaldsens Museum where recently arrived immigrants and language learners were offered part-time employment preparing a script interpreting an artwork of their choice, as well as the follow-up project on an artwork interpretation and presentation at SMK. This complements the previous pages which have discussed these programs in relation to representation of diversity in the collections and language learning. This chapter also analyzes two volunteering projects at Manchester Museum: first, the ‘In Touch’ volunteer program (2007–2010) where refugees and asylum seekers were part of the target participants (Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, 2010: 33) and second, the ‘In Touch’ follow-up scheme entitled ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ (2013–2016; henceforth ‘"If" program’). This Volunteering for Wellbeing program targets people aged 16–25 and people over age 50 who are socially and economically isolated, because of (long-term) unemployment or mental health issues, among other issues. It offers a ten-week training course on communication and interpersonal and

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teamwork skill development, followed by a six week unpaid placement in a museum. Participants were selected each year following a wide search online and through the assistance of job centers. Although this program was implemented in different venues (e.g. at the Imperial War Museum North), I only focused on Manchester Museum. I was particularly interested in these two volunteering schemes at Manchester Museum because they evolved from explicitly targeting immigrants to engaging with a wider population. The aims of these two programs at Manchester Museum were also slightly different. ‘In Touch’ aimed, among other things, to develop transferable skills towards future employability, education or volunteer work, whilst the ‘If’ program aimed to improve the well-being of participants as well as providing them with a working experience. This program was selected because participants did ‘still come on it with the intention of increasing their chances of getting employment’, as clarified by Lee Ashworth, the then Volunteer Coordinator.1 All these programs are unique since they aim to provide work experiences for first generation immigrants who do not intend to work in the museum sector. These programs therefore target a very large pool of potential applicants. They differ from other employment and training schemes which tend to target a more limited population of individuals who want to pursue a career in museums (for instance the Diversify scheme developed by the Museums Association in the UK). These different employment opportunities offered by the selected museums in Copenhagen and Manchester are analyzed according to a capability approach and guided by the following questions: How relevant and unique are museums as places of employment opportunities for immigrants? Do museums provide skills that might be more difficult to acquire in a different environment? How do employment activities and skills acquired in a museum setting help individuals realize their capability? Are some immigrants excluded from acceding these employment opportunities, and if so, why? To address these questions, this chapter explains how employment relates to capability as social justice. Then the uniqueness of the museum as a place to acquire work experience is critically analyzed, as well as skills learnt which strengthen the capability and agency of immigrants. Finally, the exclusionary aspects and shortcomings of the employment programs assessed are identified.

Employment, capability and agency Unemployment, according to Sen, is a situation which prevents individuals from realizing their capability, since they lack freedom and cannot lead the life that they value (Sen, 1997: 160–162). For instance, all of the interviewed immigrants who took part in the employment program at SMK and Thorvaldsens, or in the volunteering program at Manchester Museum, had lived through a period of unemployment, either because they could not find a job

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or because they did not have the language level required to work in their trade in the host country. Some of these informants explained that they had experienced difficulties in coping with this situation (Sivesind, 1981: 146; Sen, 1997: 161; Kapuvari, 2011: 85; Winefield and Tiggermann, 1990; Sivesind, 1981: 147). As a result of their inactivity, some of my informants were under the belief that they had lost their skills and cognitive abilities and that their world had shrunk, and they felt useless (see also Sen, 1997: 161). Another issue was the loss of their daily routine and time structure (Jahoda, 1981). Other informants believed that they remained on the margin of society, that their life in the host country had not really begun until they had started to work there. ‘Only now that I’m about to start a full-time job, is when I think my real life in Denmark is beginning. Not until you do the normal, everyday things that everybody does, can you really feel like your life is having an actual flow in the new place’,2 noted Maija, the Latvian language-learning student who was employed to script a video at SMK. This quote fully expresses how employment can provide structure and a social and normalizing dimension to people’s lives. As explained previously, the capability approach focuses on the actual ability and freedom of people to choose to achieve what they want to do and be (Sen, 2007: 271). Yet, individuals might work in professions they have no reason to value. Working in a profession that one has no reason to value can be exacerbated by our current environments characterized by job scarcity, high job insecurity and short-term contracts. For this reason, and in this difficult environment, a capability approach to employment is about acquiring the skills and dispositions necessary to be resilient, to bounce back and to have an adaptive behavior (Schneider, 2009: 118). Acquiring such skills and dispositions will help immigrants to escape from the constraints of valueless work as well as to cope with the hardships of losing their jobs or being unemployed for some time. This notion of resilience relates to the agency of individuals, which is a central concept of the capability approach. Resilience is a coping competence, whereby individuals use social resources and the strengthening of selfconfidence to ensure that they continue to perceive themselves as actors of their own biographies, even though they might encounter personal crises, including situations of unemployment (Lazarus, 1966: 101ff; Schneider, 2009: 120). Acquiring resilience is thus fundamental for developing and strengthening the agency of individuals, as they are not subjected to external and negative circumstances. It is also important for realizing capability, as individuals can have internal resources to choose the life they value (Schneider and Otto, 2009: 9). A key element in this process is self-efficacy, which is the belief held by individuals in their own ability to succeed in specific situations (Bandura, 1977: 193). The sense of self-efficacy and the conviction that one has full control over one’s life, can play a major role in developing a behavior required to achieve one’s goals and to pursue a career or program of one’s own choosing (Betz and Hackett, 1981). A number of specific traits related to self-efficacy have been identified, including high self-esteem and self-confidence (Bandura, 1995: 1–45).

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Having clarified how employment relates to capability and agency, this chapter now turns to analyze whether and how the selected programs help to raise the self-esteem and self-confidence of participants.

The museum: a unique place to raise self-esteem and self-confidence Museums and their collections can be important tools in providing immigrants with essential employment skills that can boost their self-esteem and self-confidence, which is key to developing resilience and helping them to fight against the damaging psychological harm caused by unemployment (Sen, 1997: 161; Kapuvari, 2011: 85; Winefield and Tiggermann, 1990). At Manchester Museum, for instance the ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ program was organized into two parts. The first part was a training program, (discussed later on), and the second part involved participants acting as volunteers in the museum galleries, working on the ‘handling tables’ where they were responsible for interacting with the public around a specific artifact that they could handle. When I asked one participant about the benefits she got out of this program, she replied that she got ‘lots of benefits. The benefits are that my self-esteem has gone up, I’ve learned new skills, have more self-awareness, I’ve got more confidence’.3 I observed handling sessions with one of the oldest banknotes in the country or a stuffed fox. This activity and connection to objects was essential to boost the self-esteem and selfconfidence of participants. As also noticed by one of the front-of-house staff, the participants in this program clung to the object that seemed to give them status and gravitas. Handling objects in museums is rather rare, as the usual behavior for front of house staff and visitors alike is not to touch artifacts. Touching and handling objects can thus make individuals feel privileged. In turn, this feeling of privilege and exclusivity can reinforce a sense of social prestige and symbolic power (Classen, 2007: 898). Touch is indeed a very important sense. It was, until the eighteenth century, considered the basis of ‘all intellectual cognition’ and a way of getting additional information not available to the eyes (ibid. 901). Touching was an integral part of appreciating private collections. Yet, when the modern museum became public, it did not allow this sense to be widely used from the mid-19th century onward. The privilege of being allowed to touch objects was then left to experts (e.g. museum curators or academics) and became associated with social prestige and power (Classens, 2007: 903). In fact, the rule that objects should not be touched in museums has often nothing to do with concerns for their preservation. With the exception of very fragile artifacts, ‘resistance to touch in museums is less a concern for preservation than it is a defense of territory and expertise’ (Latour, 1993; Barr, 2005: 104). For this reason, the volunteers I interviewed at Manchester Museum expressed that they felt privileged to be able to touch these

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historically loaded objects, as this gave them social prestige and symbolic power and made them become experts. As stressed for instance by Rebecca, one of the volunteers and a newly arrived immigrant from the USA who was taking part in the ‘If’ program at Manchester Museum: ‘when you are in the galleries, you are the expert, the knowledgeable one. It’s almost like a high-status profession’.4 This esteemed status was also expressed during the interviews in the selected museums in Copenhagen. In the words of Maija, she had ‘a seemingly respectable job at a very respectable institution in Denmark’.5 For her, the institution, one of the most important national museums in Denmark, was a carrier of prestige. Being employed there to interpret an artifact in a foreign language, to create some meaning and knowledge about it and to be able to present this interpretation to the public, was also a daunting and challenging task. When successfully accomplished, this challenging situation helped to raise the self-esteem and confidence of project participants (Thesander, 2016: 16). The examples of Copenhagen thus demonstrate the importance of multiple interpretations of artifacts by immigrants, that might not necessarily involve the possibility and opportunity to touch them. These different quotes from these participants summarize the uniqueness of the museum as a place that can rebuild the self-esteem, confidence and social identity of the immigrants, as it provided them with a valorized social role, that of experts, through privileged access to collections and/or the possibility to interpret them for the public (Silverman, 1995; Silverman, 2010: 56; Rounds, 2006; Falk, 2006). The qualitative longitudinal evaluation conducted of the ‘If’ program scheme at Manchester Museum would tend to demonstrate the long-term and beneficial effects of this volunteering scheme on the participants (Envoy Partnership, 2015: 17). As part of the ‘If’ program, a longitudinal evaluation was conducted, starting with a baseline survey before the start of the course, then again at the end of the course and once more a year after, assessing the well-being of participants. It revealed that feelings of ‘self-confidence’ were very low for all of the participants before the start of the project. Yet, a year after the volunteering experience, most participants reported that they often felt self-confident, and even more so after two years. This valorized, social role of experts made the immigrants I interviewed believe that they had developed a more genuine relationship with the public than in other professions, as there was no commercial or financial transactions involved. Immigrants highlighted that these non-commercial relationships with the public, unique in our capitalist societies, helped them to develop more holistic self-esteem and self-confidence than if they had worked in other professions. The museum is indeed a place where members of the public find the employed immigrants interesting and listen to them genuinely. This interest does not need to be mediated through a commercial

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object, but through collections. As expressed by one participant of the ‘If’ program at Manchester Museum: Even though it may be a corporate [institution] or it’s run by the University, it’s not like you feel you’re working for some corporation that is all about the money and the profit. The investment the Museum puts in is into people’s souls, their imagination and the creativity. I think that’s the big difference [compared with working for another institution]: you’re not working for some “for profit” [institution]. You’re working for something that’s investing in people’s creative life or where they create their souls [. . .].6 This special working environment, which is not based on commercial considerations, reinforces the uniqueness of the museum as a place for gaining some working experience. Besides, these employment and volunteering opportunities were strongly focused on providing multiple learning opportunities for participants. These included learning about the collections in order to learn Danish in the case of SMK and Thorvaldsens, or learning communication, marketing and interpreting skills during the training part of the ‘If volunteering program’. Learning has been recognized as a ‘powerful agent in combating exclusion by giving people the abilities, skills and confidence to engage with society’ (DCMS, 2000: 9; Matarasso, 1997). These learning opportunities were highlighted by some of the immigrants I interviewed as essential, as they thought that their period of unemployment had made their world shrink inward and made it insular. Through these learning experiences, immigrants were able to realize that they could step out of their comfort zone, leave their negative feelings, and fight anxiety and loneliness as well as expand their world to new knowledge (Silverman, 2010: 58). These experiences seem also to have given them a sense of purpose. This was confirmed by the overall longitudinal evaluation of the ‘If’ program. Before the start of the project, participants rarely felt a sense of purpose. Yet, they often felt a sense of purpose a year after the end of the program and even more so two years after (Envoy partnership, 2015: 17). The museum is an ideal location to develop further the self-esteem of immigrants through helping them to work on their own social identity, that is their sense of belonging and affiliation with other people, their sense of uniqueness or their own positive understandings of themselves (Newman and McLean, 2002: 57; Tlili, Gewirtz and Cribb, 2007: 275; Silverman, 2010: 54). This is the case particularly with the meaning-making and interpretation activities at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum. In addition, the trust that Manchester Museum has put in these individuals, who are responsible for handling objects, has made them develop a sense of belonging and affiliation there. This work on social identity has been identified as being able to help to break the vicious circle of negative thinking (Silverman, 1998; Silverman, 2010: 21; Sivesind, 1981: 147; Dodd and Sandell, 2001). This can also help

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to restore the confidence and self-efficacy of individuals, as they realize that the unemployment period they had to face is an external factor, which has not impacted on their core competencies and capacities (Sivesind, 1981: 149). As expressed by one of the participants in the ‘If’ program: the longer I’m unemployed, the more my hopes have been going down. However, being here at the Museum has helped because I do feel I have some value and I have skills. [. . .] I just feel my confidence has come back and I feel like I’m part of something, like I belong.7 Developing a sense of belonging was one of the themes monitored among all of the first participants in the ‘If’ program over the past two years. Before the beginning of the program, the participants did not often feel a sense of belonging. Yet, they often had a sense of belonging a year after the end of the program and even more so after two years. This would confirm the longterm impacts of this volunteering program (Envoy Partnership, 2015: 17). At Manchester Museum, raising the self-esteem, self-confidence and sense of belonging of unemployed people has actually been included within a more comprehensive and holistic approach to improving well-being. In order to do so, the ‘If’ program has been organized around the five ways to wellbeing framework, already presented: to connect, be active, take notice, keep learning and give (Aked, Marks, Cordon and Thompson, 2008). In addition, the first part of this volunteering scheme is a ten-week training course during which students learn a number of key skills, including customer service skills, communication skills or interpretation of collections. Principles of cognitive behavioral therapy have been at the core of this course. This is an integrative approach that takes account of the interconnection among thoughts, feelings and behavior. This therapy has been identified as highly effective in combating different forms of depression and anxiety disorders, with lasting positive impacts (Butler et al., 2006: 28). During these training sessions, participants identify negative thoughts, why, when and how they appear and subsequently work on cognitive restructuring and problem solving. Ultimately, individuals, through developing an increased sense of selfawareness and self-monitoring, are able to prevent negative thoughts from regularly occurring and to change their way of seeing themselves. These principles of cognitive behavioral therapy are then reinforced during the volunteering period when volunteers work in one of the permanent galleries and have to specialize in a specific collection. Working in these public spaces and being in constant contact with the public is a way of helping these volunteers to implement those principles of cognitive behavioral therapy and to become more self-aware of their thoughts, thinking processes and actions. The official longitudinal evaluation of this ‘If’ program tracks the overall sense of well-being of the 2014 participants, the same way as it did for their self-confidence and sense of belonging. This report identifies that the wellbeing of participants was below national average scores before the start of

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the program, which is actually one of the reasons why these individuals were selected for this scheme. Levels of well-being reached the minimum national average range after a year of participation in the ‘If’ program and was higher after two years. Hence the three indicators of self-confidence, sense of belonging and level of well-being all followed a similar pattern and reveal the long-term positive effects of this volunteering program. I have just highlighted the uniqueness of working in a museum. This is not to deny the simple fact that getting an employment opportunity at SMK and Thorvaldsens and a volunteering one at Manchester Museum was in itself a self-esteem and self-confidence-boosting experience. As clearly put by Maija, the Latvian language-learning student who was employed to script a video at SMK, getting a job ‘gave us all a good boost of much needed confidence’, compared to the previous situation of ‘struggling with all the things, learning the language and not being able to find jobs'8. In Copenhagen, both the interviews I conducted and the evaluation of the project on artifact interpretation at SMK (Thesander, 2016: 11) highlighted the importance, for the project participants, of being considered like real employees (and being paid, having an identity badge to access the building, and so on). Having been selected amongst many applicants reinforced their self-esteem and confidence, as well as their ability to complete the tasks assigned to them during their period at the museum, where they saw themselves as relevant and necessary (Hooper-Greenhill et al., 2000: 15). This section has detailed the uniqueness of SMK, Thorvaldsens Museum and Manchester Museum in raising the self-esteem and self-confidence of immigrants, which is key to developing resilience, through employment and volunteering opportunities that help them to have valorized social roles as experts, as well as to enter into meaningful and non-commercial interactions with the public and expand their knowledge through new learning experiences. In addition, at Manchester Museum, raising the self-esteem and self-confidence of unemployed people has been included within a more comprehensive and holistic approach to improving well-being through implementing principles of cognitive behavioral therapy. The uniqueness of the museum in developing the creativity of individuals, which is a catalyst for adaptation necessary for the development of resilience, is further explored in the next pages.

Encouraging creativity as a core employability skill Creativity has been recognized as a catalyst for innovation, ingenuity, inventiveness and adaptation, which are essential in a volatile work environment (Tudor, 2008; Plucker and Makel, 2010: 48). According to Moran, ‘creativity involves moving beyond what exists now, using resources brought from the past to devise potentially better options for the future’ (2010: 76). The development of creativity can thus help to build resilience in the sense of being able to find solutions to novel (and sometimes stressful) situations. Creativity can also relate to strengthening agency, as it helps individuals to validate

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their existence in their immediate environment and strengthen notions of selfrealization and identity. Creativity is also often associated with the development of independent self-expression (Moran, 2010: 76), important for agency and capability. Indeed, how can someone participate meaningfully in society, which is an important element of capability, if this person cannot express herself in an independent manner? In addition, agency is about individuals being able to form independent thoughts, that can differ from the general doxa. Creativity, as independent self-expression, can lead people to have unconventional and different modes of thinking, to analyze and question assumptions, to think in novel ways about problems and to find new solutions for them. Because of all of these positive attributes, the longitudinal evaluation of the ‘If’ program also related creativity to building mental and emotional capital (Envoy partnership, 2014: 7; Envoy partnership, 2015: 30). Immigrant language learners at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum all thought that the different employment projects fundamentally strengthened their creativity through novel meaning making (Moran, 2010: 82). In this context, creativity equates to self-expression in the form of a video fully scripted by students on an art piece of their choice, and the follow-up project on an interpretation of an artwork to present to the public during guided tours. This work relates to externalization and expression of one’s views of the world, one's values and one's ideas (ibid.; Moran and John-Steiner, 2003). These students in Copenhagen thoroughly enjoyed this creative experience, as highlighted by one of them: ‘I’m being paid for watching art, beauty and thinking in a creative way and being myself. It is absolutely the best thing that I have ever done’.9The interviews conducted with these immigrants at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum further reveal that creativity and self-expression through the preparation of this script was essential for coping with changes and life challenges (Cropley, 1996) that they had just experienced through moving to a new country. This creative work also strengthened their agency, as it encouraged immigrants to engage in selfreflection and in making connections between their previous life in their country of origin and their new life in their host country. This creative work is thus an important mechanism to strengthen the ontological security of immigrants and ensure that they continue to perceive themselves as actors of their own biographies through a sense of continuity and stability. As explained by one of the students who prepared a video at Thorvaldsens Museum, being creative at the museum helped her to reflect upon her own life and build connections and stability between her past and her present. This occurred despite having to change countries and finding a job that might not relate to her studies or the profession she was in before she emigrated. She prepared a script for a video on a painting by Ditlev Blunck of Thorvaldsens, dining with Danish friends in a restaurant in Rome, where she had also had diner. Through this work, she was able to reflect upon issues of migration between Italy and Denmark. Although she explains that she felt that her personality was changing through having emigrated to

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Denmark and that she did not necessarily have the same priorities as before, she was also able to relate to her past life through this painting and connect the work of Thorvaldsens with her classical education. Creativity was thus at the heart of the work assignment of video scripting and making at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum. Creativity is important to building resilience, strengthening agency, and coping with life changes. Yet, creativity is often undermined unintentionally or intentionally every day in work environments ‘to maximize business imperatives such as coordination, productivity, and control’ (Amabile, 1998). The creative nature of the employment at SMK and Thorvaldsens was highlighted in the interviews I conducted as being innovative but also different from other work environments. It was implicit in these interviews that creativity is not necessarily the main skill used at work, and this was exactly the reason why the employed students enjoyed the video-making assignments at the museum, because it was different from what they had undertaken as their previous work experiences. Creativity is indeed the remit of specific employment and work environment (see Florida, 2002 for instance and his description of the ‘creative class’), but cannot be generalized to the whole workforce and all activities. I have just explained the importance of the video-scripting program at SMK and Thorvaldsens in strengthening the creativity of the participating immigrants. Creativity builds resilient characters, as it is the catalyst for inventiveness and adaptation and is also a mechanism for coping with changes and life challenges. All of these attributes of a character are useful in the current volatile economic environment but are rarely promoted at the workplace, further demonstrating the importance of the museum as a place to acquire them. Another important element for realizing capability is the notion of social capital. Putnam has explained that social capital has been affected negatively in the workplace, because of unstable economic environment, competition between workers and increased job insecurity (2000: 89). I now analyze how the selected programs in Copenhagen and Manchester are unique in having assisted participants in developing social capital.

The formation of bridging capital, bonding capital and trust Social capital is a key concept when analyzing the employment programs using the capability approach. Social capital refers to social networks and connections that can have important work-related impacts, such as cooperation, assistance, trust, support or reciprocity (Putnam, 2000: 19 and 22; Fernandez, Castilla and Moore, 2000: 1288; Granovetter, 1981). Social capital can thus increase the freedom of people to choose to achieve what they want to do and be. Social capital has also been associated with social inclusion as well as improved health and well-being, which are important elements of capability, as already discussed and further analyzed below (Murzyn-Kupisz and Działek, 2013; OECD, 2001; Newman, McLean and Urquhart, 2005).

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Putnam has identified two types of social capital: bridging and bonding (2000). Bridging capital is inclusive, outward looking and leads to the development of a network of people who are outside of one’s own community and across different social and economic divisions (Putnam, 2000: 22). Bridging capital is also characterized by weak ties between acquaintances or members of associations (Gittell and Vidal, 1998). The main implication of bridging capital is that it can help individuals to develop a diversity of networks and to access through them a number of benefits, including greater social mobility and economic advantages. Indeed, these diverse networks can ‘provide people with advice, job leads, strategic information, and letters of recommendations’ (Putnam, 2000: 319). Developing these types of capital is necessary when moving to a new country. As expressed by Kay, an English student employed at Thorvaldsens Museum to prepare a video: ‘I think when you come here as a foreigner you’re starting from zero. You need to meet new people and build up your network in order to get more job opportunities and more friends’.10 It will be easier for someone with an important bridging capital to obtain a job, than for someone with lower bridging capital, leading to differentiations and inequalities related to these social networks. For this reason, bridging capital facilitates ‘the achievement of goals that could not be achieved in its absence or could be achieved only at a higher cost’ (Coleman, 1994: 304). The acquisition and use of bridging capital is thus related to capability, since it can assist individuals in having the freedom to realize what they choose to be and do, through their extended networks and connections. The employment opportunities provided by SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen and the volunteering posts offered by Manchester Museum led to the formation of bridging capital for the participants, as highlighted during the interviews conducted. The employed students in the different schemes analyzed in the selected museums in Copenhagen, in particular, detailed that their work led them to widen their social networks (see also Thesander, 2016: 6). Prior to being involved at these museums, they were with foreigners all the time at the language school, which up until then was their only space of sociability. Through their employment, these immigrants moved on to socializing primarily with Danes who were members of staff at these museums. This employment relates to the formation of bridging capital, as these Danes belong to social spheres outside of these immigrants’ own community and social networks. In addition, since the end of the employment program, museum staff at both museums have kept in contact with the students and have regularly invited them back for events, such as vernissages or open evenings. This is how social capital can be associated with strengthening inclusion, a sense of place and belonging. One of the foreign students employed at Thorvaldsens Museum, for instance, who is married to a Dane was ‘extremely proud to be the one invited by Statens Museum for Kunst, to go there for the opening of the new exhibitions. I can say to my husband who is Danish, “Do you want to come with me? I’m

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invited there” and I feel that I’m also part of the place without him’.11 These personal invitations to national institutions and symbols of Denmark therefore gave her a sense of being part of this country as much as her husband, through something that she had constructed herself. In addition, such employment and the building of bridging capital seemed to have been closely associated with building a trustworthy and credible profile in the host country, essential for obtaining further work contracts. A future employer would indeed tend to show greater trust and credibility towards immigrants who have already worked in the host country as well as for known and, if possible, prestigious organizations. A first job in the host country helps to demonstrate to future employers that immigrants understand its working culture. These first experiences are sought after as museums have high symbolic power. SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum played important roles in building this trust and credibility, all the more as they also provided work reference letters for the students who attended their employment program, even though most of these immigrants did not intend to continue working in the field of museums or heritage. Working at SMK, Thorvadsens and Manchester museums has also led to the strengthening of bonding capital. Bonding capital is characterized by exclusive and inward-looking social networks between homogenous groups, including family, close friendships and people with similar social and economic backgrounds and trajectories. Bonding capital, as networks of solidarity and mutual support can be fundamental for individuals from deprived communities and those who are socially, culturally and economically excluded (Putnam, 2000; Graham, Mason and Newman, 2009: 26). This corresponded to the target population of the ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ program. The participants of this volunteering program highlighted that being on the course with people who share similar life trajectories reassured them. The fact that all of the participants of these volunteering opportunities faced similar hardships and health issues and could discuss them during these programs has been a way to combat their sense of alienation and isolation. Bonding capital, in this case, has been associated with mobilizing solidarity and, for the volunteers, with looking out for each other, through collective and individual motivation and emotional support (Putnam, 2000: 22; MacDonald, Shildrick, Webster and Simpson, 2005). The uniqueness of the museum as a place to create or strengthen this connectedness was clearly highlighted in the interviews conducted. One participant in the ‘If’ program highlighted that her ‘world was kind of insular’12 before working at Manchester Museum but that she had made many contacts since. The official evaluations of the ‘If’ program have also detailed that participants have felt less isolated since taking part in this program (Envoy Partnership, 2014 and 2015: 17). Yet, bonding capital can be, at times, problematic. The stable life, routine, sense of trust and safety created at the museum might lead to a lack of desire for mobility on the part of participants of these volunteering schemes

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(Livingstone, Bailey and Kearns, 2008). The 2015 official evaluation of the ‘If’ program did highlight that half of its participants continued to volunteer, as their main occupation, at the end of this scheme (Envoy partnership, 2015: 18). One of the immigrants interviewed decided to continue volunteering at Manchester Museum after she had completed the ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ program in 2014. She indicated that she would like to find employment at the museum or to continue volunteering there during the weekend if she finds employment elsewhere. She had indeed established strong links with the museum through this program, and felt that it helped her to break the routine and wheel of negative thoughts she had whilst unemployed. For her, continuing to volunteer at the museum was a way of strengthening the benefits earned during the ‘If’ program. It might also denote the difficulty to move on, as the museum experience was positive for her and has become part of her comfort zone, after a few difficult years. So far, I have detailed how the work programs at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen and Manchester Museum provided immigrants with those necessary skills and dispositions to be resilient socially, through raising self-esteem and self-confidence, improving well-being and forming social capital. But what are the issues of these programs? This question was partially addressed previously when discussing creativity in the workplace and just now when analyzing the formation of social capital. The next section further identifies exclusionary mechanisms at the selected museums.

Shortcoming aspects of the selected programs One of the key aims of the employment program at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum and volunteering scheme at Manchester Museum was to diversify the workforce, which tends to be rather homogenous, even for unpaid posts. No data seems to have been published on the diversity of museum workforce in Denmark. However, observation of practices at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum, as well as interviews with staff at these institutions and with the Senior Advisor for museums at the Danish Agency for Culture have confirmed the lack of ethnic and socio-economic diversity in the profiles of staff working in Danish museums. Whilst volunteering is widespread in the museum sector in Britain, with 92% of museums involving volunteers (Holmes, 2003: 342), this activity tends to attract a very small section of the population. Available research indicates that volunteers in the heritage and museum sector in Britain tend to be mostly retired (Holmes, 2003: 347; Hewlett, 2002: 48), white and well-educated people from higher socioeconomic groups (Orr, 2006), or postgraduate students who are looking to gain work experience (Smith, 2002: 11). This was confirmed by Lee Ashworth, the then Volunteer Coordinator at Manchester Museum: If we put no effort into recruitment then the kinds of volunteers we’d get would generally be retired people and students, which is great, but

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The ‘In Touch’ volunteering program (2007–2010), that preceded and formed the model for the development of the ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ program had as one of its target groups recent migrants and asylum seekers (Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, 2010: 33). However, the official figures provided in the evaluation of this program reveal how small this profile was among the recruits. There were six participants with refugee status and seven who described themselves as asylum seekers for a total of 203 volunteers who started the program (ibid. 34–41). There were also 28 BME participants and this figure could have represented newly-arrived immigrants, although no museum staff could confirm this hypothesis. Interestingly, recent migrants and asylum seekers are no longer a target group of the ‘If’ program. This project concentrates on people aged 16–25 and people over age 50 who are socially and economically isolated and may have well-being issues. These two groups were selected following extensive consultation with the stakeholders of the participating museums. However, it could have been thought that this was a program fit for immigrants, and even more relevant for refugees and asylum seekers who, as detailed in the previous chapter on language learning, have been documented as often being socially and economically isolated and suffering from mental health issues. Yet, out of the thirty volunteers recruited as part of the ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ program at Manchester Museum for 2014, only three were identified as immigrants, all from the USA. The fact that these recruits were from English-speaking countries is rather revealing of the implicit requirement from the museum to be fluent in English for these volunteering posts. Indeed, as already detailed, as part of the ‘If’ program, volunteers need to spend six weeks in the museum galleries, in public-facing roles where they are responsible for handling objects, tasks which often required a good level of English. This implicit requirement might have resulted in excluding many immigrants for whom the English language is a barrier. Analyses of the wider figures for the whole program (including those at the partner museums) confirm these exclusionary patterns. The first-year evaluation of this program detailed the ethnic background of the participants and indicated that, of all the volunteers employed across the different museums taking part in this scheme, 85.7% were white (Envoy Partnership, 2014: 46). The second-year evaluation did not even provide any detail of the ethnic background of the program participants but indicated that the program had become even more ethnically homogenous, with under 10% of participants from ethnic minority backgrounds (Envoy Partnership, 2015: 35). Both these first- and second-year evaluations expressed concern that these figures did not reflect the full and diverse ethnic makeup of Manchester.

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But couldn’t immigrants improve their English as part of the training course that preceded the volunteering work in the museum galleries? This course involved 80 hours of taught sessions (one day a week) on different topics, including literary skills and learning skills. Interestingly, whilst these sessions were an integral part of the ‘In Touch’ training course, this component has been removed from the ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ program. The official evaluation of ‘In Touch’ reveals that training related to literacy, including ‘speaking and listening’; ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ had the lowest impacts on the volunteers. Figures indicate that 45% of volunteers had increased speaking and listening skills, 37% had acquired increased reading skills and 39% had increased their writing skills by the end of the program (Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, 2010: 13). These figures demonstrate that this training and literacy qualification is not sufficient for people to improve their English skills and might explain why it was not provided again as part of the ‘If’ program. The English language competency therefore seems to be a barrier in accessing those volunteering opportunities, as the training does not provide people with the possibility to improve their English. In addition, the evaluation of the ‘In Touch' program indicated that those participants who suffered from multiple forms of exclusion showed less progression and weaker outcomes than the other participants. This concerns refugees and asylum seekers who often do not speak English and/or have low levels of literacy and/or are long-term unemployed and/or suffer poor mental health and might not be socially active. This was the case for instance for a 50-year-old male refugee whose interview was reported in the evaluation of the ‘In Touch’ program. This volunteer not only recognized his lack of English speaking skills, but he also suffered from mental depression and social isolation and did not understand the codes of the British working environment (ibid. 90–91). These multiple forms of exclusion leading to less progression than for the other participants might have been one of the reasons why refugees and asylum seekers were no longer a target group of the ‘If’ program, as a follow-up scheme to the ‘In Touch’ project. As part of my interviews with staff at Manchester Museum, I asked why refugees and asylum seekers were not target participants anymore and why there was a low level of involvement from immigrants in general in this program. It was indicated to me that the ‘If’ program was not really tailored for these groups and that other programs, primarily the English Corner scheme, was more appropriate. This answer makes sense in light of the data just analyzed, as it might be best for these groups to focus on improving their speaking skills first. Yet, I have explained in the previous chapter that immigrants from deprived backgrounds do not attend these language courses. These immigrants are thus caught in a vicious circle: they do not take part in the language courses, but then do not seem to improve their skills and cannot attend other programs at the museum. This aspect will be further considered in the conclusion. As for the staff at SMK, they were well aware that the three-month program of scripting videos at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum only recruited

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upwardly mobile, affluent and well-educated immigrants (with more than 12 years of schooling), who in their majority had voluntarily chosen to emigrate to Denmark. This program fit the profile of these immigrants who were already museum goers, who were literate, and who had the ability to adapt more easily to a new environment than people who were illiterate or with low levels of education and who might not have chosen to move willingly to Denmark. This program did lead to the short-term diversification of the staff at these institutions, with employment of immigrants from Europe but also from Iran, Syria or China. Yet, it reinforced the socio-economic exclusion of some immigrants. For this reason, the education staff at SMK seem to have made efforts to recruit more diversified profiles for the follow-up project on interpretation of an artwork to be presented during guided tours of the galleries. However, as already identified at Manchester Museum, these less affluent and less well-educated people did not have the same outcomes as the participants in the previous project. The participants in the videos scripting at SMK seem in their majority to have found a job and new opportunities to speak Danish. This is the case for instance for the Latvian student mentioned previously who found a job quickly after the end of her time at SMK. However, the immigrants who took part in the follow-up project to the video scripting seemed to struggle to find opportunities to practice Danish and to find other satisfying work opportunities after the end of their employment period at SMK (Thesander, 2016: 17). These situations would tend to highlight the need for longer support for immigrants from lower socio-economic and educational backgrounds, as further discussed in the overall conclusion of this book.

Summary and conclusions This chapter has made two major findings. First, the employment programs at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum and volunteering scheme at Manchester Museum are unique in developing the capability of participants, including immigrants. Second, these programs are exclusionary of some immigrants and do not benefit some individuals as much as others. More precisely, this chapter has detailed how unique museums and their collections can be to break the spiral of negativity developed by immigrants during their period of unemployment, and boost their self-esteem and self-confidence, which is key for the development of their resilience and hence their ability to choose the life they have reason to value. This includes giving them social prestige, symbolic power and the status of experts through allowing them access to collections, to handle objects and to interact daily with the public. Museums can also be unique in developing the creativity of program participants, often undermined unintentionally or intentionally in other work environments. These creative activities, for instance the video scripting and making at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum, helped participants to build resilience in the sense of being able to find solutions to novel (and sometimes stressful) situations, which is an important aspect of capability. These

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programs also helped to strengthen the agency of participating immigrants through encouraging self-reflection and developing a sense of continuity and stability in their lives, as well as self-realization and identity. This uniqueness of the museum as a place for gaining work experience was further examined through the notion of social capital. Putnam has explained that social capital has been affected negatively in the workplace, because of an unstable economic environment, competition between workers, performance-based pay and increased job insecurity (2000: 89). Nonetheless, the employment programs at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum have helped to develop mainly bridging capital, whilst the volunteering program at Manchester Museum helped to develop bonding capital. The second major finding of this chapter is that these programs were not tailored for all immigrants, but for those who were already fluent in the language of the host country or rather upwardly mobile, affluent and welleducated (with more than 12 years of schooling), and who in their majority had voluntarily chosen to emigrate to a new country. It is true that the ‘In Touch’ volunteering program targeted refugees and asylum seekers and fully integrated an accredited literacy qualification. Yet, the official evaluation of this program highlighted that these classes assisted less than half of the participants in improving their speaking, listening and reading skills in English. This accredited literacy qualification had not been provided as part of the following ‘If’ volunteering program, which employed solely immigrants from the USA, in its first intake (2014). The English language seems to be a barrier in accessing those volunteering opportunities, as the training does not provide people with the possibility to improve their English, even though their role is to interpret artifacts and communicate daily with the public. Yet, I have also explained in the previous chapter that immigrants from low socio-economic backgrounds, who often do not have any qualifications and do not speak the language of the host country, do not attend language courses. Therefore some immigrants are excluded from different programs provided by the museum, that could benefit them. So far, this research has focused on the strengths and weaknesses of programs developed by the selected museums. But what happens when immigrants occupy a museum on their own terms, to fight employment issues and discrimination? This is the subject of the next chapter on the occupation of the National Museum of the History of Immigration in Paris by undocumented workers.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5

Interview, 29 May 2014 Interview, 6 March 2014 Interview, 14 July 2014 Interview, 6 June 2014 Interview, 6 March 2014

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Interview, 14 July 2014 ibid. Interview, 12 March 2014 Interview, 19 March 2014 Interview, 24 March 2014 Interview, 24 March 2014 Interview, 6 June 2014 Interview, 29 May 2014

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Fernandez, R., Castilla, E.J. and Moore, P. 2000, “Social Capital at Work: Networks and Employment at a Phone Center”, AJS, vol. 105, no. 5, pp. 1288–1356. Florida, R. 2002, The Rise of the Creative Class and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life, Perseus Book Group, New York. Gittell, R.J. and Vidal, A. 1998, Community Organizing: Building Social Capital as a Development Strategy, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Graham, H., Mason, R. and Newman, A. 2009, Literature Review: Historic Environment, Sense of Place, and Social Capital, English Heritage, London. Granovetter, M. 1981, “Toward a Sociological Theory of Income Differences”, in Berg, I. (ed). Sociological Perspectives on Labor Markets, Academic Press, New York, pp. 11–48. Hewlett, S. 2002, “Volunteering in Libraries, Museums and Archives”, Cultural Trends, vol. 46, pp. 41–66. Holmes, K. 2003, “Volunteers in the Heritage Sector: A Neglected Audience?”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 341–355. Hooper-Greenhill, E., Sandell, R., Moussouri, T. and O'Riain, H. 2000, Museums and Social Inclusion, GLLAM, Leicester Jahoda, M. 1981, “Work, Employment and Unemployment: Values, Theories and Approaches in Social Research”, American Psychologist, vol. 36, pp. 184–191. Kapuvari, V. 2011, “Psychological Effects of Economic Recession and Unemployment”, European Journal of Mental Health, vol. 6, pp. 83–93. Latour, B. 1993, We Have Never Been Modern, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Lazarus, R. 1966, Psychological Stress and the Coping Process, McGraw-Hill, New York. Livingstone, M., Bailey, N. and Kearns, A. 2008, People’s Attachment to Place: The Influence of Neighbourhood Deprivation, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York. MacDonald, R., Shildrick, T., Webster, C. and Simpson, D. 2005, “Growing up in Poor Neighbourhoods: The Significance of Class and Place in the Extended Transitions of ‘Socially Excluded’ Young Adults”, Sociology, vol. 39, pp. 873–891. Matarasso, F. 1997, Use or Ornament? The Social Impact of Participation in the Arts, Comedia, Bournes Green, Stroud. Moran, S. 2010, “The Roles of Creativity in Society”, in Kaufman, J. and Sternberg, R. (eds). The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 74–92. Moran, S. and John-Steiner, V. 2003, “Creativity in the Making: Vygotsky’s Contemporary Contribution to the Dialectic of Development and Creativity”, in Sawyer, R.K., John-Steiner, V., Moran, S., Sternberg, R.J., Feldman, D.H., Nakamura, J. and Csikszentmihalyi, M. (eds). Creativity and Development, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 61–90. Morris Hargreaves McIntyre. 2010, A Stepping Stone – Evaluation of the In Touch Volunteer Training Programme. Final Report, Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, Manchester. Murzyn-Kupisz, M. and Działek, J. 2013, “Cultural Heritage in Building and Enhancing Social Capital”, Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 35–54. Newman, A. and McLean, F. 2002, “Architectures of Inclusion: Museums, Galleries and Social Inclusion”, in Sandell, R. (ed). Museums, Society, Inequality, Routledge, London, pp. 56–68.

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Newman, A., McLean, F. and Urquhart, G. 2005, “Museums and the Active Citizen: Tackling the Problems of Social Exclusion”, Citizenship Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 41–57. OECD. 2001, The Well-being of Nations: The Role of Human and Social Capital, OECD, Paris. Orr, N. 2006, “Museum Volunteering: Heritage as ‘Serious Leisure’”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 194–210. Plucker, J. and Makel, M. 2010, “Assessment of Creativity”, in Kaufman, J. and Sternberg, R. (eds). The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 48–73. Putnam, R.D. 2000, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”, in Crothers, L. and Lockhart, C. (eds). Culture and Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp. 223–234. Rounds, J. 2006, “Doing Identity Work in Museums”, Curator, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 133–150. Schneider, K. 2009, “Capability Approach and Coping Competencies – Coping With Discontinuous Employment Biographies”, in Schneider, K. and Otto, H.-W. (eds). From Employability Towards Capability, Edition Forward, Luxembourg, pp. 117–126. Schneider, K. and Otto, H.-W. 2009, “Introduction”, in Schneider, K. and Otto, H.-W. (eds). From Employability Towards Capability, Edition Forward, Luxembourg, pp. 7–14. Sen, A. 1997, “Inequality, Unemployment and Contemporary Europe”, International Labour Review, vol. 136, no. 2, pp. 155–171. Sen, A. 2007, “Capability and Well-Being”, in Hausman, D.H. (ed). The Philosophy of Economics; An Anthology, Third Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 270–294. Silverman, L. 1995, “Visitor Meaning Making in Museums for a New Age”, Curator, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 161–170. Silverman, L. 1998, The Therapeutic Potential of Museums: A Guide to Social Service/ Museum Collaboration, Institute of Museum and Library Services, Bloomington. Silverman, L. 2010, The Social Work of Museums, Routledge, London. Sivesind, J. 1981, “Sheltered Employment to Help Shoulder Responsibilities”, Museum International, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 146–150. Smith, K.A. 2002, “Modeling the Volunteer Experience: Findings From the Heritage Sector”, Voluntary Action, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 1–20. Thesander, J. 2016, At høre til. Evaluering af ansættelsesprogrammet for sprogkursister. Unpublished Document. Tlili, A., Gewirtz, S. and Cribb, A. 2007, “New Labour’s Socially Responsible Museum”, Policy Studies, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 269–289. Tudor, R. 2008, “The Pedagogy of Creativity: Understanding Higher Order Capability Development in Design and Arts Education”, Proceedings of the 4th International Barcelona Conference on Higher Education, Arts and Creativity, vol. 4, GUNI, Barcelona. Winefield, A.H. and Tiggermann, M. 1990, “Employment Status and Psychological Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study”, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 75, pp. 455–459.

6

Employment and museums The occupation of the National Museum on the History of Immigration

Employment programs provided by museums, as in the cases of Copenhagen and Manchester, can be an essential tool for immigrants, because they can provide them with valuable experience and help them to realize their capability. However, immigrant workers cannot develop their capability and agency if they suffer from discrimination, and therefore cannot benefit from decent working conditions and labor rights (Sen, 2000: 119–128). This chapter focuses on a unique case: the occupation of the National Museum on the History of Immigration (NMHI) in Paris by undocumented workers or sans-papiers from October 2010 to January 2011. The goal of this occupation was to obtain residence permits and to be able to benefit from decent working conditions and labor rights and to stop being discriminated against. While the previous chapters focus on programs driven by the selected museums, the following pages consider an initiative driven by immigrants themselves and their networks of supporters. The next pages complement Chapter 3, which analyzes the occupying immigrants’ attitudes towards the NMHI as well as the representation of this occupation in the permanent space of the museum. They ask why and how immigrants used this museum to address the issue of employment discrimination, and assess the uniqueness of the museum as a site of contestation. Have the occupiers been able to build their capability and agency during the occupation of the museum? If so, how? Has the museum played a specific role in helping these immigrants to obtain their residence permits? What were the reactions of the NMHI director and staff, and why did they let this occupation last for almost four months? To address these questions, this chapter first considers why the sanspapiers chose to occupy the NMHI. It then explains how the legal situation of sans-papiers denies them any freedom to choose to achieve what they want to do and be, and how the occupation of the NMHI and the wider movement of strikes have helped these immigrants to build their capability and agency. However, it also considers whether and how the hierarchical and controlled nature of this movement has impacted the occupying immigrants’ freedom of speech and bargaining power. Finally, the reactions

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of the director and staff of the NMHI are assessed, before considering the long-term impacts of this occupation.

The symbolic occupation of the NMHI The occupation of the NMHI by 500 undocumented workers occurred from 7 October 2010 to 28 January 2011. These 500 sans-papiers represented a wider group of more than 6000 undocumented workers, most of whom were men from the former French colonies of Senegal and Mali and had been working – some of them for as long as ten years – in professions that cannot be moved abroad, such as the catering, hospitality, construction or cleaning sectors (Ong, 1999). The occupation of this museum corresponded to a protestation against the government’s failure to implement a piece of legislation (the New Guidelines on Regularization Through Work), adopted on 18 June 2010. These guidelines provided simplified and unified criteria for the regularization of undocumented workers who had a work contract with an employer and had worked full time for 12 of the previous 18 months, or on a part-time/temporary basis for 12 of the previous 24 months. This protest highlighted the government’s failure to implement the new piece of legislation which demanded the systemic and systematic delivery of receipts for the regularization of all dossiers submitted. These receipts allowed undocumented workers to work legally for three months whilst their case was being assessed (when the occupation started, only 58 receipts had been delivered for 1800 dossiers submitted). Indeed, regularization of working sans-papiers in France is the decision of prefects who, up until then, either did not examine cases or did not follow specific criteria, but made subjective decisions based on each application for a residence permit. As explained by Fousseni Sacko during his interview, these decisions were often based on the support provided by the sans-papiers' boss. Therefore, for him, ‘even if the employee is regularized, she continues to be exploited because her boss says, “it is thanks to me that you are regularized”'.1 The aim of this occupation was to change this practice through gaining access to relevant ministries, negotiating the unified and harmonized treatment of regularization dossiers and obtaining the regularization of all working sans-papiers who fulfilled the official criteria. The occupation of a building, rather than a street protest, which had occurred previously, was also a pragmatic decision. It could enable immigrants to prepare the dossiers in a warm and dry environment. The occupation was the last leg of a much longer movement of strikes and public sittings, which started in April 2008, for the administrative regularization of these more than 6000 undocumented immigrants. This wider movement started as a reaction to an increase in controls at companies which aimed to verify the legality of the employment of staff members. These controls, imposed from 2007 onward during the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, led undocumented migrants to demand their residence permits, as this situation encouraged their employers to make them redundant.

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The occupation of the NMHI by sans-papiers is symbolic for a number of reasons. First, it aims to highlight the contradictions of the French government. On the one hand, this government recognizes the manifold positive impacts of immigration, as celebrated in a national and public museum of immigration, located in Paris, the capital. On the other hand, the same government discriminates against, and does not fully acknowledge, the contemporary phenomena of immigration, and particularly sans-papiers, the ‘foreigners among foreigners’ (Balibar, 2004: 63) who come mostly from sub-Saharan Africa. Undocumented workers occupied this museum to demonstrate that they were making positive contributions to France through their work, the same way as previous waves of immigrants did. By occupying the immigration museum, these workers made the point that positive immigration is not only a phenomenon of the past, but of the present as well. This occupation was a way of overlapping the positive narratives of past immigrations presented in the museum and the lives and stories of present-day immigrants. Through this sit-in protest, immigration was thus not only considered as a historical fact, but also as a contemporary social and economic phenomenon. Secondly, this occupation symbolically reveals the contradictory official constructions of the nation, between an exclusive and inclusive model. These contradictions seem to crystallize in the space of the museum and through its occupation by sans-papiers. On the one hand, this museum denotes a strong will to recognize the multiple identities and influences that have shaped France and to represent better, in official narratives on the nation, the positive impacts of immigration in France. This is reflected in the official letter clarifying the goal of this museum, which is to change the ways in which immigration is being officially portrayed and thus perceived by the public (Raffarin, 2003). The occupation was a way of building this inclusive nation and reminding officials of the need to implement this goal, as already explained. On the other hand, this occupation also demonstrates that the definition of some immigrants as sans-papiers, the lack of examination of their dossiers for regularization and the lack of application of general criteria, considered by some as ‘discriminatory practices’ (Balibar, Chemillier-Gendreau, CostaLascoux and Terray, 1999), and as an exclusionary model of the nation-state. Indeed, the state and its representatives are losing more and more power, notably in terms of economic policy, collective security or technological powers due to globalization and increased European integration. In this context, the only control and power kept by the state and its representatives is the possibility of defining exclusionary national territory and borders (even though they tend to be increasingly more porous) through stating who is considered as a national, who is allowed to stay legally in a territory and who is ‘an intruder’, or a sans-papiers (Benhabib, 2005: 11). This policy of targeting disfranchised communities as the last way of affirming state sovereignty has been termed by Balibar ‘l’impuissance du Tout-Puissant’ (the powerlessness

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of the all-powerful state) (1999: 96). Defining some foreigners as sans-papiers is also a means of conveying the abstract idea of powerful nations, because its citizens are convinced that they have special rights, when non-citizens living on their territory have no rights and have inferior living standards (ibid. 97). This is reflected in the wide use of the term ‘illegal immigrants’, which portrays these undocumented workers as somehow inferior to citizens and people with the legal right to remain on the territory (ibid. 59). Focusing on the ‘illegality’ of these immigrants helps to highlight the privileged situation of citizens, and to dehumanize and humiliate undocumented people (McNevin, 2006: 137; Gambino, 2015). Not only is this concept of ‘illegality’ used to construct a political reality, it also corresponds to an economic one (Balibar, 2004: 62). This occupation of the NMHI further aimed to reveal and publically condemn the situation, where working sans-papiers fulfill major economic duties but are denied any legal and social recognition in France. This situation exists because companies have been able to employ undocumented immigrants on account of their low labor costs in trades and sectors which cannot be delocalized, such as the catering, hospitality, construction or cleaning services (Ong, 1999). These are major French companies, including the RATP Group (Autonomous Operator of Parisian Transports), the public transport operator for the city of Paris, Bouygues Construction and Vinci Construction. This system of ‘local outsourcing’ is based on offering employment contracts with working conditions that violate labor laws, including lower salaries for longer working hours, flexibility according to market fluctuations, the possibility of unfair dismissal as well as a lack of annual leave, sick leave or unemployment benefits (Barron, Bory, Chauvin, Jounin, and Tourette, 2011). The employment of sans-papiers in these types of jobs developed after France decided to stop its legal labor immigration program from 1974 onward. This was tolerated (Terray, 1999: 9–34), because these ‘jobs are so unskilled and so difficult that most French are not interested in them’ (Wyplosz, 1997). The occupation also aimed to pressure the Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Labor to correct this hypocritical situation and speed up the regularization of sans-papiers. As the NMHI is a public and national museum with direct affiliation to different ministries, the GCT (Confédération Générale du Travail, the main trade union which organized this occupation) knew that they would be able to negotiate with ministers and their staff rapidly, as further detailed below. Finally and most importantly, the occupation of such an open space aimed to make the public realize the existence of working sans-papiers. Indeed, up until then, the term sans-papiers tended to characterize immigrants fighting for their residence permit on humanitarian grounds, as illustrated by highly mediatized actions, including the occupations of religious buildings, such as the Saint-Bernard Church during the summer of 1996 (Tandonnet, 2006: 43). The fact that undocumented immigrants can be workers with, for

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some, full-time and permanent contracts is a reality that had been occulted up until this movement and occupation. The occupation of a public space such as a museum was one of the strategies used to popularize the existence of this disfranchised and exploited group. During his interview,2 Raymond Chauveau, one of the leaders of the CGT insisted on distinguishing this movement and sit-in from the wider sans-papiers grouping which based their request for regularization on humanitarian grounds (see also Blin, 2010). For trade union leaders and representatives, this distinction was fundamental; they believed that only working sans-papiers could benefit from collective regularization, based on labor law, but that the demands for collective regularization based on humanitarian reasons were totally different. Hence the importance of this very public occupation: to ensure that this distinction between different categories of sans-papiers were fully understood and the message that working sans-papiers were making claims based on labor laws was made clear. The decision to occupy this museum was a strategy to reveal the contradictions in the official understandings and considerations of working sanspapiers, and to pressure relevant ministries to resolve those contradictions through the regularization of working sans-papiers who fulfilled the official and public criteria adopted by the French government. Having analyzed the choice of the NMHI, this chapter now turns to examine whether and how this occupation has been used by working sans-papiers to strengthen their capability and agency.

From a lack of capability and agency . . . Before the occupation of the NMHI and the longer movement of strikes and public sittings, working sans-papiers did not have any capability or agency. Indeed, all the undocumented workers I interviewed explained that not having the legal right to remain in France meant that they did not have any freedom. This lack of freedom comes from the very notion of being ‘illegal’ in France. Individuals can be arrested for simply being (on a territory) and not on the grounds of having done something that is not legal, which would be the reason for citizens to be arrested. This governmental concept of ‘illegality’ therefore denies undocumented immigrants the possibility of acting or being treated as human beings, as it is their mere presence on a territory which is criminal (Arendt, 1976: 286–287). Because they do not have the right to remain in France, working sans-papiers suffer from a lack of freedom of movement. Being able to move freely from place to place is one of the core capabilities listed by Nussbaum (2003: 41–42). Identity checks of foreigners are normal practice in France and a way of finding, arresting and then often sending sans-papiers back to their country of origin (Borredon and Zappi, 2014). These identity checks have made sans-papiers fearful of being arrested; as a result, some have adopted precise itineraries to avoid parts of

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Paris with more identity controls than other places (around the Gare du Nord for instance). The privation of the freedom of movement, the impossibility of leaving the French territory and of being able to return to their home country to enjoy being with their spouses, children or families can also be considered as a deprivation of one of Nussbaum’s core capabilities. This situation of sans-papiers is a source of suffering, as explained to me by Adama, an immigrant who used to be undocumented and who supported the occupation: ‘As long as you are not in a regular situation, you cannot know what your pain had been. You have to get the paper first to know your suffering, the pain you experienced when you did not have papers’.3 Quite symbolically, as soon as they obtained their residence permits, all of the immigrants interviewed travelled back to their country of origin to visit their families (the trip back to Mali by one of the occupiers of the NMHI, Madassa, once he obtained his permit is narrated in a 2013 comic book by Brouck). In addition to this lack of freedom of movement, the fact that these immigrants were sans-papiers also meant that they had no freedom to choose the work that they wanted to do, as they had to work in specific sectors that are unskilled and employ undocumented migrants. These sans-papiers were discriminated against because they could not benefit from labor laws or rights and were therefore paid less than the legal minimum wage. They also had to work longer hours than legal workers, and often they did not dare to complain as their employers could then denounce or fire them. This lack of freedom and rights helped these occupiers to frame their claim for a residence permit as a fight for all workers, as the employment of sans-papiers lowers employment conditions, and rights could ultimately lead to regular workers being considered too expensive or not docile enough to hire. Being denied a residence permit is a real injustice for working sanspapiers, as they cannot develop their capability or agency, and do not have the freedom to choose what they could do and be. However, what constitutes sans-papiers as a group or class is an important aspect and will be explored in this next section, as well as how the occupation of the NMHI enabled them to develop their capability and agency.

. . . To gaining power as a class . . . The relatively long term (almost four months) and daily occupation of the NMHI led to the organization of the sans-papiers as a class, which I argue was an essential step in subjectifying and empowering them. Class is understood as a collective ‘position within the process of production’ (Lukács, 1920; Marx, 1887), characterized by exploitation and conflicts (Chauvel, 2001: 316–317). Whilst Nisbet has announced the end of social classes (1959: 119–129) because of the heterogeneity of working forces and availability of affordable goods and services (Chauvel, 2006: 296), this occupation and the wider movement of working sans-papiers might denote a return to social classes (Chauvel, 2001: 315–359; Supiot, 2002). Associating this occupation with social class

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firmly anchors this sit-in as a movement of workers. The use of this concept also helps to make a clear distinction between different types of sans-papiers: those who work and those who do not work. The wider sans-papiers movement based on humanitarian grounds cannot be considered a class movement, as it cannot be positioned within processes of production and dynamisms of exploitation and domination. Only the working sans-papiers movement can be considered as a class movement. More precisely, this sans-papiers movement and occupation corresponds to a working-class movement, because, first, it reflects the capacity of sanspapiers to act collectively to ensure that the unity and interests of the group are recognized. This was well illustrated by the fact that these sans-papiers occupied the immigration museum day and night for two months, living, eating and sleeping in one of its rooms, as well as for almost another two months every day (but not at night), to ensure that their request for a coherent and harmonious application of the law was heard and enacted upon. Second, this is a class movement because it is structured around issues of social and working inequalities. Third, these working sans-papiers all shared the same socio-economic conditions and suffered from a lack of inter- and intragenerational mobility. Despite having been in France in some cases for ten years, these immigrants did not see a change in their working conditions, salaries or the nature of their work. In addition, a number of sans-papiers I interviewed had seen one of their parents work in France for part of their life but again as manual workers, confirming this lack of intergenerational mobility. Finally, this is a working-class movement as most of the members come from the same social and cultural background. This might be due to the fact that the majority of these workers came from Mali and Senegal. This shared cultural and social background has been detailed in Chapter 3 when analyzing the small glass cabinet exhibiting the different objects left by the immigrants, including the tea pot, prayer mat and jerry can, structuring their social life during the occupation of the NMHI. Most importantly, working as a group in concert gave these sans-papiers their power. As defined by Arendt, ‘power corresponds to the human ability not just to act, but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual: it belongs to a group’ (1970: 44). Before the sans-papiers movement and occupation, these immigrants were not recognized within the public spaces and were dehumanized through their lack of freedom and rights as undocumented workers. Through the constitution of a class, these sanspapiers acquired the power to be able to act publically as a group, to realize that they were considered as a capitalist commodity and to disrupt this reality, as further discussed in the next section (Lukács, 1920). However, the fact that this movement was constituted as a class with bargaining power does not mean that it was totally homogenous. Indeed, some sans-papiers challenged the power and authority of the whole group. This division was the result of state representatives and prefects, who assessed regularization dossiers on a case-by-case basis, without using

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objective and uniformed criteria, even during the occupation. This caseby-case consideration by authorities was a way of discrediting the movement, as the NMHI was occupied to demand precisely the homogeneous treatment of all working sans-papiers’ regularization dossiers. The arbitrariness and lack of homogeneity in the official treatment of dossiers might be considered as a strategy to weaken this movement and its very raison-d’être. As a consequence, some immigrants started doubting the efficacy of the movement, especially when they went to the NMHI, as they had already been on strike for 24 months. These immigrants left the sanspapiers movement and started dealing with the state authorities and prefects on their own. Therefore, the occupation of the NMHI demonstrates a working class movement whilst also displaying evidence of increased dissidence and individualization from some immigrants. However, the fate of individual dossiers was closely linked to collective action. On the one hand, the dossiers of some of the immigrants who occupied the NMHI got delayed and were not assessed according to the objective criteria, a strategy used by state authorities to weaken the movement. On the other hand, it seemed to have been easier for some immigrants who were not part of the strike to obtain the legal right to remain on the French territory, because they were not part of the occupation and wider movements of strikes. This aspect will be further analyzed in the last section of this chapter, on the long-term impact of this occupation. But what did the emergence of this class with some degree of power mean in terms of strengthening the capability and agency of the immigrants within the very space of the museum?

. . . And developing capability and agency Being constituted as a class transformed undocumented immigrants from objects to subjects and gave them a degree of power. These sans-papiers used this power to affirm their agency and then to realize their capability within the space of the museum, using a number of actions. The first technique was to engage directly with the public of the NMHI, and in this way to challenge openly the categorization of sans-papiers created by the government and its institutions. The transformation of immigrants into subjects and agents further facilitated the formation of their capability, as they gained the freedom to express publically what they aimed to achieve. The trade unions, primarily the CGT who coordinated this movement and had experience negotiating with employers and the government as well as communicating with the press, assisted the sans-papiers in structuring their key messages and speeches. Public speaking in the museum by sans-papiers focused on contesting the definition and characterization given to them by the state and its authorities. In this context, the museum, as a public institution and state apparatus, was used as a site of contestation because of its ambiguous position toward

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immigrants: the museum recognizes their historical significance but denies the fundamental socio-economic role of present-day immigrants. This contestation has led immigrants to affirm themselves as subjects, as they define themselves in their own terms. This act of public speaking has also helped sans-papiers to reveal openly the inequalities and contradictions in the definition of immigrants proposed by the government and its state apparatus (Rancière, 2003; Rancière and Chambat, 2008). More specifically, sanspapiers in their daily interactions with the public of the NMHI countered the common-place stereotypes propagated in the media and by political elites that they were lazy, lawless criminals, ‘unemployed, and therefore recipients of social benefits’, as Konaté, a former occupier explained.4 On the other hand, these immigrants presented themselves as workers, but also as victims. Their lack of residence permits renders them vulnerable to exploitation and excludes them from social security benefits, rights or protection from labor laws, despite the fact that they pay taxes. The occupation raised public awareness of the exploited status of working sans-papiers, as the public ‘knows nothing of the life of a working sans-papiers, who has no rights or access to services and assistance, except for State Medical Assistance’, as detailed by Adama.5 They were thus able to transform the representation of immigrants from a historical process to a socio-economic question, which is how it is widely considered in a wider political context and in the media (Wieviorka, 2007: 8–9; Thomas, 2013: 45; Thomas, 2010: 128). They also portrayed the government in a negative light, as it knowingly allowed sans-papiers to be exploited. The second action was to contest and even refute publically the governmental categorization of immigrant workers as ‘illegal’, through the occupation of the NMHI and daily interaction with its public. Indeed, it is assumed that people who stay on a territory without the legal right to do so would hide from the police, so that they could not be arrested and sent back to their country of origin. With this public and publicized occupation of a national space, sans-papiers firmly asserted that they had nothing to hide and were not going to accept the government’s categorization of ‘illegality’ (McNevin, 2006: 144; Schaap, 2011: 36). This action was all the more courageous and remarkable as, from 12 December 2010 onward, the director of the NMHI decided to close it at night and its occupation was only authorized in daytime. This decision aimed to put an end to the occupation. Indeed, sans-papiers had to leave the museum and, since they did not exist in legal terms, were exposed to the arbitrarity of street identity checks by the police, which could have resulted in them being put in jail or retention centers or being sent back to their country of origin. By refuting and rejecting this concept of ‘illegality’, through the longterm sit-in of a national museum, which can also be seen as a symbol of the nation, the undocumented immigrants presented themselves as equal to other workers. This was essential in further realizing their capability: these immigrants could not have the freedom to choose what they want to be or

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do as long as they were considered inferior to other individuals. This was a key message transmitted to the media by both the immigrants and the trade unions who supported them. They stated that sans-papiers are workers just like any other taxpaying employee with a work contract. As such, these undocumented workers should have the same rights as any other worker (Schaap, 2011: 34; Krause, 2008). Besides, by occupying the NMHI, the undocumented workers can also be considered, if we follow Rancière, as having worked through and given flesh to his understanding of the notion of democracy (Rancière and Panagia, 2000: 124). Democracy is the power exercised by all but most importantly by those who do not count and who are considered to be inferior. Democracy is the struggle of the people who dwell on the fringes of society, who seek equal recognition and power as other people of society. It is ‘the power of those who are not entitled to exercise power – a rupture in the order of legitimacy and domination’ (ibid.). It is indeed through enacting and contesting the terms of democracy and equality that these notions exist, they do not exist ab nihilo. By using a public and symbolic space like a museum to contest their exclusion from society and to demonstrate that illegal practices are actually permitted by the government itself, these immigrants are giving flesh to the notion of democracy and the core concepts of freedom and equality, much lauded by the French Republic. Working through these key concepts is a strategy to demonstrate that their claim to remain in France and to obtain a residence permit is valid and legitimate (Krause, 2008: 19). This section has explained that the occupation of the NMHI by sanspapiers was of fundamental importance in forming their capability and agency, notably through public speaking and using their freedom of expression, as well as the public contestation of their common stereotyping. Public speaking in a national building has also led to the open contestation of their ‘illegality’, as well as the positioning of these immigrants as equal to other workers. Finally, this occupation has been a way of giving flesh to the notion of democracy, which is a major struggle for people on the margins of society. However, this occupation and wider movement of the working sans-papiers was structured and hierarchized, leading to their problematic exclusion from high-level discussions, as now discussed.

Can the working sans-papiers really speak? The undocumented immigrants freely interacted and spoke with the public during their occupation of the NMHI. However, the occupying movement was structured by the CGT, the main supporting trade union which set up different hierarchies of speech. For this reason, a reduced number of trade union delegates, taken from the wider pool of sans-papiers workers, were tasked, as representatives, with giving interviews to the press and interacting with the media. This interaction with the press was important to publicize the movement and give it even more legitimacy. This occupation was well

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covered by the French press, because of its wide scale, the symbolic dimension of this sit-in in a public museum of immigration as well as its political objectives of making the government implement a specific piece of legislation. The delegates who interacted with the press were chosen, among other reasons, because of their capacity to express their claims clearly and to be easily understood by journalists. This selected approach can be explained by the fact that the mastery of speech is not given to all equally, and that a number of sans-papiers did not speak French fluently (Veron, 2013; de Certeau, 1994). Yet, none of the sans-papiers, not even those who were also trade union delegates, could take part in the negotiations with the museum directors and representatives of the government; only leaders of the CGT could be present at these high-level discussions. The leaders considered that they were more than capable of legitimately representing all sans-papiers. Such hierarchical methods of intervention set in place by the CGT were heavily criticized during the interviews I conducted. According to these critical voices, the lack of participation in those high-level negotiations was due to the fact that the sans-papiers could not be considered as convincing, authoritative or as serious as trade union leaders. It was also explained to me that these sans-papiers were considered as not being able to speak convincingly and in a manner that would get a hearing in institutional locations of political power. This echoes Spivak’s view that some disfranchised communities cannot speak for themselves, because there are always more powerful stakeholders who are willing to speak for them (1988: 271–313). A member of one of the NGOs who supported this sans-papiers movement informed me that she did try to encourage trade union leaders to involve undocumented immigrants in the discussions and negotiations with the museum staff and government, but that none of her suggestions were ever taken into account. This was, for her, rather problematic, as sans-papiers were determined to obtain their residence permit, as well as clearer and uniformed criteria, and this state of mind could have been determinant on the negotiation table with government representatives and museum staff6. The exclusion of sans-papiers from high-level discussions and negotiations led to increased discontent between the occupying immigrants and the trade union leaders, especially during the last weeks of the occupation. These workers challenged the authority of the trade union leaders and their capacity to represent them at high-level meetings. In particular, the sanspapiers criticized the CGT for being unable to obtain information on how regularization dossiers were treated by prefectures, whether unified criteria were being applied to the dossiers and when they would receive a receipt. The CGT was also criticized for being too soft with the directors of the NMHI and for not establishing power relations with the government which would have led to the mass regularization of sans-papiers, one of the primary goals of the occupation and wider movement (Où va la CGT, 2011). Despite this contestation, the sans-papiers never succeeded in participating

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in discussions and negotiations with the higher echelons of the museum and the government. Ambiguous power relations were evident between the trade union leaders and the working sans-papiers during the occupation of the NMHI, which had an impact on the capability and agency of sans-papiers. On the one hand, the undocumented immigrants were empowered and gained their freedom of expression and agency through occupying the public and national space of the museum and by interacting with the public and the press. These daily interactions were a way of changing the representations of immigrants in the press and society, and in giving them some freedom of speech and dignity. On the other hand, the occupying sans-papiers were not able to participate in high-level discussions and negotiations with the government and directors of the museum. Their claims were conveyed and expressed by trade union leaders, who were more familiar with negotiating rights for workers (Spivak, 1988: 271–313). Did these relations of power have an impact on the outcome of this occupation? The following sections will analyze first the museum’s reaction to this occupation in terms of addressing the claims of these sans-papiers and then the long-term impacts of this sit-in for undocumented workers.

The museum’s reaction: from tolerance . . . The NMHI was peacefully occupied on 7 October 2011. Initially, the trade union and sans-papiers were able to use a state apparatus – a public and national museum – to their own advantage. From the beginning of the occupation, the then director of the NMHI, Luc Gruson, publically announced through a press release that he intended to play a negotiating role between the occupying forces and the government and did not plan to use police forces for the evacuation of the sans-papiers (CNHI, 2010; Bétard, 2010: 4). As a result, on the very first day of the occupation, this director organized a meeting with Christian Decharrière, chief of staff of Eric Besson, the then Minister of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development of France as well as with the Ministry of Labor. The trade unions and sans-papiers had thus fulfilled one of the aims of this occupation, that was to gain access to ministers and their staff, who were able to demand the unified and harmonized treatment of regularization dossiers, in line with the 18 June 2010 piece of legislation. Why did the museum decide to accept this occupation, in the first instance? Accepting this situation and negotiating with the government was the only viable option for the NMHI at the beginning. Firstly, this positive attitude reflects the belief that this occupation would be short lived: most of the occupying workers had been working and living in France for many years and were supposed to meet the criteria for regularization (Ostow, 2017: 245–246). Secondly, a police evacuation of sans-papiers was simply impossible, since such action would have demonstrated that the museum

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cannot deal with immigration, the very topic that it is supposed to be concerned with. In supporting this occupation, the museum presented itself as understanding and respectful of these immigrants and thus, by extension, as understanding contemporary migratory phenomena (Gruson, 2011: 18–19). Accepting this occupation and negotiating role was also a strategic decision and a way for the museum to justify its existence. Indeed, in October 2010 the museum was a rather weak institution; it did not gather much political support, as it was not officially inaugurated when it opened in October 2007, and it was not very popular with the public (Labadi, 2013: 310–330; Guerrin, 2010). Finally, the NMHI director might still have had in mind the evacuation of undocumented migrants from the Saint-Bernard Church on 23 August 1996. This evacuation was massively reported in the media, which caused outrage against the state, as it was accused of brutality and intolerance. Such negative coverage seems to have left a ‘profound mark in the collective unconscious of French leaders’7 (Tandonnet, 2006: 43). The museum accepted this occupation as a way of building sympathy and support from French leaders and the public alike, as well as justifying its existence. All these reasons explain that the director of the NMHI had no other choice but to accept this occupation and assist its trade union leaders in negotiating directly with the government. Therefore from 7 October until 8 December 2010 the occupying immigrants were entitled to stay day and night in the public space of the museum, primarily the function room which is its biggest room on the ground floor. This function room was transformed into a ‘factory to prepare regularization dossiers’ in the words of Raymond Chauveau, CGT leader8. These dossiers were prepared by the occupying immigrants, assisted by trade union leaders and representatives as well as their support networks (e.g. NGOs defending human rights). Museum staff themselves were not asked to assist in these tasks, as it was considered to be additional to their normal workload, and the occupying forces did not want to add pressure on them. The agreement between the museum and the trade union was that the sans-papiers would leave the museum as soon as they had submitted their dossier for regularization and received a three-month receipt which would allow them to stay legally on the French territory. Yet, a number of sanspapiers had problems simply preparing their dossiers and others did not receive their receipt after their submission to the prefecture. This was partly due to prefects not accepting the movement’s claims, and a desire to crush it. In addition, these immigrants had to document the duration of their employment, and it was unclear whether time spent on strike counted as periods of employment which could therefore have an impact on whether they met the official criteria for regularization (Vincent, 2010). Realizing that this occupation would last longer than planned, the then director of the NMHI took the decision to close the museum at night and to contain the occupation and the undocumented immigrants within two rooms, away from public and exhibition spaces. Undocumented immigrants

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therefore had to leave the museum every evening and come back the next day. This was a clear attempt to make this occupation more difficult and even to break it, as sans-papiers had to travel back and forth to the museum which exposed them to random identity checks by police forces. As this strategy of trying to break the occupation naturally through closing the museum at night did not work, the director of the museum decided to put an end to this sit-in at the end of January 2011. What strategies were used to do so?

. . . To sustaining the insecurity syndrome The insecurity syndrome was the strategy used by the then director of the NMHI to put an end to this occupation by sans-papiers (Balibar and Wallerstein, 1991: 21; Balibar, 2004: 63). This syndrome is a combination of opinions, which present immigrants as dangerous foreigners and outsiders who are delinquent and violent and whose lifestyles and traditions are incompatible with the dominant group in society. This syndrome, associating immigration (especially from Arab and/or Muslim countries) with insecurity has been widely spread through opinion leaders, the media and political figures (Laachir, 2002: 290).The official press release of the NMHI, dating from 28 January 2011, clearly refers to this ending on the ground of the insecurity and violence brought by these undocumented immigrants: Serious incidents, including threats against staff occurred at the end of 2010 and early January. . . . Therefore, to ensure the safety of persons and property, the National Museum on the History of Immigration has decided to put an end to previous agreements and be closed to the public in order to put an end to the occupation.9 (CNHI, 2011) These ‘serious incidents’ and ‘threats’ were used to justify the decision of the NMHI to use police forces to prevent undocumented immigrants from entering the museum, from the morning of 28 January 2011 onward. But why did the museum purposefully use this rhetoric of insecurity to put an end to this occupation? By representing the sans-papiers as dangerous, and by perpetuating a state of anxiety and fear, the NMHI portrayed itself as a victim and therefore within its right to end the occupation. By focusing on the insecurity syndrome, the museum adopted a communication strategy that protected its image and ensured that it did not alienate its public. This was revealed by internal documents which unambiguously explain that the museum managed the occupation by the sans-papiers, the CGT and their supports rather well. These documents further cited newspaper articles which covered the event and reported the end of the occupation but not an evacuation of the occupation forces from the museum (CNHI, 2011). These internal

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documents further detailed that, through such maneuvering and emphasizing of the financial and human burden caused by the long-term occupation, the museum was able to ‘retain some of its sympathy’ with the public (Chéry, 2013). The effectiveness of this communication strategy is evident by the supportive comments written on the museum guest book (which used to be openly available at the entrance of the museum) when these events happened. This official communication and attitude further demonstrate the conflicting aims of the NMHI. Its official goal of changing the ways in which immigration is perceived by the public would require political actions which do not necessarily fit with its aims of being a profitable museum that attracts the largest public possible. However, the presentation of sans-papiers as vandals does not seem to have been shared by all stakeholders. First and foremost, the then director of the NMHI seemed to have contradicted himself over this presentation. He was interviewed a few days before the termination of the occupation and indicated that there had been no violence, incidents or vandalism from the occupiers (Ostow, 2017: 251). Moreover, to oppose this presentation of sans-papiers as criminals and to respond to the official press release from the NMHI using the ‘insecurity syndrome’, the CGT Culture (the branch of the trade union CGT dealing with cultural affairs) published its own press release. The document from the CGT Culture denounces this official communication from the NMHI as ‘defamatory litany’, because the ‘serious incidents’ described never occurred and did not reflect the reality of the day-to-day occupation (CGT-Culture, 2011). This was confirmed during interviews I conducted with the CGT Culture representative and immigrants who took part in the occupation. It was explained that this feeling of insecurity felt by staff members of the NMHI was overrated and that this was indeed an ‘excuse’ found by the museum to put an end to this occupation.10 However, it is understandable that the museum wanted to end an occupation that had already lasted for too long. This occupation sought to find solutions for issues that existed beyond the museum walls, in the hands of the government and national civil servants who did not seem to want to authorize the mass regularization of working sans-papiers. For some of the museum staff I met, this occupation was also an intense period, as they had to perform their normal duties at the same time as following this extraordinary situation and showing support for the occupiers, even staying with them all night long. This had left them exhausted (Ostow, 2017: 249) but also frustrated by their helplessness. In addition, the occupation by 500 people led to an increase in the museum’s expenses, which could not be sustained for long, since the museum was already underfunded. This section has explained that, after almost four months of occupation, and as the demands of the occupying sans-papiers were not met, the then director of the NMHI decided to put an end to it through perpetuating the insecurity syndrome and presenting the museum and its staff as ‘victims’ of delinquent sans-papiers. But how useful was this occupation of the museum

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for undocumented immigrants in gaining residence permits? The last section of this chapter addresses this question, analyzing the short- and long-term impacts of this occupation.

Impacts of the occupation The occupation of the NMHI has had mixed results. Before the occupation started in October 2010, only 58 three-month receipts had been delivered for 1800 regularization dossiers submitted. According to figures published in the press and obtained from the government, as of March 2011, 3916 dossiers had been submitted to different prefectures, 314 residence permits had been given and 1673 three-month receipts had been delivered, authorizing migrants to stay on the territory (with the hope of a subsequent regularization) (Coursel, 2010). On the other hand, 430 obligations to leave the French territory had been delivered and no information was available on more than 1000 submitted dossiers (Les Echos, 2011). The occupation of the NMHI therefore had a clear impact in terms of speeding up the preparation and submission of regularization dossiers, as well as facilitating the delivery of residence permits and three-month receipts, which allowed immigrants to remain legally on French territory until their application had been considered. The figures also demonstrate that most dossiers submitted had not been considered by the prefectures before the occupation. For Sacko ‘the occupation of the NMHI unblocked the situation. . . . The occupation led to advances, to appointments for dossiers that had already been submitted’.11 These are major outcomes, considering the reluctance of prefectures in considering dossiers, and in delivering receipts before the occupation. These results might be due to the pressure put on the government through the occupation of such a public and national monument, as well as the support of the NMHI director in October and November 2010, which resulted in a number of meetings between trade union leaders and chiefs of staff of key ministers. This occupation was also widely covered in the written press, and both journalists and the wider public showed support for the working sans-papiers movement, which might have had an impact on the treatment of the dossiers. The better cooperation of prefectures, responsible for assessing dossiers and delivering receipts or residence permits, particularly the Préfecture de Police de Paris which exceptionally opened its doors on a Saturday, was a clear sign of the success of this occupation. Yet, these figures concerning regularization dossiers, receipts and residence permits also reflect the partial failure of this occupation, since the ultimate goal of the movement was to obtain a common and harmonized approach to the treatment of regularization dossiers, as well as receipts and permits for all working sans-papiers who fulfilled the official criteria. A closer analysis of these figures demonstrates some arbitrariness in the treatment of the dossiers, as well as a degree of discrimination against sans-papiers who acted as

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trade union representatives during the occupation. A number of the former sans-papiers I interviewed, who had occupied the NMHI, did not receive a receipt straight away after the submission of their dossier. Others, after this submission, received an obligation to leave the French territory, although they fulfilled all of the official criteria to receive a residence permit. This relative failure of collective action has made some immigrants rather bitter about the occupation and its management by the CGT, as already explained above, as they believed that they had not succeeded in obtaining a more homogeneous approach to the consideration of dossiers or the regularization for all sans-papier workers. This bitterness explains why some of the immigrants I interviewed did not want to return to the NMHI, as they associate it with a partial failure of their movement. However, the long-term analysis of this occupation demonstrates further success. First, in November 2012, the newly appointed Minister of the Interior (Manuel Valls) adopted a new legal text for the regularization of working sans-papiers, which refers to similar criteria as those obtained during the strike and the occupation of the museum. In addition, the constitution of working sans-papiers as a working class created strong networks of solidarity, identified as one of the greatest results of this movement (Krause, 2008: 20). For a CGT employee, Hervé Goix, who took part in organizing and conducting the occupation: ‘The whole conflict has made individuals live things that are absolutely enormous (. . .). These created real bonds of fraternity’.12 This solidarity led, for instance, to CGT representatives and associations helping immigrants appeal decisions of the French prefectures, when their dossiers were rejected and orders to leave the French territory received. As a result, by 2012, most of the working sans-papiers who acted as union representatives during the occupation had received a one-year renewable residence permit, even when their dossier had originally been rejected. Besides, the union representatives were still, at the time of writing (beginning of 2017), active in assisting other sans-papiers in preparing regularization dossiers, using the practical and legal knowledge acquired from the trade unions and NGOs during the occupation. The reconfiguration of the movement into assisting individual immigrants, rather than working for a group, might denote the failure of traditional collective action, due to the continuing arbitrariness of prefects and the French administration.

Summary and conclusions In this chapter, I have revealed first that the occupation of the NMHI helped to strengthen the capability and agency of the sans-papiers. In addition, it helped to accelerate the submission of dossiers to prefectures, the delivery of residence permits and three-month receipts as well as the constitution of a network of solidarity. Secondly, I have highlighted the changing attitude of the museum director and staff from support, at the beginning, to using the insecurity syndrome to put an end to the occupation.

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More specifically, this occupation of the NMHI corresponded to a working-class movement, which gave the working sans-papiers some power to act collectively to change their situation. This power transformed immigrants into subjects and agents and further facilitated the formation of their capability in the sense that they gained the freedom to express publically what they want to be and do. Indeed up until then, these immigrants lived in fear and were hiding from public spaces, because they were considered as ‘illegal’ on French territory. The use of public speaking and freedom of speech enabled these immigrants to contest openly this ‘illegality’ as well as their common stereotyping. Whilst all sans-papiers could freely speak with the public of the NMHI and some of them with the press, only trade union leaders could take part in the discussion and negotiation about fulfilling the aim of this occupation with the museum director and the government. Despite this hierarchical approach to negotiation by the trade unions that led to a certain degree of tension, this occupation had a number of positive outcomes: the delivery of residence permits, official and homogeneous criteria for regularization of sans-papiers and long-term solidarity between the occupying immigrants. As for the director and staff of the NMHI, they accepted, in the first instance, this public and mediatized occupation and played a negotiating role with the government. Besides, this occupation might have been considered as an opportunity to resolve the contradictions faced by this institution which fully recognized the historical phenomena of migration but did not recognize the importance of contemporary migratory phenomena, anchored in social and economic realities. This occupation was also a way of resolving two official and contradictory conceptions of the nation and immigrants in this museum: an inclusive nation, based on the richness of cultural diversity on the one hand and on the other an exclusive nation, based on the arbitrary consideration of some individuals as sans-papiers and as ‘illegal’. However, after more than three months of continuous occupation, the director of the museum used the insecurity syndrome, presenting immigrants as dangerous, violent and threatening, as an excuse to put an end to this sit-in. This official communication from the museum aimed to ensure that the public and opinion leaders were not shocked by the end put to this occupation, and did not consider it as an evacuation. This chapter has thus revealed the limits of using national museums, as state apparatus, for demanding increased labor and equal rights for disfranchised segments of the population.

Notes 1 2 3 4

Interview, 3 May 2014 Interview, 20 January 2014 Interview, 17 November 2014 Interview, 18 January 2014

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Interview, 17 November 2014 Interview, 2 October 2012 Author’s traduction, Interview, 20 January 2014 Author’s traduction Interview, 24 February 2014 Interview, 3 May 2014 Interview, 24 February 2015

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7

Conclusions The future of museums

Museums need to reinvent themselves. They do not appeal to visitors as much as they used to, especially in Western Europe. The drop in museum visitors over the past few years has made headlines, particularly in the United Kingdom (see for instance Ellis-Petersen, 2017 or Jones, 2017). The National Gallery and Tate have lost, for instance, 20% of their British audience in a five-year period up to 2014 (Gompertz, 2015). This drop may suggest that museums are considered less relevant, as they fail to reflect the increasingly diverse demographics of European societies. Despite the popularity of extreme-right movements in Europe, and the process of the Brexit in the UK, Western and Northern European countries will continue to be ‘super-diverse’, as whole areas of their economy depend on (im)migrants. What might change though, is an increasingly selective immigration system, as is already the case in Denmark, or higher levels of undocumented migrants, as is the case in France. This research has demonstrated how museums can become more relevant in society by addressing major or daily issues facing immigrants, such as the representation of their histories, heritage and identity; issues pertaining to language barriers, as well as unemployment and employment discrimination. It seems however that these approaches are too peripheral to museums, or even still too controversial. Yet, how can museums be relevant for society if they do not engage with these key contemporary phenomena or issues? This conclusion now turns to consider five proposals targeting policy makers, researchers and museums, so that museums might be able to contribute more effectively to social justice for immigrants. These proposals are based on the results and shortcomings of this research. To ensure relevance to a diversity of museums and cases, these proposals also consider examples from the Western world and not only from Europe or the countries considered in this research. However, before proceeding, it is important to summarize the key findings of this book.

Museums, immigrants and social justice: strengths and weaknesses The museums selected for this research, in Copenhagen, Manchester and Paris, carried out various participatory programs on the representation of

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immigrants. Such representation and participation processes are important for social justice, because they reflect who is included, who is marginalized and who is excluded within the nation and its official narratives. Videomaking programs were used at Manchester Museum, the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) and Thorvaldsens Museum, which were directly or indirectly inspired by Clifford’s concept of the contact zone. Whilst the video projects were well intentioned, unfortunately they came across as somewhat static and unnatural, as well as undertaken on the museum’s own terms. However, in recent years, Manchester Museum and SMK have developed more fluid and ephemeral engagements with immigrants, such as presentations during guided tours, or the facilitation of exhibitions and events initiated by immigrants themselves. In Paris, the National Museum on the History of Immigration (NMHI) displayed the striker’s card of one of the leaders of the undocumented workers movement who occupied the museum, in its 2014 revamped ‘Donation Gallery’. This donation is supposed to have created a mechanism of reciprocity whereby this national museum, and by extension the nation, recognized officially this immigrant and the wider cause of undocumented workers. My research has also assessed language-learning programs provided by the selected museums. It has revealed that these programs are valuable tools that strengthen the capability and agency of students around foreign language acquisition, as an addition to classroom teaching. Using constructivist and non-directive dialogues, some exercises focused on encouraging students to express their views in a foreign language. The uniqueness of museum collections, as spaces open to new meanings and interpretations, made these exercises particularly successful. Such a method further encouraged learners to stop thinking about the grammar and focus on what they were saying instead. Museum objects were also identified as being particularly powerful in bringing out memories or meaningful past experiences, helping students to bring the outside in and to speak more fluently. This was the case at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen with their shortterm employment opportunities for selected students. At these museums, not only did students learn through bringing their own daily and life experiences into the museum space, but they were also able to learn in a more natural environment than a classroom. Through specific employment or volunteering programs, museums can also provide a safe and unique environment that helps to raise immigrants’ self-esteem and self-confidence and facilitate their acquisition of bonding and bridging capital. These programs can thus be seen to provide essential skills that strengthen the capability and agency of immigrants in a volatile and sometimes discriminatory working environment. The occupation of the NMHI by working sans-papiers provided another perfect example of such a stance. Through the occupation of this national and public building, the working sans-papiers, many of whom had contributed to French society through taxes, were able to raise public awareness of the inequalities they

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faced. They thus made their claims for a more fair and uniform application process for residence permits, where all immigrants would be objectively considered according to official criteria. This occupation did help to accelerate the submission of dossiers to prefectures, the delivery of residence permits and three-month receipts as well as the constitution of a network of solidarity used by immigrants to help each other. However, these different programs present a number of shortcomings. First, criticisms have highlighted the tenuous relationship between the representation of immigrants in museums and social justice. For instance, fair representations of immigrants in museum exhibitions do not necessarily reduce discrimination against these more vulnerable sections of society, although they can positively alter visitors’ general perception of immigrants. Yet, the public of many museums are exclusive, as is the case with Danish museums (which attract well-educated visitors who tend to be between 50 and 64 years old). Very limited segments of the population can thus be influenced by these programs on immigrant representations. In addition, these programs tend to be rather peripheral to museums and their permanent collections. As such, they do not really challenge and change the power to create knowledge and interpret collections, which has continued to rest mainly with curators and museum staff, and not with immigrants. It is also particularly problematic that most of the schemes related to language learning and employment skills excluded less-privileged immigrants or those who are not fluent in the language of the host country. Even when programs have been organized with less-privileged immigrants in mind, for instance refugees and asylum seekers, the latter do not come to the museum on their own, as was noted, for instance, during the case studies and interviews at the free English Corner session at Manchester Museum and Manchester Art Gallery. This means that these programs attract primarily immigrants who tend to be already familiar with museums, have relatively high levels of education and/or are fluent in the language of the host country. Another example is the ‘If: Volunteering for Well-being’ program at Manchester Museum which led, in its first intake, to the almost exclusive employment of native English speakers from the USA. The first version of the employment of language students at Thorvaldsens Museum and SMK led to the almost exclusive hiring of well-educated individuals with a good knowledge of Danish. However, are these exclusionary patterns such a problem? It is true that such programs are opening museums up to a certain diversity, as the participants come from different countries, or have faced long term unemployment and have thus been excluded, to some extent, socially and economically. Nevertheless, museums cannot contribute to social justice if they only appeal to and involve narrow segments of society (Fleming, 2012: 72). This is not to deny that efforts have been made to attract and involve less-privileged immigrants. The latest (2016) version of the employment program for language learners at SMK consciously tried to do so. Refugees and asylum seekers were part of the target participants of the ‘In Touch’

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volunteer program at Manchester Museum, although they represented a minority of the selected participants. However, these less-privileged immigrants tended to show slower progress and weaker outcomes in language learning and in the acquisition of employment skills than other participants. The programs assessed in this research which are short term and intend to have significant impacts fast, do not match the needs of those more vulnerable immigrants. Since leaving these programs, many immigrants have struggled to find opportunities to apply the language or employment skills learnt at the museums, therefore running the risk of losing these newly acquired abilities. Immigrants who have not fully mastered the host nation’s language often tend to exclude themselves or become marginalized from employment or volunteering programs at museums. They then are caught in a vicious circle: they do not speak the language of the host country fluently and therefore cannot find opportunities to practice and improve this language in a professional and non-professional environment. This leads to a lack of confidence and fluency to apply for employment opportunities or be successful at securing them. This vicious circle has been identified as one of the causes of immigrants’ depression and isolation (Cooke, 2006: 56–73). What emerges from these patterns of marginalization and exclusion are some misunderstandings concerning the ways in which language courses as well as employment and volunteering programs could be of benefit for less-privileged immigrants. It also seems that the reasons why these immigrants did not attend the museum events that were organized for them, have not been fully assessed. These exclusionary patterns could indeed have a diversity of causes, ranging from ingrained negative perception of museums, to well-being issues, to a lack of time. My observations during my time at Manchester Museum revealed that childcare responsibilities were an additional important reason preventing mothers from disadvantaged backgrounds (primarily refugees) from voluntarily attending language-learning workshops. Moreover, these exclusionary patterns could be indicative of a lack of coordination between different departments of the museum. Targeting pre-school children is for instance one of the priorities of Manchester Museum, and increasingly of museums in general, but no activities were planned for this group at the time of language-learning workshops. Museums are currently moving toward activities that involve all family members as a means of ensuring a sustained approach to working with their publics. This, however, will not be achieved until more coordinated strategies, through organizational changes, have been implemented. My intention in the remainder of this conclusion is to develop, based on these results and shortcomings, five key proposals for policy makers, researchers and museum professionals, so that museums might contribute more effectively to social justice for immigrants.

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Innovative provisions of language and employment skills to change museums Whilst it is obvious that no program is impervious to weaknesses, this is not to suggest that the current schemes cannot be improved upon. Museums would be more effective in their pursuit of social justice if they extended their programs to address issues concerning language barriers, unemployment and employment discrimination. These programs would then not only benefit immigrants who tend to be already familiar with museums, have relatively high levels of education and/or are fluent in the language of the host country and are rather upwardly mobile. They would also benefit lessprivileged immigrants who suffer from multiple forms of exclusion and who would show positive progression towards fully achieving the goals of these programs. These more comprehensive projects would obviously have an impact on funding schemes: they would need to last longer and thus would need to be more substantial financially. Yet, this would also ensure that the goals of these funded schemes are actually fulfilled. This research has also demonstrated the importance of initiatives, such as those developed at SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum, that help concomitantly with both the language skills and employment skills of immigrants. The multiple forms of exclusion faced by immigrants can be addressed more efficiently through such comprehensive projects. In this process, museum collections and artifacts play a fundamental role in helping immigrants to acquire or improve skills. Through using, interpreting, providing access to and conserving collections, immigrants are able to strengthen their identity, to bring the outside in, to raise their confidence and to be provided with the status of experts. Above all, these different ways of using the collections profoundly change the space of the museum. As already explained, museums have traditionally worked as ‘secular rituals’ (Duncan, 1991: 91), as they make visitors behave in a specific and contemplative manner. For Bennett, the museum was to civilize and discipline the public (1995). The innovative programs on language learning and employment skills with publics who are not familiar with museums have the potential to transform these institutions into more welcoming, friendly and inclusive spaces. Indeed, many professionals still believe in the elitist, civilizing and disciplining dimension of museums and the sanctity of collections, as testified by the use of security guards in galleries to prevent visitors, considered as a risk, from damaging collections. The importance of transforming the ways in which collections are used by the publics enables museums to become more democratic and less elitist places according to the director of Manchester Museum, Dr Nick Merriman, during our interview: ‘We are perhaps a bit less precious about the sanctity of the collections. We’re responsible but we want them to be used as much as possible. They’re only used and animated by people’.1 More research needs to be undertaken though, assessing whether and how such greater uses of collections for language and employment programs truly transform museums

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from an exclusionary to a more inclusionary place, because the public feel welcome, included and not treated as a threat to collections. In addition, museums need to make more of a concerted effort to help and assist less-privileged individuals, such as immigrants, as they have the power to make a real impact on their lives, by improving their language and employment skills, building their confidence and self-esteem as well as strengthening their well-being. In order for these programs to be effective, researchers and museum professionals must understand this segment of the public, as well as their needs and how to respond to them on a more sustained basis (a request also made by NEMO and Deutscher Museumsbund, 2016: 15). More research needs also to be undertaken on the reasons why immigrants from certain backgrounds do not participate in museums’ activities, especially when these activities have been designed primarily for these groups. Museums could become more inclusive of immigrants by recognizing that, in our super-diverse societies, people with language difficulties, be they volunteers or employed staff, can contribute to the interpretation of collections and facilitate the visits of immigrants. A project worth investigating would be the ‘Talk English’ project (2014–2017), where the staff in stores and local businesses in parts of London and Northern England were trained as ‘sympathetic listeners’ in order to facilitate access to these spaces by people with low levels of English. This project was financed by the Department for Communities and Local Government, after having found out that traditional English language classes do not reach some communities (for instance, the 2011 Census found that 3.5% of the population from Manchester spoke limited English). Besides, the creation of these ‘sympathetic listener’ posts would help museums to attract a more diverse public and to have a more profound impact on the public it wants to serve. Indeed, museums could become safe civic spaces where people could use their English in real-life situations, move out of isolation and get more involved in their community. Another possibility could be to provide members of staff with on-the-job teaching and learning opportunities, which could lead to a diversification of the origins and profiles of staff. A number of schemes exist in the UK that aim to diversify the museum workforce, including ‘Skills for the Future’ by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Yet, it seems that these schemes do not pay enough attention to providing basic skills, particularly literacy skills, leading to the exclusion of segments of the population. Future funding schemes need to recognize the multiple forms of exclusion immigrants suffer and to provide a comprehensive approach to addressing them. Associated research could assess the impacts of these programs on immigrants and the uniqueness of the museum in improving the language proficiency and employment skills of less-privileged immigrants. Finally, in order to reach out to less-privileged immigrants, museums need to expand their activities beyond their walls, such as in community centers or open spaces. This would raise awareness of their activities, and would certainly help to fight against the widely held perception that museums are

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elitist and exclusionary institutions. The example from the Frankfurt Historical Museum in Germany could be borrowed, as it has developed the Mobile City Lab which travels to various areas, developing co-produced programs of events with the local populations (Gerchow and Thiel, 2017: 131–140).

Innovative approaches to representation and interpretation My second proposal requires museum professionals and researchers to investigate more innovative approaches of engaging with immigrants in the representation of their diverse histories, heritage and identities (see similar request made by NEMO and Deutscher Museumsbund, 2016: 6–8, 13). This will make these cultural institutions become real inclusionary spaces. The museums considered in this research implemented projects where immigrants were engaged with using multi-vocal interpretive methods. However, these projects occupied a peripheral space within the museums; interpretations of permanent collections are still primarily the responsibility of curators or experts. These collections tend also to be interpreted according to one view (often that of curators or experts) rather than a multi-vocal approach. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that some of my interviewees have called for greater engagement from immigrants in interpretations of collections, to make museums more relevant for them. However, it may be difficult for museum staff to give up one of their core functions, that is the control of meaning and the way in which they communicate with the public. Besides, some previous attempts at providing multi-vocal interpretations of collections have not been very conclusive. Govier, for instance, reports the dismay of visitors who were presented with different interpretations for the ancient human remains of Lindow Man: a bog body mystery, an exhibition held at Manchester Museum (19 April 2008–19 April 2009) when they wanted to know instantly the ‘true’ interpretation (2009: 7). Yet, concomitantly, at the beginning of its Egyptian Gallery, Manchester Museum has personalized the past through the use of subjective narratives of different stakeholders (including a Mancunian girl of Egyptian origins), which seemed to be quite popular, according to comments made to me by the front of staff. The videos prepared at SMK in Copenhagen, as well as the interpretation of artworks by immigrants, were also well received. There seems, therefore, to be ample room for expanding these multiple or personal interpretations of collections or artifacts, without undermining the responsibilities of curators and exhibition designers. There are multiple ideas that could be explored and that could lead to deeper engagement by immigrants in interpreting collections. The artist Tracey Zengeni from the Virtual Migrant network who collaborated with Manchester Museum suggested that, for each artifact, an alternative interpretation could be provided by a community member with knowledge of this artefact, alongside the one provided by curators. This would help to strengthen connections between museums and community members. In addition, this would help to ensure

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that greater information and context is provided on non-European artifacts. These dual interpretations might also help to reinterpret, in a correct manner, artifacts which might not have been given the right function or origin. Finally, this dual process of interpretation by curators and immigrants could be considered as a means of challenging the colonial legacies of museums through the process of mimicry, which consists of adopting and following Western methods and approaches. Providing activities in a diversity of languages is another way of engaging and including immigrants in museums. Offering guided tours in multiple languages spoken by surrounding communities can ensure equitable access to collections and to immigrants who might be less familiar with the museum. The provision of guided tours in Arabic led by Syrian and Iraqi refugees at four museums in Berlin, including the Pergamon Museum or the German History Museum, have been widely mediatized (Oltermann, 2016). Offered twice a week, these guided tours aim to highlight the connections between the country of origins of these refugees and Germany’s museum collections. But this example is not unique, as some of the newly arrived immigrants working at Thorvaldsens Museum were also employed to provide guided tours in their native language. These tours aim to welcome immigrants but also tourists to their new city and highlight its multicultural dimensions. Although important, these approaches tend to be limited to immigrants who actually go to museums. New, multi-vocal and more democratic interpretations of collections need to be developed outside of museum walls. One avenue of research would be to look at ways in which creative crowds have collaborated. This could start with researching instances of engaging the public in co-producing knowledge on collections and making this available online, as has been the case with the GLAM-Wiki initiative (galleries, libraries, archives, museums and Wikipedia). As part of this initiative that saw the participation of the British Museum and the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, volunteers learnt how to undertake research and write new Wikipedia entries, as well as edit existing ones, about artifacts from these institutions. Museums could borrow from this idea and develop their own collaborative and co-produced approach to interpreting artifacts, in multiple languages, tapping into the knowledge of immigrants or their willingness to undertake research in their own time (using a diversity of media and not necessarily Wikipedia only).

Organizational change for coherent programming My third proposal is more drastic and cross-cutting as it requires the implementation of organizational changes in museums. My fieldwork identified, as a recent organizational change, that museums have started to work collaboratively on specific projects. SMK and Thorvaldsens Museum, for instance, have jointly implemented the employment program for recently arrived immigrants in Copenhagen. The Senior Advisor for Museums at

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the Danish Agency for Culture, Ida Brændholt Lundgaard, insisted during her interview, that the agency was primarily funding such collaborative and horizontal approaches of work between museums, because such projects have a greater and more sustainable impact.2 Although this collaborative and horizontal approach is important, only a few members of museum staff across these different institutions were engaged in programs addressing the representations of immigrants’ histories and heritage, issues of unemployment and employment discrimination or poor language skills. The result is that these inclusive programs remain at the periphery of museums. This was clearly the case at the exhibition and the series of events by Virtual Migrants at Manchester Museum, which fully engaged only two members of staff. Despite staff efforts, the programs had a limited impact on the organization or functioning of the institution. The marginalization of such projects might suggest that different museum departments have different objectives and values. On the one hand, this enriches the museum and makes it a complex organization with multiple functions. Yet, this is also problematic, as it means that museums do not really have one core identity, and staff might not be able to collaborate fully with each other to achieve shared goals. When appointed in 2006, Dr Nick Merriman, the current Director of Manchester Museum (at the time of writing) found that this organization was not able to speak coherently to itself or to external parties. To remedy this issue, he led some organizational changes centered around the definition of a clear vision that would infuse the whole institution: promoting understanding between cultures, and developing a sustainable world. These goals are easy to remember, and most of the staff I interviewed mentioned them without hesitation. However, my interviews and observations have revealed that most members of staff had diverging understandings of what ‘diversity’ and ‘sustainable development’ meant for their work. For instance, some staff members were of the belief that only specific programs of the museum should target immigrants, but they all agreed that social justice was at the heart of their mission. The issue might be that staff do not share the same views on how to achieve social justice and who can be considered as disfranchised. However, it has been demonstrated that involving immigrants is fundamental to ensuring better understandings between cultures, equality and social justice, which is at the heart of the latest definitions of sustainable development (UNCSD, 2012). Whilst defining a vision and goals is a fundamental first step, a closely related point is for each member of staff to be clear about what this means on a day-to-day basis so that there is a consistency of commitment, purpose and direction, making members of staff speak and act coherently both internally and externally. Cross-departmental cooperation is also needed to implement these vision and goals. The third proposal from this research is that museums need to go through organizational changes with the definition of goals and objectives that are clear, whilst also ensuring that all members of staff work collaboratively toward the same purposes and directions, to prevent forcing

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some programs on social justice to the periphery. A difficulty in doing so might relate to the multiple, and sometimes contradictory, expectations made of museums. For instance, Manchester Museum, as part of Manchester University is supposed to respect its objectives on research, teaching and impacts, as well as provide access to multiple audiences and bring revenues. In this context, research on how organizations, even beyond the world of museums, have been able to work toward common goals and objectives would be helpful in this process (firsthand reflections that can provide a starting point have been presented in Fleming, 2012: 72–83). Such research and change on the ground will ensure that museums are really committed to social justice and to fully implementing the different international, national and local recommendations on social justice mentioned in the first pages of this book. The recently (2013) launched Social Justice Alliance for Museums might be an important resource in this process, as it aims to promote best practice examples from around the world, as well as providing peer-to-peer support in the pursuit of a social justice agenda for museums. Moreover, through careful programming, museums could plan activities to engage with, and cater to, different family members. This would ensure that their different needs are met within the space of the museum. This is the ambition of Manchester Museum, which provides activities from toddlers to senior visitors. Yet, at times, it has not been able to adopt a coordinated approach with programs running in parallel that took into account all of the needs of different family members. This integrated approach to museum programming would enable museums to develop sustainable relationships with their audiences, whilst strengthening their coherence and consistency in implementing their goals. For instance, language-learning workshops for adults could run at the same time as pre-school workshops for their children. This would ensure that childcare responsibilities do not prevent mothers from deprived backgrounds (that can include refugees) from attending these workshops. Finally, such an approach would ensure that pre-school children from disadvantaged backgrounds could participate in activities from museums. This is fundamental for building more equal societies. Indeed, children from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to be lacking certain skills in comparison to other children when they reach schooling age. The earlier educational interventions museums offer, the better it would be for widening opportunities for all. The importance of museums for early years education has been widely demonstrated, with the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center as a notable example. (Munley, 2012). This conclusion has thus far highlighted the need for museums to become more inclusive and relevant for society through new approaches to language learning and employment. It has also emphasized the need to gain a better understanding of audiences and non-visitors, so that their needs can be appropriately addressed in a coordinated matter. Moreover, this conclusion has explained the need for more innovative and far reaching approaches to, and research on, representing the diverse histories and

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heritage of immigrants. In order to institute effectively inclusive programs, there is a need for organizational changes at many museums, although further research is required on how to best implement this. However, museum professionals and researchers also need to have a greater role in the wider society, by being engaged beyond the walls of their respective institutions.

Addressing social justice issues beyond museum walls My next proposal encourages museum professionals and concerned academics to actively challenge the widely held stereotypes associated with immigrants, the injustices that they face and exclusionary models of nation building. Museums would then fulfill their goals of creating a new model of the nation-state that celebrates diversity and its positive impacts as well as contributes to social justice. The first way to challenge such stereotypes is through the organization of internationally renowned exhibitions on contentious topics related to immigrations, such as on identity, Islam or borders, that attract media attention and create debates beyond the walls of the museum. Interestingly, in recent years some of the museums considered in this book organized such exhibitions, as a way of explaining, in a more nuanced manner, complex issues that tend to become overly simplified in mass media. The ultimate goal of these exhibitions is to change mentalities, as well as the ways in which immigrants are being portrayed in the media. More specifically, SMK organized a series of exhibitions entitled Migration Politics: three CAMP exhibitions at the SMK on issues of refugees, asylum and migration, curated by the Center for Art on Migration Politics, from 10 September to 6 November 2016. Artworks included films on refugees who took the Balkan route in the summer of 2015, as a reflection on the concept of borders, or works on daily lives and the human dimension of refugee camps. The NMHI also organized a major temporary exhibition, on Borders (10 November 2015–3 July 2016) to discuss and re-assess the arbitrariness of some borders, the contradictory roles of states which facilitate some movements (e.g. capital flows, human capital) but limit others (refugees or economic migrants), or the often unethical treatment of undocumented migrants within Europe and their precarious lives in detention centers. This exhibition was organized in partnership with France Television, the public national television broadcaster, and Le Monde, one of the biggest newspapers in France. As such, it received much media attention. Finally, during our interview, the Director of Manchester Museum, Dr Nick Merriman, revealed his intention to organize a major exhibition on Islam at his institution in 2020, as one of the most misunderstood religions of the Western world.3 Again, this project would challenge current stereotypes facing Muslims and render debates on the issue more complex. Yet, as explained, the impact of such exhibitions is usually limited as they can only engage with their public, which tend to be composed of specific segments of the population (often well-educated and affluent). Hence these events will

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never be sufficient on their own and would need to be accompanied by other initiatives, including the proposals already made in this conclusion. These additional initiatives would need to move beyond the museum walls in order to clearly reaffirm the role of these institutions as a medium for social justice and to challenge effectively common stereotypes surrounding immigrants. An increasing number of blogs, websites and Twitter feeds on museums, respect for diversity and social justice have been created in the past few years. These efforts aim to give a voice to museum professionals on social justice issues, whilst also reaffirming museums’ key roles during a time of austerity and financial cuts. In his blog on the gallery website, the recently (2014) appointed Director of SMK explained the fundamental importance of the language learning and employment for migrants programs as a way of fulfilling the social role of museums, and of making these institutions more relevant for society.4 In addition, a number of Twitter feeds have emerged on museums and social justice issues, as a reaction to what was perceived as the ‘absence of [. . .] commentary on major current issues, both national and international, in the realm of museum social media’ (Jennings, 2015: 98). One example related to diversity is the creation of the Twitter hashtag ‘#museumsrespondtoferguson’, created by museum professionals in the wake of the events of Ferguson in the USA when a police officer killed an unarmed Black teen, Michael Brown. This hashtag aims to engage with issues of cultural diversity within the space of the museum and beyond, including issues of power relations at the museum, issues of racism in societies and how to tackle these issues within the space of museums. This hashtag has been widely shared on the web, and a number of follow-up initiatives have been launched, including statements on diversity and social justice by museums (e.g. the Missouri History Museum) or conversations held in museums on these issues of social justice and cultural diversity. More closely related to this research, the 2014 appointment of Professor Benjamin Stora, a popular and mediatized expert on Algerian history (a contentious topic in France), as President of the NMHI is a clear attempt at making this institution a leading forum for discussions on issues of (im) migration and social justice. Since his appointment, Professor Stora has widely expressed, through different media, his ambition to transform the NMHI into a center for democratic debates on current and pressing issues concerning (im) migrants, and not only a space focused on the past (Stora, 2014). During our interview, he explained that he would realize this ambition through highly publicized events, including exhibitions, roundtables, workshops and debates, involving a diversity of participants.5 In addition to the exhibition already mentioned on borders, day-long events as part of Migrations: 12 heures pour changer de regard (Migrations: 12 hours to change opinions) were organized in cooperation with the French Ministry of Culture in September 2015. Again, these debates have a clear role of challenging perceptions of immigrants and to transform museums into spaces for social justice.

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The use of museums by grassroots and militant movements Whilst museum professionals and academics have an important role to play in publically challenging common stereotypes associated with immigrants, the injustices they face and the associated exclusionary model of the nation, grassroots and militant movements also have a role to play within the space of the museum. The last proposal concerns the use of museums by grassroots and militant movements to improve the lives of immigrants, including the representation of their history and heritage, their fluency in the language of the host country, as well as their employment prospects and skills. In this process, grassroots and militant movements can publically reveal many of the contradictions that exist in museums, as they are spaces that attempt to propose a more inclusive nation whilst simultaneously representing institutional hegemony, and fulfilling an exclusionary model of the nation. The occupation of the NMHI by working sans-papiers served as a perfect example of this. This museum became a site of contestation to stage the demands of these workers, which were to receive a fair and homogenous treatment of their claims for residence permits. It became a way of highlighting the contradictions associated with official national discourses on nation building, and the negative, even tragic, consequences for immigrants on their daily lives. This occupation seems all the more important with the potential rise of undocumented workers, associated with the greater difficulty of obtaining the legal rights to work, especially in post-Brexit UK. Organized without any assistance from museum professionals, this occupation demonstrates the key role played by movements that have experience in the logistic and financial coordination of occupations and strikes, such as trade unions or human rights organizations. Grassroots, militant movements, organizations and alternative political formations (e.g. Podemos in Spain) have seen a rise in recent years in the wake of the publication Indignez-vous! (Time for Outrage!) (Hessel, 2010). In this book, Hessel calls individuals, especially young people, to join or form grassroots movements and networks to express indignation over a number of causes, including the treatment of immigrants and sans-papiers, and to fight for greater justice and freedoms (2010: 5). A running idea structuring Indignez-vous! is the importance of grassroots movements and networks to defend democratic principles, echoing Rancière’s position that democracy and social justice cannot be created ab nihilo (Rancière and Chambat, 2008). Democracy and social justice can only be constructed through practical confrontations with official narratives on these concepts, and the categorization of exclusions. Whilst Rancière argues that democracy can only be worked out by those at the margin of, or those excluded from, society, Hessel expresses his intimate conviction, guided by Sartre, in the responsibility of each human being in working towards the creation of a more democratic and just world (2010: 7). According to this approach, grassroots movements and networks are thus formed of ‘paradoxical groupings’ (Balibar, 2004: 76)

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which unite people who might not share the same characteristics, (including foreigners, nationals, educated, illiterate and so on). However, the problem with these paradoxical groupings, as explained in Chapter 6 with the case of the occupation of the NMHI by sans-papiers, lies in the tendency for the more articulate and powerful individuals to speak for marginalized people, leading to the exclusion of the latter from high-level discussions and negotiations. Other recent occupations, grassroots movements or demonstrations have been characterized by their more democratic and horizontal organizations, including the Occupy movement (Klein, 2012: 1–4). However, these more democratic structures are not without problems, including the lack of clear demands and often, of clear results. Whilst this more democratic approach has shortcomings, similar to more structured and hierarchical organizations, both models have the creation of networks of solidarity in common. These are essential elements for social justice, as individuals can help each other in fulfilling their demands. Therefore this conclusion encourages grassroots movements, organized in a hierarchical or horizontal manner, to use museums to demand more social justice for immigrants, inspired by the case of the NMHI. Whilst conducting this research, I met far too many people who still perceived museums as elitist places, detached from contemporary issues. For them, the remit of museums does not include dealing with social justice or with immigrants. Yet, this research has demonstrated that museums can play a unique and fundamental role in promoting social justice, particularly for immigrants, in line with the recommendations from ICOM and many other international and national institutions. This research has also detailed a number of shortcomings with fulfilling this role, and demonstrated that the potential of museums as spaces of social justice is not yet fully reached. It is hoped that these five proposals, that could also be considered as new research themes, could help policy makers, museum professionals and researchers fulfill this potential.

Notes 1 2 3 4

Interview, 8 July 2014 Interview, 28 March 2014 Interview, 8 July 2014 www.smk.dk/en/explore-the-art/smk-blogs/artikel/mikkel-bogh-blogs-wilhelmbendzs-the-raffenberg-family-copy-1/ 5 Interview, 25 February 2015

Bibliography Balibar, E. 2004, We, The People of Europe? Princeton University Press, Pinceton. Bennett, T. 1995, The Birth of the Museum, Routledge, London. Cooke, M. 2006, “‘When I Wake up I Dream of Electricity’: The Lives, Aspirations and ‘Needs’ of Adult ESOL Learners”, Linguistics and Education, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 56–73.

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Duncan, C. 1991, “Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship”, in Karp, I. and Levine, S. (eds). Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, pp. 88–103. Ellis-Petersen, H. 2017, “British Museums and Art Galleries Hit by 1.4M Fall in Visitors”, The Guardian, 2 February 2017. Available from: www.theguardian. com/culture/2017/feb/02/british-museums-art-galleries-hit-by-2m-fall-visitors [accessed on 18/04/2017]. Fleming, D. 2012, “Museums for Social Justice: Managing Organisational Change”, in Sandell, R. and Nightingale, E. (eds). Museums, Equality and Social Justice, Routledge, London, pp. 72–83. Gerchow, J. and Thiel, S. 2017, “The Participatory City Museum”, in Mörsch, C. Sachs, A. and Sieber, T. (eds). Contemporary Curating and Museum Education, Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, pp. 131–140. Gompertz, W. 2015, “UK Visitor Numbers Drop at Top London Art Galleries”, BBC News. Available from: www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31533110 [accessed on 24/04/2017]. Govier, L. 2009, Leaders in Co-Creation? Why and How Museums Could Develop their Co-Creative Practice With the Public, Building on Ideas From the Performing Arts and Other Non-Museum Organisations, University of Leicester, Leicester. Hessel, S. 2010, Indignez-vous!, Indigène Éditions, Montpellier. Klein, N. 2012, “Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World Now”, Critical Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 1–4. Jennings, G. 2015, “The #museumsrespondtoFerguson Initiative, a Necessary Conversation”, Museums and Social Issues, vol. 10, pp. 97–105. Jones, J. 2017, “The Drop in Museum Visitors Reveals a Nation Without Aspiration or Hope”, The Guardian, 2 February 2017. Available from: www.theguardian. com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2017/feb/02/drop-uk-museum-attendance [accessed on 18/04/2017]. Munley, M. 2012, Early Learning in Museums: A Review of Literature (Report), MEM & Associates, Chicago, IL. NEMO and Deutscher Museumsbund. 2016, Museums, Migration and Cultural Diversity. Recommendations for Museum Work. Available from: www.ne-mo. org/fileadmin/Dateien/public/NEMo_documents/Nemo_Museums_Migration. pdf. [accessed on 24/04/2017]. Oltermann, P. 2016, “Berlin Museums’ Refugee Guides Scheme Fosters Meeting of Minds”, The Guardian, 27 February 2016. Available from: www.theguardian. com/world/2016/feb/27/berlin-museums-refugee-guides-scheme-fosters-meetingof-minds [accessed on 18/04/2017]. Rancière, J. and Chambat, G. 2008, “Émancipation et éducation, entretien avec Jacques Rancière”, N’Autre Ecole, vol. 19. Available from: http://www.cnt-f.org/ nautreecole/?Emancipation-et-education [accessed on 05/07/2017] Stora, B. 2014, “L’immigration mérite notre devoir de mémoire”, L’Humanité Dimanche, 28 Août (last update). Available from: www.humanite.fr/benjamin-storalimmigration-merite-notre-devoir-de-memoire-550105 [accessed on 23/07/2015]. UNCSD. 2012, The Future We Want. Rio de Janeiro: United Nations. Available from: http://www.uncsd2012.org/content/documents/727The%20Future%20 We%20Want%2019%20June%201230pm.pdf [accessed 01/07/2017]

Index

2009 UNESCO World Report on Cultural Diversity 6 2010 Shanghai Declaration on Museums for Harmonious Social Development 1 affiliation 7, 29, 39–40, 42, 47, 92, 110 Africa 51; French-speaking 50; subSaharan 109 African slave trade 42 agency 7, 14–15, 23, 28, 29–33, 43–44, 47–48, 54, 65–66, 75, 76, 79, 87, 88–90, 94–96, 103, 107, 111–112, 114, 116, 118, 123–124, 130; of immigrants 44, 66, 88, 130 agent(s) 4, 23, 28, 30–33, 43–44, 48, 54, 71, 75, 87, 92, 114, 124 Arabic (language) 136 Arendt, H. 113 artifact(s) 4–5, 40–42, 44, 46–49, 53–56, 67, 69–71, 73–74, 76, 78, 81, 90–91, 94, 103, 133, 135–136 assimilation 12 asylum 56, 139 asylum seekers 6, 11, 64, 78–81, 87, 100–101, 103, 131, 139 Australia 11 Bakhtin, M.M. 42, 70, 72 Balibar, E. 32, 109–110, 120, 141 Barthes, R. 76 belonging 7, 39–40, 42, 92–94, 97 Bentham, Jeremy 24 Bourdieu, P. 30, 40 Brexit 129, 141 Britain 11, 99 British Museum 136

Canada 11 capability 7–8, 14–15, 23, 25–29, 33, 37–38, 42, 43, 49, 56, 64, 66, 81, 88–90, 95–97, 102, 107, 111–112, 114–116, 118, 123–124, 130; core 29, 42, 64, 96, 111–112; see also affiliation; belonging capability approach 7–8, 14–15, 23–24, 25–27, 29, 32, 33–34, 39, 64–66, 78, 88–89, 96; see also capability; capability set; functionings capability set 26–28 capital: bonding 97, 98–99, 103, 130; bridging 97–98, 103, 130; emotional 95; human 139; mental 95; see also cultural capital; social capital; trust childcare 26, 79–80, 132, 138 children 24, 51, 54, 80, 112, 132, 138 China 102 Clifford, James 9, 41, 44, 130; see also contact zone cognitive behavioral therapy 93–94 Commonwealth (British) 11 Confédération Générale du Travail 53, 55, 110–111, 114, 116–120, 123; CGT-Culture 53, 121 contact zone 9, 37, 41–42, 44, 49, 56, 130 conversion factors 14, 27–28, 29–30, 33, 38, 39 Copenhagen 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 32, 42, 44, 63, 64, 66–68, 70–72, 74, 81, 88, 91, 94–97, 99, 107, 129, 130, 135, 136 creativity 92, 94–96, 99, 102 cultural capital 40, 41, 43

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Danish (language) 9–10, 26, 30, 32, 42, 44, 48, 65, 68–69, 74, 92, 102, 131 Danish People’s Party 12 democracy 8, 31–32, 116, 141 Denmark 1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 12, 26, 30, 42, 43, 65, 67, 77, 80, 89, 91, 95–96, 98, 99, 102, 129; Danish Agency for Culture 99, 137; Green Card 3; and Maastricht Treaty 12; Museum Act (January 2014) 1 discrimination 2–5, 7–8, 15, 27, 31–32, 38, 49, 56, 87, 103, 107, 122, 129, 131, 133, 137 doxa 30, 31, 43, 95 Empire (British) 11 employment 2–3, 5–6, 8–11, 15, 23, 26, 28–30, 34, 42, 63, 65, 69, 75, 77–78, 81, 87–90, 92, 94–99, 102–103, 107–108, 110, 112, 119, 130–133, 136, 138, 140–141; see also employment discrimination; employment skills; unemployment employment discrimination 3, 5, 15, 27, 49, 107, 129, 131, 133, 137 employment skills 3, 6, 15, 33, 81, 90, 131–134 England 2, 64, 74; Northern 134 English (language) 5, 9, 27, 32, 65, 69, 76, 100–101, 103, 131, 134 English Corner 9, 63–64, 69, 70–72, 76, 78–81, 101, 131 English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) 2, 5, 9, 63, 70, 72, 75, 78, 79 ethnocentrism 2, 8; ethnocentric narratives 40 Europe 8–9, 14, 102, 129, 139; Central Europe 11; Eastern Europe 11; Western 1, 129 European Union 6, 8, 10–12; European Constitution 8; Maastricht Treaty 12 First Nations 42 Fousseni, Sacko 51, 52, 54–56, 108, 122 France 2, 8, 10–11, 14, 28, 30–32, 39, 49–51, 54–57, 65, 108–111, 113, 116, 118, 122–124, 129, 139–140; Ancien Régime of 39; French Republic 116; Ministry of Culture 140; Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and

Co-Development 118; Ministry of the Interior 110, 123; Ministry of Labor 110, 118; New Guidelines on Regularization Through Work 108, 118 France Television 139 Frankfurt Historical Museum 135; Mobile City Lab 135 French (language) 50, 57n13, 65, 117 French territory see France functionings 14, 23, 26–28, 30, 33, 65 German History Museum 136 Germany 1, 74, 135, 136; Berlin 1, 136 Ghana 42 GLAM-Wiki initiative 136 Great Britain 80 Gruson, Luc 55, 118 habitus 30 hegemonic knowledge 48 Hercules Wrestling with Antaeus 43 Heritage Lottery Fund 134 heteroglossia 70–72 ICOM see International Council of Museums (ICOM) identity 2–5, 11, 38–39, 42–43, 46, 48, 50, 55, 66, 75–77, 79, 87, 91–92, 94–95, 103, 111–112, 115, 118, 120, 129, 133, 137, 139; checks 115, 120; controls 112; making 42, 46, 75, 79; national 11, 66; national collective 39; social 91–92 ‘illegality,’ concept of 110, 111, 115, 116, 124 immigrants: agency of 44, 66, 88, 130; definition 6; employment discrimination 3, 5, 15, 27, 49, 107, 129, 131, 133, 137; and language learning workshops 14–15, 64, 70, 77–81, 132, 140; and NMHI 2, 4, 8, 10–11, 13–15, 28, 30–32, 37, 39, 49–53, 56–57, 57n13, 70, 103, 107–124, 130, 139–142; and Manchester Museum 8–9, 13–15, 27, 30, 37, 39, 41–47, 49, 56–57, 63–66, 70, 78–80, 87–88, 90–92, 94, 97–103, 130–133, 135, 137, 139; and representation of 3–5, 7, 9–10, 14, 27, 37–39, 41, 43–44, 55–57, 115, 118, 129–131, 135, 137, 141; and SMK 8–10, 13–15, 26, 30–31,

Index 37, 39, 41, 42–44, 48–49, 56, 63–64, 66–67, 77, 81, 87–89, 92, 94–99, 101–103, 130–131, 133, 135–136, 139–140; and unemployment 3, 5, 8, 27, 87–90, 92–93, 102, 110, 129, 131, 133, 137; and video scripting 67, 77, 89, 94–96, 101–102; and volunteering 9, 15, 87–88, 91–92, 94, 97–103; see also asylum seekers; migrant(s); refugees; undocumented worker(s); working sans-papiers Imperial War Museum North 88 Indignez-vous! (Time for Outrage!) 7, 141 insecurity syndrome 120–121, 123–124 integration 11–12, 50, 109; multicultural model of 11, 12; postmulticultural model of 11; republican model of 11, 12; see also assimilation International Council of Museums (ICOM) 1, 142; 2010 ICOM Cultural Diversity Charter 1 Iran 43, 102 Islam 139 Italy 95; Rome 2, 95 knowledge creation 41, 46, 131 knowledge production 46; relativity of 46 Köpcke, Arthur 77; Silver Sculpture 77 language learning 2–3, 5, 7, 9–10, 14–15, 23, 26, 29, 33–34, 57, 63–66, 69–70, 74–75, 77–78, 80, 87, 100, 130–133, 138, 140; ‘bringing the outside in’ 75–78, 130, 133; constructivist approach to 74–75, 76, 78, 130; dialogical approach to 69–75, 76, 78, 79, 130; workshops 14–15, 64, 68–74, 76–81, 132, 138, 140 language skills 5, 27–28, 69–70, 72, 92–93, 101, 103, 133–134, 137 Latvia, 74, 77, 89, 102 Latvian (language) 73, 94 learning theories: constructivist approach 66–68, 69, 75, 76, 78, 81; didactic and expository model of 67, 69; skills 101; see also language learning Le Monde 139 London 23, 134 Lord Mansfield 23

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Los Indignados (the Outraged) 7 Louvre Museum, Le 39, 40 Lower East Side Tenement Museum 5 Mali 50, 51, 108, 112, 113 Manchester, England 2, 6, 10, 12, 14, 15, 32, 63, 64, 66–68, 70–71, 79, 81, 88, 107, 129, 134 Manchester Art Gallery 8–9, 13, 14, 27, 63–64, 65, 66, 68–73, 79, 87, 131; see also English Corner Manchester Art Museum 9 Manchester Museum 8–9, 13–15, 27, 30, 37, 39, 41–47, 49, 56–57, 63–66, 68–71, 76, 78–80, 87–88, 90–94, 97–103, 130–133, 135, 137–139; ‘Collective Conversations’ 9, 42, 43, 45–48, 49; Community Exhibitions 46; Egyptian Gallery 135; ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ program 9, 79, 87–88, 90–95, 98–101, 103, 131; ‘In Conversations’ 47; ‘In Touch’ volunteer program 9, 87–88, 100–101, 103, 131–132; Introducing Collective Conversations at Manchester Museum 42; Lindow Man: a bog body mystery 135; ‘Living Culture’ galleries 43, 45–46; ‘90 Degree Citizen’ 45–46; ‘Re-presenting Refugees’ 47; see also English Corner Manchester University 138 Merriman, Nick 80, 133, 137, 139 migrant(s) 1, 5–6, 30, 45–47, 51, 55, 100, 108, 112, 119, 129, 139–140; undocumented 108, 112, 119, 129, 139; see also Virtual Migrants migration stress 79 Mill, John Stuart 24 mimicry 48–49, 136 misogyny 72, 74 Missouri History Museum 140 Mohawk Nation 42 multiculturalism 11, 12, 38; ‘3S model of’ 38 ‘multiple co-existence,’ concept of 13 multi-vocality 4, 40, 48, 135, 136 multivoicedness 42, 68 Musée Dauphinois 2 Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration 2, 4, 8, 10–11, 13–15, 28, 30–32, 37, 39, 49–53, 56–57, 57n13, 70, 103, 107–124, 130,

148

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139–142; Borders 139; ‘Gallerie des dons’ (Donation Gallery) 54–55, 130; Migrations: 12 heures pour changer de regard (Migrations: 12 hours to change opinions) 140; occupation of 8, 10–11, 13, 15, 28, 30, 31–33, 37, 39, 49–56, 57, 103, 107–124, 130, 141–142; Repères 52; see also sans-papiers Museo d’Història de la Immigraciò de Catalunya 2 museology 40; see also New Museology movement Museo Nazionale dell’ Emigrazione Italiana 2 Museum of Copenhagen 2 National Gallery (England) 129 National Gallery of Denmark see Statens Museum for Kunst National Museum on the History of Immigration (NMHI) see Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration nation-state 39, 109, 139 New Museology movement 1, 4, 8, 39 New York 5 North America 42 Nussbaum, M. 7, 23, 29, 39, 42, 64, 111–112; see also capability Occupy movement 142 Occupy Wall Street 7 ontological security 76, 95 Paris 2, 6, 8–9, 12, 13–14, 28, 31–32, 39, 49, 51, 70, 103, 107, 109, 110, 112, 129–130; Préfecture de Police de Paris 122 Pergamon Museum 136 Philippines 26, 65, 77 Platforma Festival (2013) 45 polyphony 42 Pratt, Marie-Louise 41, 44, 49; see also contact zone primary goods: natural 25; social 25 Putnam, R.D. 96–98, 103 punctum 76 racism 2, 9, 140 radical trust 41 Rawls, John 24–25 Rawlsian theory 7, 14, 23

refugees 6, 11, 30, 45, 47–48, 64, 76, 78–81, 87, 100–101, 103, 131, 132, 136, 138, 139; Iraqi 136; Syrian 136 representation in museums 33–34, 37–57, 63, 72; of diversity 15, 38, 42, 87; of immigrants 3–5, 7, 9–10, 14, 27, 29, 37–39, 41, 43–44, 55–57, 115, 118, 129–131, 135, 137, 141; of NMHI occupation 107; of working sans-papiers 32, 52 resilience 15, 89, 90, 94, 96, 102 rule of law 8, 31 Saint-Bernard Church 110, 119 Sarkozy, Nicolas 108 Sartre, Jean-Paul 141 Scotland 5 Second World War 51 self-confidence 74, 89–91, 93–94, 99, 102, 130 self-efficacy 89, 93 self-esteem 38, 79, 89–94, 99, 102, 130, 134 Sen, Amartya 7–8, 14, 23–26, 29–33, 44, 64–65, 88–89 Senegal 50, 51, 108, 113 ‘Skills for the Future’ 134 Smithsonian Archives of American Art 136 Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center 138 social capital 79, 96–99, 103; bonding 97, 98–99, 103, 130; bridging 97–98, 103, 130 social justice 1–9, 14–15, 23–28, 33, 37–39, 49, 56, 64, 88, 129–133, 137–142; definition 6–7, 23; see also capability; capability approach; Rawlsian theory; utilitarian theory Social Justice Alliance for Museums 138 Somalia 76 Spain 7, 11, 141 Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK) 8–10, 13–15, 26, 30–31, 37, 39, 41, 42–44, 48–49, 56, 63–64, 66–69, 71, 73–74, 76–77, 81, 87–89, 92, 94–99, 101–103, 130–131, 133, 135–136, 139–140; Center for Art on Migration Politics 139; Migration Politics: three CAMP exhibitions at the SMK 139; School Programs 42, 67; video-scripting program 94–96,

Index 101–102, 130, 135; ‘Welcome to Language Schools’ 10 Stora, Benjamin 140 ‘super-diversity’ 2, 6, 129, 134 Syria 102, 136 ‘Talk English’ project 134 Tate Gallery 129 teaching theories: constructivist approach 66–68, 75, 76, 78, 81; didactic and expository model of 67, 69 Thorvaldsen, Bertel 8, 72; Thorvaldsen Leaning on the Statue of Hope 72 Thorvaldsens Museum 8–10, 13–15, 30–31, 37, 39, 42–44, 56, 63–64, 66, 68–69, 72–74, 76–77, 81, 87–88, 92, 94–99, 101–103, 130, 131, 133, 136; video-scripting program 94–97, 101–103, 130; ‘Welcome to Language Schools’ 10 trust 72, 77, 92, 96, 98; radical 41 Twitter 140 UK Museums Association 1, 88; Diversify scheme 88 undocumented worker(s) 10–11, 14–15, 28, 30–32, 39, 50–51, 53, 57, 103, 107–111, 113, 116, 118, 130, 141 unemployment 3, 5, 8, 27, 87–90, 92–93, 102, 110, 129, 131, 133, 137 United Kingdom 2, 8, 10, 11, 14, 30, 78, 88, 129, 134, 141; Brexit 129, 141 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 29 USA 7, 91, 100, 103, 131, 140 utilitarianism 24–25; utilitarian theory 7 utilitarian movement 14, 23

149

Valls, Manuel 32, 123 Victoria and Albert Museum 2 video 9–10, 26, 42–44, 46, 48, 64, 69, 71, 73–74, 77, 89, 94–97, 130, 135; see also video scripting video scripting 67, 77, 89, 94–96, 101–102 Virtual Migrants 45–47, 135, 137 volunteering 9, 15, 87–88, 91–94, 97–103; see also volunteering experience; volunteering program(s) volunteering experience 91, 94, 99 volunteering program(s) 2, 15, 27, 88, 92–94, 98, 100, 103, 130, 132; ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ program 9, 79, 87–88, 90–95, 98–101, 103, 131; ‘In Touch’ volunteer program 9, 87–88, 100–101, 103, 131–132 Web 2.0 41 wellbeing 24, 26–27, 32–33, 64–65, 78–79, 88, 91, 93–94, 96, 99–100, 132, 134; see also Manchester Museum: ‘If: Volunteering for Wellbeing’ program West, the 48; Western world 48, 129, 139 Wikipedia 136 working sans-papiers 10, 13, 15, 30–31, 49–57, 70, 107–124, 130, 141–142; movement 55, 113–114, 116–117, 122; regularization of 110–111, 113–114, 117–119, 121–124, 131; see also migrant(s); undocumented worker(s) World Day for Decent Work 50 Zola, E. 40