Alisa Maximova presented a paper on the Academic seminar of IGITI Research Centre for Contemporary Culture

On February 19 the academic seminar of Research Centre for Contemporary Culture (IGITI HSE) was held. Alisa Maximova presented a a paper “Microethnography of museum: how visitors' interaction is organized”.

On February 19 the academic seminar of Research Centre for Contemporary Culture (IGITI HSE) was held. Alisa Maximova presented a talk on microethnography of museums, methodological approach that analyses visitors’ face-to-face interaction. In her talk, Alisa discussed different models of museums and corresponding images of visitor experience. She explained how from behaviorist and cognitivist studies of visiting museums as individual practice social scientists move towards visitor-centered approach that conceives museum experience as social experience. These studies take into account complex interaction and interpretation processes that occur in museums, redefine the notions of participation and interactivity, and describe how social order of a museum visit is produced. A research strategy was proposed, which combines observation and video recording of social situations in exhibition space with interviews and analysis of texts and material traces. The speaker also provided example of data and research questions that could be posed to it. In his comment the opponent, Boris Stepanov, mentioned the problem of going back from the micro-level of visitors’ interaction to drawing conclusions about culture and meanings. Subsequent discussion was devoted to various theoretical and methodological decisions (what types of museums or visitors should be distinguished? how materiality can be included in the analysis?), and perspectives, as well as drawbacks of the approach.