A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Ethnographica 6. (Szeged, 2008)

Hanneleena Hieta: Ethnographer s and three realities - how agency and institutional tradition intertwine in the museum setting

silly to think they actually act on their own, it is the ways of thinking which originally were conceived by a number of individuals that become institutionalized and live on in their own power. Therefore, to change the ways of thinking is also to change the institutions themselves. Individuals hardly have a chance to make decisions without the help of their institutions.

3 Similarly, the sociologists Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann maintain that humans save their psychological energy by conforming to socially defined patterns of behavior. When a number of people as types of actors take part in this habitualized action, an institution has been born.

4 The world of institutions seems objective. In other words, the institutions seem to be an inseparable part of reality. They are, nonetheless, entirely developed by people themselves. It is a challenge for each institution to survive generational changes. It seems that since its inception a social institution becomes more rigid with each generation as the historical context within which the institution was born and the reasons for why certain procedures were preferred over some others become blurred.

5 Naturally, institutions have to adapt to the social environment and they do change as the environment changes. Understandably, ever since the 1960s anthropologists have seen change in human systems as a natural feature rather than viewing it as an anomaly.

6 The philosopher Hilde S. Hein has expressed her concern over whether the museum as an institution can adapt. In her view it is crucial for the survival of the institution to know what functions are the ones that should be adapted in a new situation, and which functions it is important to keep as they are, so that the museum preserves its individual character.

7 To see institutional thinking as something above a single person begs the question of the role of the individual. Especially in our case, how much room was there for individual decision making and how much was predetermined by the institutional framework? The role of the institution is made particularly visible through the classical question of power. On one hand, in the classic social theory represented by Karl Marx, power positions are dictated by the socioeconomic structures and individuals have only a limited number of choices depending on their place in the system. On the other hand, power can also be seen as an individual's ability for social persuasion, an ability to make others think and do as they say. This view is classically represented by Max Weber. The social anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen suggests that both viewpoints are valid in their own way. The Finnish museologist Solveig Sjöberg-Pietarinen has detected three consecutive generations of museum professionals, which all demonstrate how an individual can have different relations to power and institutional structures. The first generation consists of the museum founders, which she terms the collectors. For this generation of individuals it is vital to be seen and heard. When a collection has grown 3 Douglas 1986, 125-126, 128 4 Berger & Luckmann 1987: 71 ff 5 Berger & Luckmann 1987: 78-80 6 Eriksen 2001,92 7 Hein 2000, 102-107, 149-151. 8 Eriksen 2001,53