ICOM Voices ICOM & G20: Social Museology Informing Cultural Policies

 

For the fourth consecutive year, ICOM has been invited to participate as an observatory member to the G20 Culture Working Group, hosted this year by South Africa under the theme “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability”. To prepare its contribution to the four priorities chosen by the South African presidency of G20, ICOM collaborated with experts from its network. The discussions resulted in the KwaDukuza Declaration, which was adopted by the G20 Culture Ministers in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa on 29 October 2025, as well as in the G20 South Africa Summit: Leader’s Declaration, adopted on 22-23 November 2025. ICOM Voices has been highlighting the contributions of ICOM experts through a series of four articles, giving them a space to share their views and the work of museums in these areas.

This article presents the work of ICOM experts in the context of discussions on Priority 2, “Integrating Cultural Policies with Socio-Economic Strategies to Ensure Holistic and Inclusive Development”, during the G20 Culture Working Group meetings.

Earlier this year, members of the International Committee for Social Museology (SOMUS) were invited to contribute their expertise on the part played by museums supporting social justice, equality and human rights. In preparing for the G20 Culture Working Group meeting discussing this priority, it became clear that ICOM, as the leading global organisation for museums and their professionals, has a unique responsibility to guide the cultural sector towards a future that is inclusive, rights-based and equitable. Working together with the ICOM Secretariat, in particular with Museum & Society Coordinator, Rachelle Kalee, we have discussed the organisation’s role in providing standard-setting instruments that enable museums, their professionals and the communities they work with to act for cultural diversity, equity and the protection and promotion of human rights: some fundamental priorities to achieve sustainability at all levels.

Giving cultural institutions a role in fostering inclusion, social justice and sustainable economic growth is not new for most people in the sector. ICOM members expressed their views on museums taking a more proactive stance towards these priorities – which were recognised as central social values during the collective process of developing the new ICOM museum definition adopted in 2022. The ICOM museum definition puts forward museums’ commitment to fostering sustainability and diversity, but also their inclusive nature and the involvement of communities in their key operational functions. Some of these ideas recognised in the museum of the present, and aligned with the principles proposed by Social Museology worldwide, informed our inputs on the discussion on cultural policies and on how museums can act for a more holistic approach to human rights and equity.

The idea that museums serve society − proposed in these words since the 1972 Round Table of Santiago de Chile − also implies that they contribute significantly to the financial, environmental and social sustainability of the communities that make up society. Although undervalued in many national strategies, the cultural sector has proven to have substantial economic potential. In a macro perspective, museums generate employment, support creative industries, and drive tourism, thereby contributing to GDP growth. In a more in-depth analysis, museums support communities offering basic services and infrastructure to enable their life experiences and cultural expressions to flourish. Strategic investment in museum infrastructure and digital innovation can enhance cultural participation while ensuring that economic benefits are equitably distributed. Museums’ activities and programmes can be catalysts for sustaining collective action and enabling participation in the public sphere. Fostering public-private partnerships is essential to strengthen museum economies and make them more resilient, particularly in the face of global crises.

Museums have been recognised as agents of community care. As we recently witnessed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many institutions exerted their social role, shifting their focus towards what is essential to maintaining life under extreme circumstances. In the context of global crises, we witness the unequal and selective governmental responses to social needs, based on clear racist, genderist and classist criteria.[1] The urgency of care, then and in more recent times, brings about the question of the social value of people, a debate that is particularly relevant regarding people of colour, women, people with disabilities, poor people, migrants, transgender people, and/or queer people,[2] in other words those who are the most profoundly affected by these crises. In present day, museums are more and more redirecting their priorities in the service of the most vulnerable communities surrounding them. This shift is significantly shaping new forms of social expertise: ones that can define museum professionals as social workers[3] and the museum vocation as a vital one for the sustainability of society.

Through its standard-setting instruments – including the museum definition, the Code of Ethics for Museums, as well as its recommendations and guidelines –, ICOM provides the framework for cultural policies that not only protect and promote cultural diversity but also ensure that culture serves as a key driver of social and economic change. In different countries, cultural policies have affected museum practice in various ways and with different levels of social impact. For instance, Latin American countries have incorporated Indigenous knowledge and concepts in legislation (such as in Ecuador), and community claims have shaped museum policies and priorities (such as in Brazil). In some cases, museums were recognised as fundamental social instruments for inclusion and equity. As the experience of social museologists has shown, transformation in practice is more effective when changes are implemented with people, rather than for them.

Museums produce knowledge and new interpretations of heritage, sometimes with the participation of diverse communities. For collaborations between museums and communities to flourish, it is essential to establish sustainable framework and labour conditions, as well as to be able to listen to multiple voices and contrasting views. Based on this understanding of how contemporary museums seek to operate and respond to policy changes, diversity and inclusivity are not just values they uphold, but core practices for the functioning of institutions and for democratising the access to museums and museum-making across the sector.

In recent declarations issued by our Social Museology committee,[4] the right to memory and the right to create museums are considered fundamental rights to every social group. Museums nurture communities and enhance the extension of human rights by functioning as vital instruments that any group or individual reclaiming a place in history and a view on heritage can make their own. Our contribution to the G20 Culture Working Group emphasised that social museology may be perceived as a form of museum literacy, making cultural policies and cultural rights available and accessible to all.

[1] As discussed in Brulon Soares, B. (2025). Embracing “Community”: The Museum Profession at a Social Museology Turn. Cadernos De Sociomuseologia, 70(26), 9-20. https://doi.org/10.36572/csm.v70i26.10652.

[2] Gausden, C., Lloyd, K., Raha, N., & Spencer, C. (2023). Curating Forms of Care in Art and Activism. A Roundtable on Life Support. In E. Krasny, & P. Lara (Eds.), Curating with Care (pp. 153-168). London and New York: Routledge. p. 162.

[3] As suggests Rússio, in Rússio, W. (2010). Alguns aspectos do patrimônio cultural: o patrimônio industrial. In: M. C. O. Bruno (org.). Waldisa Rússio Camargo Guarnieri: textos e contextos de uma trajetória profissional, vol. 1 (p. 147-159). São Paulo: Pinacoteca do Estado.

[4] See, for instance, SOMUS Declaration of Lisbon, from February 2025, in https://somus.mini.icom.museum/final-declaration-somus-lisboa-2025-es-pt-fr/.