ON INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS IN THE PROCESS OF MEDIATION

Abstract

This essay starts with the observation that the practice of mediation in cultural institutions can become outmoded and -detached from its institutional context -an empty gesture. The process of mediation itself -so the assumption -must be mediated if it is to have any effect. I am interested in sketching an analytical design that can be used to study the mediating structures of mediation. Mediating structures are defined as institutionalorder. Its guiding idea and criteria of rationality, together with social, cultural or political expectations, shape the conditions under which the mediation practice of cultural institutions develops. Historical Institutionalism serves as a theoretical framework. Central concepts will be explained looking at the successful establishment of libraries at Danish hospitals around 1930 and at their abrupt closure, which started around 1985. The essay refers to a methodological point of view, which says that the content of a concept is developed and specified by its use.