Exploring Museum Crowdsourcing Projects Through Bourdieu’s Lens

Museum crowdsourcing projects have drastically changed the ways in which individuals engage with cultural objects. In particular, individuals’ participation in representation of cultural objects through creating, sharing, and curating museum cultural objects contributes to the creation of multifaceted and rich representation of cultural objects as well as transgression of institutional boundaries between cultural heritage institutions. Applying Bourdieu’s (2010) conceptualization of cultural capital to museum crowdsourcing initiatives, this study suggests that cultural objects should be considered not only in relation to other objects, but also in relation to the social structure of the world and suggests that successful engagement with the crowd is grounded on an understanding of engaged individuals’ cultural capital and habitus. This approach will facilitate creation of not only multifaceted and multivalent representation of cultural objects but also ensure sustainable and meaningful engagement of individuals. Received: 21 June 2017; Revised: 20 September 2017; Accepted: 26 September 2017

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