Paper short abstract:

In ethnographic interviews museum staff used sonic metaphors to talk about how populist culture wars impact their work. This paper explores the salience of these metaphors, asking what it demonstrates about the felt experience of populism and how staff cut through the noise to hear and be heard.

Paper long abstract:

The paper explores the impact of populism in European museums, specifically focusing on the metaphor of "noisiness" as a key element of its manifestation. In an ethnographic interview study conducted with museum practitioners across Germany, Poland and the UK, metaphors of sound and noise were used by interviewees to make sense of the way the populist culture wars have impacted their work. Using a close-language analysis of these sonic metaphors, we draw on anthropological literature of metaphors, as well as the anthropology of populism, to show how museum staff feel their work is silenced by a noisy critical minority. The paper asks why this metaphor is salient and how it helps us to understand the slippery concept of populism. We explore how museum staff work hard but quietly to push back against this noisy political climate, looking at what strategies they employ to listen and be listened to, paying particular attention to the practice of listening as an act of recognition for silenced groups. We ask: why does this metaphor continue to crop up? What does this tell us about the felt experience of populism in museums? How do practitioners cut through the noise to hear others and be heard?