DISSERTATION PODCAST - Beatrice Lovestone ('Inside/Outside: Museums as political theory'‪)‬ UCL Political Science: Dissertation

Beatrice's dissertation asked how political community is constructed in the EU compared to the sovereign state. She argued that many ways in which community is described in the nation state are reproduced in the EU.

The dissertation was built on R.B.J. Walker’s theory of the inside world of the state being seen as different to the outside world, and of there being a view of world politics that only sees the possibility for progression and democracy within the state.

Using discourse analysis as my methodology, she did her research in two museums: the Imperial War Museum in London and the House of European History in Brussels. She looked at how both museums reproduced an inside/outside binary through showing progress, peace and unity as only possible within either the UK or the EU. She then looked at how they resisted this through showing the potential for community beyond borders.

She found that while the museums showed a potential to re-think discourse, the inside/outside binary was dominant in both. She argued that the EU reflects the same processes that sustain the sovereign state through imagining life outside the EU as fundamentally different to life within.

Bea has just finished a three-month job as a research assistant.