Bibliometric Analysis of Trends in Museum and Identity Studies

Individuals have various identities that they use in their interaction with society. Museums support visitors' identities and enable them to discover new ones. The museum experience plays an important role as a tool that reflects the identity of societies and contributes to the formation of active citizenship by enhancing visitors' self-confidence. By exploring the past, museums help visitors re-evaluate the present from a different perspective, allowing them to rethink their identities. The role of museums in identity construction is controversial and has been analyzed from various perspectives. Studies on museums and identity are, therefore, diverse. Debates about museums and identity have also changed at important turning points in the historical process. After the Second World War, the so-called postcolonial period, the efforts of the colonized nations of the past to protect their cultural values in the colonizing countries to preserve their identities are reflected in both action and academic studies. This study tries to map the studies on museums and identity based on quantitative data. The study aims to provide researchers with a systematic summary of studies on museums and identity and identify trends and gaps concerning museum and identity using bibliometric analysis. The unit of analysis is the bibliometric data of the studies scanned in the Web of Science database and published between 1975 and 2024. The distribution of the 3,267 studies on museums and identity according to the years of publication shows that museums and identity studies have an increasing trend since 2006.