189 Papers Activist Museology: Implementing Museum Theory Through Action Olga Zabalueva Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden Armando Perla Museum of Movements, Malmö, Sweden What are museums today and to what disciplinary feld do they belong? Is there anything in common between smaller regional or community-driven museums and the great universalist institutions of modernity as the Louvre, the British Museum or the Met? What about the diversity of disciplines which lie at the foundation of these institutions? The natural history collections assembled at universities difer a lot from the art museums, be it a former royal collection or a contemporary art venue; the open-air museums of cultural history and/ or ethnography are facing slightly diferent challenges than those based on the artifacts of colonial expansion which are also called museums of ethnography. Furthermore, which institution has the right to be called a museum? What about museums without collections, “museums of ideas”, digital museums? Despite the diferences and diversity among individual institutions, there are some specifc features and trends, recognizable both by museum professionals and academics from all over the world, that constitute the global museal feld. 1 André Desvallées and François Mairesse (2009) in their defnition of “museums” and “museology” suggest a concept of museal as a theoretical feld dealing with the museums and heritage-related issues “in the same way that politics are the feld of political refection” (p. 19). This concept allows shifting focus from museums as institutions or the notion of heritage to a more general sphere which would include both “museology” (museum theory) and “museography” (museum practice) as well as the international bodies and regulations, such as the International Council of Museums (ICOM). Another asset of studying mu- seal as a feld is that it addresses both the inner mechanics and the purpose of museums in a broader sense. In the current state of art, when ICOM is going to 1. It becomes obvious while comparing two or more diferent national traditions, be it in museology or in museography. Even if we can assume that there was a transnational exchange of knowledge and methods behind each of the “museum revolutions” (van Mensch, 1992), the trajectories of the national traditions indicate the global nature of museology as a discipline. The New Museology, which emerged in diferent regional contexts is one of such examples.