Inclusive Visions: The Museum Experience of Young Blind and Partially Sighted Visitors

Description

Inclusive Visions explores the embodied experience, situated interactions and identities of young blind and partially sighted visitors in the museum space. It investigates how they make meaning and form identities by physically encountering objects, resources and the environment with their companions and other visitors. The visit experience of blind and partially sighted participants is detailed at three London museums: the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Wallace Collection and the Museum of London. Using qualitative audio, fieldnotes, and video-based research methods, it provides a deep insight into how meaning-making and identity are formed in perceptual experiences through bodily states and shared situated action. How different characteristics of the embodied practice of blind and partially sighted visitors emerge, and how meaning-making and identity formation are enabled, is put in a holistic context. Front Cover Title Copyright UCL Institute of Archaeology PHD Series Of Related Interest Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures List of Tables Abstract Foreword 1. Introduction 1.1. Research context 1.2. Disability and museums 1.3. Book structure 2. The Embodiment Framework 2.1. Introduction 2.2. Embodiment 2.3. The impaired body 2.4. The body, habitus, and capital 2.4.1. Technology and capital 2.5. Sociocultural framework 2.5.1. Learning & identity 2.5.2. Funds of knowledge 2.5.3. Scaffolding 2.6. Conclusion 3. The Embodied Practice of Museums’ Visitors 3.1. Introduction 3.2. Museums and the body 3.3. ‘Normative’ bodily practices 3.4. Gesturing and pointing 3.5. Walking 3.5.1. Walking with a vision impairment 3.5.2. Co-presence, co-awareness & co-walking 3.5.3. Walking as placemaking 3.6. Seeing and being seen 3.6.1. ‘Being seen’ as disabled 3.6.2. ‘Being seen’ as representation 3.7. Looking 3.8. Touching 3.9. Conclusion 4. Methodology 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Qualitative research: IPA 4.3. Methods 4.4. Recruiting participants 4.5. Data analysis and coding scheme 4.6. Categories of embodied practice 4.7. Ethics 5. Victoria & Albert Museum 5.1. Introduction 5.1.1. Description of the museum 5.2. Visitor profile 5.2.1. Visitors’ demographics 5.2.2. Vision impairments 5.2.3. Visiting habits 5.3. Categories of the embodied practice 5.4. Getting to the museum 5.5. Co-walking 5.5.1. Planning 5.5.2. Co-presence and co-awareness 5.5.3. Affirmation of self-presence 5.6. Scaffolding 5.6.1. Guidance and support 5.6.2. Intimacy and humour 5.7. Identity formation 5.7.1. Identity and disability 5.7.2. Cultural and social identity 5.8. Looking 5.8.1. Looking forward 5.8.2. Looking back 5.9. Touching 5.9.1. Professional guidance 5.9.2. Co-touching 5.10. Using digital resources 5.10.1. Accessing content 5.10.2. Enabling shared meaning 5.11. Conclusion 6. Wallace Collection 6.1. Introduction 6.1.1. Description of the Museum 6.2. Visitors Profiles 6.2.1. Visitors’ demographics 6.2.2. Vision impairments 6.2.3. Visiting habits 6.3. The identified categories of the embodied practice 6.4. Getting to the museum 6.5. Co-walking 6.5.1. Planning 6.5.2. Co-presence and co-awareness 6.6. Scaffolding 6.6.1. Guidance and support 6.6.2. Intimacy and humour 6.7. Identity formation 6.7.1. Identity and disability 6.7.2. Cultural and social identity 6.8. Looking 6.8.1. Residual vision and visual memory 6.8.2. Beyond perception: aesthetic capital 6.8.3. Looking back 6.9. Using digital resources 6.9.1. Interest in new technology 6.9.2. Technical capital 6.9.3. Accessibility and inclusion tools 6.9.4. Accessing content 6.10. Conclusion 7. Museum of London 7.1. Introduction 7.1.1. Description of the museum 7.2. Visitors profiles 7.2.1. Visitors’ demographics 7.2.2. Vision impairments 7.2.3. Visiting habits 7.3. The identified categories of the embodied practice 7.4. Getting to the museum 7.5. Co-walking 7.5.1. Planning 7.5.2. Co-presence and co-awareness 7.6. Scaffolding 7.6.1. Guidance and support 7.7. Identity formation 7.7.1. Identity and disability 7.7.2. Social and cultural identity 7.7.3. Sense of place: ‘Londoners’ identity 7.8. Looking 7.8.1. Looking back 7.8.2. Beyond perception: aesthetic capital 7.9. Touching 7.9.1. Learning through touch 7.9.2. Co-touching 7.9.3. Forbidden touch 7.10. Using digitals resources 7.10.1. Inclusion tool 7.10.2. Accessing content 7.10.3. Social engagement tool 7.11. Conclusion 8. Conclusions and Implications 8.1. Introduction 8.2. Key findings 8.2.1. Embodiment 8.2.2. Meaning-making 8.2.3. Identity formation 8.3. Concluding recommendations and a view on the future 8.4. A note on the COVID-19 pandemic Bibliography Back Cover