Museums and science centres as sites for deliberative democracy on climate change

Abstract

This paper addresses the position of the museum sector in relation to public policy-making about climate change. It is informed by the perspectives of museum and science centre visitors and leaders canvassed as part of the Australian Research Council Linkage project, ‘Hot Science, Global Citizens: the agency of the museum sector in climate change interventions’. We apply complexity theory to evaluate the claim that museums are a site for the enaction of deliberative democracy. In doing so, we reveal a cultural opportunity for cultural institutions to play a more expansive and explicit role in brokering social futures for communities confronted by climate change.