Bethany Rex is currently completing her doctorate in the Department of Media, Culture and Heritage at Newcastle University (UK) which examines the transfer of museums into ‘community’ ownership. These governance arrangements have been substantially energised under the austerity measures of the previous and current Conservative-led government administrations. Her work specifically investigates instances where the responsibility for the management and/or ownership of a public museum is transferred to a ‘community’ group, and the processes at work which lead to such outcomes (or don’t).

She is particularly interested in exploring the transition of people with ‘progressive’ social or political commitments into the world of the museum, and the extent to which they are able to enact new types of ‘museum work’ during the process. A focus on the otherwise often taken-for-granted materiality of museum and local government work is central to her research. This stems from her ethnographic work which has revealed moments at which material artefacts are far from passive tools or background to human work, intervening in activity, making certain worlds possible and limiting others.