From Democratization to Decolonization: Canadian Museological Theory, 1960-2000
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This paper examines the epistemological foundations that shaped Canadian museology in the latter half of the 20th century. Integrating distinct features of Canadian museological theory and practice across linguistic and disciplinary boundaries, it highlights scholarly ideas that have gained international resonance and influenced museum practices globally, as well as specific museological practices that have subsequently contributed to theoretical developments in the field. The 1960s marked a defining moment of radical transformation, and the paper explores how various factors—including transnational networks, reflective scholar-practitioner-activists, new cultural policies, Aboriginal activism, and the emergence of specialized academic and professional training programs—collectively influenced the development of a dynamic and innovative Canadian museological praxis. Tracing the trajectory from the late 1960s nouvelle muséologie movement's call to rethink museums' social role, through efforts to enhance public accessibility via digitization, democratization, and decentralization, to the political and moral imperative of decolonizing professional practices and institutions through reflexive, Indigenous-led, and collaborative approaches, this paper demonstrates the significant influence of both local traditions and international networks on the evolution of Canadian museological theory and practice throughout this period.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.010 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.010 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.035 | 0.057 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.014 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".