24 February 2022
Dr Karen Brown, School of Art History.
Tell us about your research and how it connects to memory/identity studies?
Karen: I specialise in the social role of museums, with particular focus on community museums and ecomuseums in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. My research involves extensive collaboration with diverse museum communities, mainly in remote island locations, seeking to address issues such as social diversity, climate change and well-being. My approach is situated between museology, sustainable development and memory studies—especially when the community museums are located in indigenous territories. From 2016-2021 I led a Horizon 2020 consortium project with 8 international partners called EU-LAC Museums that resulted in a new ICOM Resolution on ‘Museums, Community and Sustainability’ (2019), and a European Heritage/Europa Nostra Ilucidare Special Prize for Heritage-Led International Relations (2021).
What are you working on now?
Karen: I am currently working on several projects, including: community heritage and Scottish islands (funded by the RSE); decolonising the curriculum in museum and heritage studies (with Museum and Gallery Studies, CIMS and The University of the West Indies); the El Niño Phenomenon in northern Peru (with colleagues in Geography and Sustainable Development); collaboration with the National Museum of Costa Rica and network of community museums. I have recently been awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2022-25) to consolidate this research into a monograph.