Commoning the museum: participation and the civic role of contemporary art museums in global cities

Contemporary art museums are being reconfigured as civic infrastructures in global urban contexts. Once associated primarily with symbolic authority and elite cultural capital, museums are increasingly instantiated as participatory spaces that foster community engagement. This theory-driven multiple-case analysis of five institutions illustrates how museums negotiate tensions between authority and openness, heritage and experimentation, and global positioning and local accountability. Its findings indicate museums are operating as civic infrastructures integral to collective urban life: participatory initiatives can redistribute cultural authority but remain contested. Transformative potential depends on sustained practices of shared responsibility, care, and collective imagination; such practices are fragile and constrained by precarious funding, governance limits, and pressures from the global cultural economy. By practicing commoning and care, cultivating participation, and embedding themselves in urban environments, museums function as innovative laboratories for reimagining more inclusive and adaptive urban futures.