The Museum Ethnographers Group was founded in 1976. It is committed to the following aims:

* To encourage good practice in curatorship of all ethnographic collections in the United Kingdom.
* To encourage and disseminate research on ethnographic collections in the UK.
* To promote the exchange of information and resources, nationally, internationally and locally.
* To maintain the profile of ethnography with respect to other groups of museum professionals and in relation to other museum bodies more broadly, such as the Museums Association and MLA.
* To educate the public through the use of ethnographic collections and thereby to foster an awareness of their educational value.

It is important to stress that MEG is not a commercial enterprise. MEG is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission (no. 1023150), and is recognised by the MLA as a 'key subject area' ‘subject-specialist network’. Members of the committee, who also function as charity trustees, initiate most of the activities of the group on a voluntary unpaid basis. One committee member has suggested that MEG might best be thought of as a ‘collective’ and is a lively, informal group of peers, who hope to learn from fellow members' experience and also share their problems and solutions.

Individual membership of MEG is open to anyone who is interested in museum ethnography. The group’s focus is on UK members and most current members work in museums with ethnographic collections, or are connected with University departments - teaching, researching or studying museum ethnography (or related fields such as museum and heritage studies, art history or anthropology and archaeology). Some members just have a strong personal interest in ethnography, and may volunteer at a local museum.

The major benefit for many members are the opportunities MEG offers for networking. Other activities of MEG can be broken down into a number of key strands:
The production of the Journal of Museum Ethnography, a high quality annual journal
The annual conference and AGM, which happens each spring, and is normally hosted by a member institution
Smaller scale events, which include visits to museums and new exhibitions, normally with talks or tours by their curators
MEG keeps in touch with its members through quarterly email newsletters as well as regular postings on the website.