Defining the museum: ICOM, society, and the politics of institutional change

Over the past decades, museum studies has increasingly shifted from an object-centered focus toward critical engagement with museums’ social roles and responsibilities. However, the institutional mechanisms through which such expectations are articulated remain under examined. This article approaches successive museum definitions adopted by ICOM between 1946 and 2022 as normative institutional texts rather than neutral descriptions of practice. Employing a diachronic discursive analysis, the study examines how the concept of society has been foregrounded through various terms, such as public benefit, education, development, sustainability, and inclusion across definitional iterations. It argues that the ICOM definitions function as aspirational governance instruments that codify shifting professional imaginaries and renegotiate the museum sector’s social contract. By conceptualizing definitional change as a site of institutional boundary-making and discursive negotiation, the article contributes to critical debates on museum governance and the politics of defining cultural institutions in a global field.