Community Museums

"It’s 2020 and it’s time to face it, neutrality does not exist in museums. What is shown and programmed in museums is the result of choices. Through their offer, museums reflect on past, present and future and therefore give meaning to the society they operate in. In a post-colonial era where organizations are to be held responsible to the communities they serve, how can we make room for the previously unheard, yet equally important voices? How can museums truly become more participatory, representative and inclusive and move over to concrete actions?"

A lo largo de este trabajo queremos explorar como los museos de hoy pueden ser usados para reflejar y construir discursos comunitarios. Este estudio será hecho a través de una examinación de tres temas claves: estados-naciones museos y memoria. La primera parte del trabajo explorará los estados naciones y dará dos ejemplos de comunidades excluidas de los discursos nationalistas de Brasil y México. En seguida se examinarán los museos de manera general en lo relacionado a la producción y reproducción de discursos colectivos y de cómo estos son lugares para la utilización y manipulación productiva de la memoria, y la forma en que pueden ser usados como herramientas en la construcción de colectividad y para el manejo de las comunidades desde “abajo”. La última sección de este trabajo introducirá dos museos comunitarios como estudios de caso, los cuales exponen distintos tipos de discursos políticos y identitarios por, y para, sus comunidades respectivas. Queremos mostrar como los museos comunitarios se pueden analizar como sitios involucrados en la reflexión y la construcción de discursos alternativos frente a los discursos hegemónicos nacionales.

This paper was published in Spanish in: Navajas Corral, O. (2013): Características de los Ecomuseos; en VV. AA (2013): Parque Criollo y Museo Gauchesco Ricardo Güiraldes, Plan de exhibición, Buenos Aires: Exhibir · Comunicación y Conservación del Patrimonio. p: 33.

Translation by Louisa Adcock and María Gómez Bedoya

Brazil has solid experience in the community-based development of museums such as eco-museums, community museums, street museums, indigenous museums, favela museums, route museums, neighbourhood museums, parade museums - all of which demonstrate creativity and memory's desire, which are capable of attracting international attention. These experiences can be more or less identified with museological concepts, in which have facilitated the development of sites of memory, heritage education, Afro-Brazilian clubs and participatory inventories, etc. This study presents an overview of Brazilian expertise in the utilization of heritage and collections as pretexts for the empowerment of the players involved in local development, with communities leading the creation of museums in their own way. Looking beyond the high concentration of institutions in a number of states and regions, the text presents other scenarios that demonstrate a situation that is in fact much more diverse.

More than 1,28 million citizens of Greek descent live today in the United States of America, while Greek American communities date back to the mid-19th century. Greek American museums first appeared in the early 1990s but there is an exhibition booming in the last decade. They can be categorized in the wider type of hybrid communities’ museums, or in other words, «sprout» museums.
In general, «sprout» museums differ from immigration history museums as they rather focus on migratory flows from specific regions or countries, act as links to distant homelands, and have often relied on the archives of cultural associations and their prominent members for maintaining documents and collections, but also for reviving and promoting traditional customs and cultural events. On the other hand, they usually follow the approach of immigration history museums in how they describe the stages of migrating (travelling, arriving, becoming integrated and sustaining communities).
Greek American museum collections include folk objects, such as works of folk art, traditional clothing, fabrics, jewelry, musical instruments, etc., as well as personal items. Similar objects are included in temporary exhibitions (concerning the Greek Diaspora) in abroad by other museums, but also in the permanent exhibitions of thematic museums. Which means that, to some extent, their use has become normative. Yet, Greek American heritage is a more complex notion and repository.
The paper discusses the historical context on Greek American museums’ establishment and current status and problematizes on what constitutes currently the Greek American heritage; briefly presents theirs collections (with an interest in popular culture too) and compares their interpretive lenses; and evaluates the mediating role of the Greek-American Museum as an institution in shaping social relations within the local community, as well as with the wider Greek diaspora, but also with other migrant communities in the US.

ISBN: 978-618-85707-1-9

Tesis de titulación de la Maestría en Museología de la Escuela Nacional de Conservación, Restauración y Museografía (Encrym)

Este trabajo sistematiza y presenta Museos sin Paredes, un proyecto ejecutado que consistió en documentar, difundir y analizar once iniciativas museológicas y patrimoniales mexicanas caracterizadas por tener un enfoque biocultural, por contar con elementos al aire libre y por trabajar con el patrimonio in situ. Entre ellas se encuentran centros y senderos interpretativos, ecomuseos, jardines etnobotánicos y espacios comunitarios.

Lo anterior se complementa por un recuento del desarrollo de este tipo de enfoques a nivel internacional, y por una revisión de la trayectoria museológica y de sitios patrimoniales mexicanos, donde considero que estas aproximaciones han sido relegadas pese a sus posibles aportaciones y pertinencia. 

El documento presenta los objetivos, métodos y actividades del proyecto Museos sin Paredes en su conjunto. Posteriormente cada  una de las iniciativas documentadas se presenta de forma detallada, analizándose sus características, problemáticas y aportaciones. Finalmente se proponen reflexiones y conclusiones de carácter general. Como anexo se incluyen veintiún cápsulas de video que presentan las iniciativas documentas en voz de sus protagonistas.

The new museum movement in India has been born, in recent years, out of the realization that museums are epiphenomena of the museumization of the world. This article speaks of the new dimensions added to the movement for harnessing the museums to the revitalization of the living museums of community habitats. The initiatives undertaken by the author over several decades have been directed towards using this approach for linking livelihood sustenance strategies of Development Departments of the Government with indigenous cultural management traditions. Attention has been redirected from mere display of objects to regeneration of ideas; from communities visiting museums to museums visiting communities; from a fragmented and compartmentalized approach for a passive presentation of vanished life ways and knowledge systems, to an integrated and dynamic approach of using exhibition as an action instrument for recycling, rebuilding and reinventing knowledge categories. The dominant objective has been to save the museums from becoming irrelevant as charnel houses of cultural detritus and transform them into extension and outreach centers for forward looking, life nurturing community ventures.

Tradução do texto "Heritage and empowerment of local development players" já publicado anteriormente (In: Museum International: Achievements and Challenges in the Brazilian Museum Landscape. Paris: ICOM. Volume 64, Issue 1-4, pages 43–55, 2012.)

Throughout this research, I approach the theories proposed by New Museology in order to
find similarities and distances among them and the processes developed in two community
museums in Colombia: Museo del Vidrio de Bogotá and Museo Comunitario de Santa Rosa
de Viterbo in Boyacá. Therefore, I propose the debate regarding the possibilities,
difficulties and contradictions that appear in the community museology practice, according
to an anthropological perspective, as they are two museums with different paths and results.
Thus, the methodology addressed during this study was based on participant observation,
participative methodology techniques and interpretative and qualitative analysis, so as to
comprehend three dimensions: organizational, museographic and the influence of the
museum in the community.

The findings of this research allow me to conclude the following. On one hand, the
community frame could be thought as a process full of tensions among interests, instead of
conceiving it as an organizational characteristic occurred for everyone's benefit. Likewise,
the community which is around the museum is constantly renewal. For this reason, we can
distinguish different levels of interactions and tensions among the groups who conform it.
On the other hand, the glance and support of some public and private entities about
community museology's initiatives has produced an adoption of the characteristics that it
was supposed to take apart of "traditional museum", deepening on its contradictions.

El Ecomuseo de la Cerámica de San Vicente de Nicoya cuenta con un extenso proceso de generación de capacidades para la población de su comunidad, orientado a consolidar su estrategia como museo comunitario y fomentar la solidez de su grupo de trabajo, todo esto desde la gestión participativa del patrimonio. Uno de los componentes básicos de este proyecto ha sido la creación de una exhibición permanente, para lo cual se ha desarrollado un proceso de capacitación y de investigación participativa. Esta forma de investigación en San Vicente ha tomado como técnica de trabajo principal la historia oral, para lo cual los miembros interesados han recibido capacitación en diversas áreas de la investigación y el análisis de datos cualitativos, con el objetivo de rescatar y exhibir la memoria de la comunidad. Este proceso es pionero en el país y es importante rescatar tanto la metodología experimentada como las lecciones aprendidas de su aplicación, con miras a contribuir a la creación de un procedimiento base de trabajo. En esta ponencia se desarrolla la experiencia de diseño y aplicación del proceso de capacitación y trabajo con la comunidad donde convergen la antropología y la pedagogía social.

Conflictorium: The Museum of Conflict was established in Mirzapur, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in 2013, as a small community museum in the western part of India committed to its local context. The area has a history of ongoing communal tensions between the various communities that coexist within it, and the museum directly responds to the demands generated by this particularity. The exhibits at the museum consist of a collection of participative/immersive contexts that accumulate narratives of the experiences and memories of its visitors, thereby working through the trauma embedded in the everyday. By identifying as a museum, the space routes the validation that being part of a museum collection forges to acknowledge the legitimacy of the contemporary history of its community, thereby lending them a sense of belonging. This sensitivity to the audience that the museum addresses is particularly unique in India, where state-funded museums have historically had limited active engagement with their viewing publics. This article contextualizes the Conflictorium’s presence as an alternative museum model in the country’s social and political context as well as the existing network of public, private, and community museums.

UoA: Mytilene (Thesis), 2019
Open access to full-text in GR: https://www.academia.edu/42747825/Μουσεία_ετερότητα_and_κοινωνικές_ανάγκες_Σύγχρονες_εκθεσιακές_πρακτικές_and_κοινωνικοί_αγώνες_Museums_diversity_and_social_needs_Contemporary_exhibition_practices_and_social_struggles_
[ENGLISH ABSTRACT]
The challenge of social engagement is not only about the outward impact that museums institutionally exert, nor simply about sustaining selective affiliations; more, it pertains to the external pressures museums accede to, as a multitude of collective organizations around the latter sprouts various antagonisms, both against it (directly or obliquely) and among each other.
Thus, the thesis “Museums, Diversity & Social Needs: Contemporary exhibiting practices & social struggles” is a comparative study (documentation, analysis and correlation) of diverse types of exhibitions planned by cultural institutions, humanitarian NGOs and social movements, aiming at elucidating and theorizing whether, and how, contemporary exhibitions reproduce and nurture social conflicts. Is “collaboration” in exhibition-making unconfined and/ or unconditional?
The research material was solicited via a) field research (participatory observation) and b) web research (at official archives, etc.). More than 300 exhibitions feature in the feasibility sample, 45 of which were examined on-site (32 in Greece, 13 abroad), while the rest were trawled through catalogs, press releases, floor plans, photographic installation views, etc. (192 in Greece, 79 abroad). The cases were grouped according to their locale (e.g. permanent or interim space), content (themes, concepts, structures, etc.) and types of exhibitors, and then they were probed with the method of content analysis.
Results (regarding the limitations on collaborating between different categories of exhibitors, the pressures on central venues and the disputes of narratives) confirm that, exhibition conflicts are structured in a grid with other conflicts (museum-related as well as wider social), promoting antagonistic orientations of mass action for social change (civic society vs. social movements, absorption vs. scattering, confinement vs. exclusion, empowered specialized trailblazers vs. folk pioneers, etc.).
Text is structured in 10 parts (introduction, 8 main chapters and annex). Chapter 2 describes the research methodology. Chapter 3 offers a critical discussion of the concerns of contemporary theories. Chapter 4 examines internationally the relationship between exhibition practices and social discrimination practices and social struggles. The 5th and 6th chapters deal with prevailing exhibition practices in Greece focusing, respectively, on the issues of 'sensitive' political/ social history and the practice of social solidarity, while the 7th discusses in particular the exhibiting practices of the main actors of social struggles in Greece. The 8th describes exhibitions at contemporary political festivals. Chapter 9 summarizes the conclusions.
The doctorate was materialized with a scholarship by the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY).

[GREEK ABSTRACT]
H πρόκληση της κοινωνικής παρεμβατικότητας δεν αφορά μόνο στον εξωτερικό αντίκτυπο που ασκούν τα μουσεία θεσμικά, ούτε απλά στην διατήρηση επιλεκτικών συμπράξεων, μα περισσότερο αφορά στις πιέσεις που δέχονται από έξω προς τα μέσα, καθώς πλήθος συλλογικών φορέων γύρω από το μουσείο αναπτύσσει διάφορους ανταγωνισμούς, προς το ίδιο (ευθέως ή πλαγίως), αλλά και αναμεταξύ τους.
Έτσι, στη διατριβή «Μουσεία, ετερότητα & κοινωνικές ανάγκες: Σύγχρονες εκθεσιακές πρακτικές & κοινωνικοί αγώνες» μελετήθηκαν συγκριτικά (καταγράφηκαν, αναλύθηκαν και συσχετίστηκαν) διάφοροι τύποι εκθέσεων που οργανώνουν πολιτιστικοί φορείς, ανθρωπιστικές ΜΚΟ και κοινωνικά κινήματα, με σκοπό να διαλευκανθεί και να θεωρητικοποιηθεί αν, και πώς, στις σύγχρονες εκθέσεις αναπαράγονται και καλλιεργούνται οι κοινωνικές συγκρούσεις. Η «συνεργασία» στην εκθεσιακή πράξη είναι «άνευ ορίων» και «άνευ όρων»;
Το ερευνητικό υλικό συγκεντρώθηκε α) επιτόπια, με συμμετοχική παρατήρηση και β) από (επίσημα) αρχεία, δημοσιοποιημένα στον παγκόσμιο ιστό. Περισσότερες από 300 εξεταζόμενες εκθέσεις συμπεριλήφθηκαν στο δείγμα σκοπιμότητας, εκ των οποίων οι 45 εκθέσεις (13 στο εξωτερικό, 32 στην Ελλάδα) τεκμηριώθηκαν επιτόπια, ενώ οι υπόλοιπες μέσα από καταλόγους, δελτία τύπου, φωτογραφικές όψεις, κτλ. (79 εκθέσεις στο εξωτερικό, 192 εγχώριες). Οι περιπτώσεις παραμετροποιήθηκαν ως προς τον εκθεσιακό χώρο (μόνιμο/ προσωρινό, ειδικό/μη ειδικό, κ.ο.κ.), το περιεχόμενο (θέματα, φόρμα) και τους τύπους εκθετών (όπως προαναφέρθηκαν) και οι ομαδοποιήσεις τους εξετάστηκαν με τη μέθοδο της ανάλυσης περιεχομένου.
Τα ευρήματα της έρευνας (για τα όρια  στις συνεργασίες μεταξύ των φορέων-εκθεσιακών παραγωγών, τις πιέσεις που ασκούνται στα εκθεσιακά «κέντρα» και τη διένεξη των αφηγήσεων), επιβεβαίωσαν ότι, οι εκθεσιακές αντιπαραθέσεις δομούνται σε πλέγμα με άλλες (μουσειακές κι ευρύτερες κοινωνικές), προάγοντας ανταγωνιστικούς προσανατολισμούς της μαζικής δράσης για την κοινωνική αλλαγή (της κοινωνίας των πολιτών και των κινημάτων, της εσωτερίκευσης και της διάχυσης, του εγκλεισμού και του αποκλεισμού, της χειραφετημένης εξειδίκευσης και της λαϊκής πρωτοπορίας, κτλ.).
Η συγγραφική μελέτη διαρθρώνεται σε 10 μέρη (εισαγωγή, 8 κύρια κεφάλαια και παράρτημα). Στο 2ο κεφάλαιο περιγράφεται η μεθοδολογία της έρευνας. Στο 3ο γίνεται μια κριτική διαπραγμάτευση των προβληματισμών των σύγχρονων θεωρήσεων. Στο 4ο εξετάζεται η διεθνής εικόνα της σχέσης των εκθεσιακών πρακτικών με τις πρακτικές των κοινωνικών διακρίσεων και τις πρακτικές των κοινωνικών αγώνων. Το 5ο και 6ο κεφάλαιο αφορούν στις εγχώριες επικρατούσες εκθεσιακές πρακτικές γύρω από, αντίστοιχα, την «ευαίσθητη» πολιτική/ κοινωνική ιστορία και την πρακτική της κοινωνικής αλληλεγγύης, ενώ το 7ο εστιάζει στις εκθεσιακές πρακτικές των κύριων δραστών των κοινωνικών αγώνων στην Ελλάδα. Στο 8ο περιγράφονται οι εκθέσεις σε σύγχρονα πολιτικά φεστιβάλ. Στο 9ο  κεφάλαιο συνοψίζονται τα συμπεράσματα.
Η διατριβή εκπονήθηκε με υποτροφία του ΙΚΥ.

Again an old paper, published originally in Croatian, in the updated, Croatian edition of the book book Essays on museums and their theory - towards cybernetic museum (Eseji o muzejima i njihovoj teoriji, Zagreb, ICOM Croatia, 1997). The reason for making it available at Academia.edu is that most of the innovations of ecomuseums are still productive and can be inspirational. I still see them as a "grande etape" in the practice and theory of heritage, - somewhat forgotten and ignored because of the seemingly puzzling name they had and the fact that we are again distancing culture from their ideals. Besides, by a lack of professional ripeness of the sector, most of the professionals expected from theory of ecomuseums a certain ready model to apply whereas it is a a political view upon the world, a specific mindset. I still believe that theory and some practice of  ecomuseums represent an ideal worth believing.

Please, see the book "Mnemosophy - an essay on the science of public memory", 2015. (freely available at https://www.mnemosophy.com/the-vault). Integral heritage and, specifically, public memory is proper conceptual basis for a new science. It would serve as a basis of a (new) profession, - able to to assist to the world in peril.

As one of direct disciples of Georges Henri Riviere (1979/80) and having known personally most of other protagonists of the very beginnings, inventors of the term, I still free some sense of the original mission. But, if I would dedicate the chapter to anybody, it would be the the first ecomuseum's first director, - Mathilde Bellaigue, a colleague, than a friend and finally my only sister.

The article shows the relationship between two socio-cultural institutions: a museum
and a totemism. Not only their symbolic proximity is examined. The materials from museum expositions and social networks show how the practices of totemism can be usedьin contemporary museum management to solve some urgent problems as building of museum community, working with local identity and strengthening corporate culture.

Статья посвящена теме связи двух социокультурных институтов: музея и тотемизма. Акцент сделан не только на их символической близости. На материалах музейных экспозиций и социальных сетей показано, как практики тотемизма могут быть использованы в современном музейном менеджменте, для решения таких актуальных задач, как формирование собственного сообщества, работа с локальной идентичностью и укрепление корпоративной культуры.

El texto examina la dimensión ética de las experiencias museológicas que ha impulsado el Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) en México 1972. Estos proyectos plantearon una expansión de la idea del  museo, definido en la Mesa de Santiago de Chile como un acto pedagógico para el eco-desarrollo (Lacouture, 1989). En el primer apartado, se proponen cuatro ejes posibles para el análisis de estas experiencias con el fin de identificar algunas problemáticas inherentes a la dimensión ética de estas prácticas museísticas. En el segundo apartado se presenta la muy reciente propuesta del Programa Nacional de Espacios
Comunitarios, programa adscrito a la Coordinación Nacional de Museos y Exposiciones del INAH en 2013, que incorporó la dimensión ética como problemática a discutir en todo proyecto de museología social.

This paper focuses on the role of cultural societies in the establishment of regional museums in Greece. It uses as a case study the Museum of Refugee Memory on the island of Lesvos, a small local institution, created and supported entirely by a local cultural society; the museum, despite its size and professional shortcomings, has become a vehicle of social cohesion and an expression of a distinct local identity. This paper argues that this museum forms an example of a grassroots museum initiative that deserves to be studied and even copied, since its operation provides an alternative model of cultural heritage and museum management that reaches to the local communities and resources instead of national or top-down ones. First, it presents in brief the development of the local cultural institutions policy in Greece and then it turns its attention to the case study and presents the information gathered through in situ research, multiple visits and interviews, in order to argue, in the final part, about the importance and role of such institutions. SŁOWA KLUCZE: stowarzyszenia kulturalne, muzeum społeczności lokalnej, muzeum uczestniczą-ce, Grecja, Muzeum Pamięci Uchodźców

La Mesa Redonda de Santiago de Chile de 1972 marcó un antes y un después en los museos y en la museología contemporánea. Su herencia fue la base para los planteamientos de la Nueva Museología; una museología que ponía el foco en la función social de los museos y en los procesos de participación democrática. Desde los años setenta la Nueva Museología se ha ido reformulando y metamorfoseando, siempre manteniendo los principios de la reunión de Santiago de Chile. España fue uno de los países donde esos postulados generaron un panorama de experiencias comunitarias y de planteamientos afines a esta museología. Un panorama poco conocido tanto a nivel nacional como internacional. En la presente contribución se presenta un análisis dicho panorama y un «Decálogo» con las aportaciones más significativas para una Museología Social del siglo XXI.

La Table Ronde de Santiago du Chili en 1972 a marqué un avant et un après dans les musées et dans la muséologie contemporaine. Son héritage a servi de base aux expositions de la Nouvelle Muséologie; une muséologie centrée sur la fonction sociale des musées et les processus de participation démocratique. Depuis les années 1970, le courant de la nouvelle muséologie a évolué tout en conservant les principes fondateurs de la rencontre de Santiago du Chili. Bien que ceci ne soit pas connu au niveau international, l'Espagne a été l'un des pays où ces postulats ont généré un vaste panorama d'expériences et d'approches communautaires liées à cette muséologie. Cette contribution présente une analyse de ce panorama et un « Décalogue » avec les contributions les plus significatives pour une Muséologie Sociale du 21e siècle.


The Round Table of Santiago de Chile was paradigm-shifting with respect to museums and contemporary museology. Its legacy has been the foundation for the theses of New Museology; a practice that focuses on the social function of museums and the processes of participative democracy. Since the 1970's New Museology has developed through reformulation and metamorphosis in faithful accord with the principles of the Santiago de Chile council, generating a panorama of community experiences and museologically related approaches. Among the nations in which this has taken place is Spain, figuring in a panorama little known both at a national and international level. The following contribution presents an analysis of this panorama and a “Decalogue” which contains the most significant contributions to a Social Museology of the 21st century.

This article explores whether and how organizational infrastructure and attitudes at museums, libraries and archives in England affect their propensity to diversify financing sources. After more than 50 years of policies and programmes to support funding diversification in the UK cultural sector, research suggests the sector remains dependent on public funding and relatively reluctant to explore new ways of exploiting their assets. Policies directed at addressing these issues concentrate on correcting perceived disparities in terms of cultural form and location (i.e., the London Effect). Empirical research suggests, however, that successful private fundraising is not significantly associated with the region where the organization operates. Instead, successful funding diversification may be closely related to factors such as organizational infrastructure and attitudes towards innovation and risk. This article expands on initial descriptive analysis undertaken from responses to a questionnaire on financial sustainability at museums, libraries and archives in England commissioned by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in 2008. Guided by a conceptual framework, the article focuses on developing typologies of characteristics related to an organization's infrastructure, attitudes and beliefs, and their level of funding diversification. This line of research has implications for policy, training and organizational development of cultural enterprises. The ongoing fiscal retrenchment and growing outcomes agenda have provided the setting for more entrepreneurial activities in the sector, without major changes to its organizational infrastructure. The article aims to provide insights into the sustainability of these activities as both economic activity and fiscal constraints increase.

Desde 2013, el proyecto arqueológico Santa María de la Antigua del Darién ha estado activo en el noroeste de Colombia, en una zona de fuerte conflicto interno. En este artículo se va a esbozar el proceso que se ha llevado a cabo hasta ahora con las comunidades de la zona, mostrando cómo la praxis arqueológica pueda actuar a varios niveles con respecto a las relaciones comunitarias. Se intentará ofrecer una posible ruta para los trabajos de arqueología comunitaria o indígena en zonas de fuertes tensiones o conflictos, a partir de la gestión equitativa y descolonizadora de los conocimientos sobre el patrimonio cultural. En particular, se quiere proponer la idea de la escucha igualitaria y abierta como método principal de acercamiento a las comunidades para una relación lo más horizontal posible.
El reconocimiento de la multiculturalidad y la inclusión participativa de diversos puntos de vista desde la fase de investigación arqueológica hasta la creación de los guiones museológicos, han permitido hasta ahora un enriquecimiento global del proyecto: en términos de contenidos, consolidación del mismo en el territorio, apropiación cultural por parte de las comunidades y creación de espacios y actividades culturales colectivas.   

Since 2013, the archaeological project Santa María de la Antigua del Darién has been active in northwestern Colombia, in an area of strong internal conflict. This article will outline the process that has been carried out so far with the communities in the area, showing how archaeological praxis can act at various levels with respect to community relations. An attempt will be made to offer a possible route for community or indigenous archaeological work in areas of strong tensions or conflicts, based on the equitable and decolonising management of cultural heritage knowledge. In particular, we want to propose the idea of equal and open listening as the main method of approaching communities for the most horizontal relationship possible.
The recognition of multiculturalism and the participatory inclusion of diverse points of view from the archaeological research phase to the creation of the museological scripts have so far allowed for an overall enrichment of the project: in terms of content, consolidation of the project in the territory, cultural appropriation by the communities and the creation of collective cultural spaces and activities.

The definition of ‘museum’ has changed, though some prefer to cling to that of a hundred years ago. The tension between what a museum is and what it does will continue, because the relationships and discourses we build among objects, communities and spaces remain dynamic as those same elements transform. Highlighting certain voices from museology and queer theory, this article tells the brief history of the Museo Q in Colombia. This museum, recognised as such by national cultural authorities, has no walls or extensive collections. Thus, its architecture is sometimes temporal, sometimes itinerant, sometimes transmutable. Considering its particular relationship with time and space, this article imagines a museology in motion, a museology that values emotion, failure, contingency, and movement: a museology in motion for an alternative future.

In the last decades in Italy there has been a new impetus to multidisciplinary approaches useful for reconstructing a past that often eludes scholars. In fact, various kinds of events and activities cannot be directly deduced from the material data recovered through archaeological excavations and field research. This paper is divided into two sections. At first, focusing on some illustrative issue, we define this intangible cultural heritage that cannot be analyzed by the historical and archaeological investigation, as there are difficulties in detecting it but, at the same time, various clues are detectable to ascertain their existence. For this reason, by carrying out a bibliographical review of what has been experienced in research in recent years and of the proposed theoretical approach as well as of the methodology used, it is observed how the disciplines derived from the social sciences can provide valuable help and constitute a useful methodological background to reconstruct historical phenomena of the past through the recovery of activities of a distant present (or near past). Finally, in the last part we analyze a project in progress which has its focus on weaving. This is a "Life Records" study carried out in a specific territorial context, where a diachronic reading of this activity will be provided from the Protohistory up to modern times, crossing archaeological, social and economic data.

This article reveals how the “Remembering St. Petersburg Oral History Project” empowered African American youth through nontraditional methods of learning African American history and culture in their own neighborhoods, allowing youth to gain a greater appreciation for their elders. Additionally the project enhanced their communication, computer, and professional skills for future success. The project involved urban youth ages 14–18 and elders over the age of 65 in the Midtown area of St. Petersburg, Florida. We used taped oral narratives, archival materials, and donated personal artifacts, to capture the memories and stories of the elders for a museum exhibit. In this article, I explore some of the challenges in the data collection museum exhibit process: training youth, proper representation of the elders, and interactions with residents and museum contributors. This project serves as a guide to illustrate the challenges anthropologists face in heritage preservation in African American community museums, educating youth on African American history, and the decision-making process in the development of a successful Oral History project and museum exhibit in the African
American community.

In 2019 the team of the Corral Redondo Project returned to Iquipi, Peru, for their second field season (see Backdirt 2018:82–85). Excavations resumed at the site of Corral Redondo and included the opening of a new trench. Survey of the Churunga and Ocoña Valleys continued, with expansion of the survey area using new recording methods, such as an unmanned aerial vehicle (drone), and photogrammetric methods that produced three-dimensional visualizations of the surveyed sites. The conservation team returned to the Instituto Escolar Miguel Grau 40446 to continue work in the Museo Escolar Lumbreras Salcedo, documenting and treating the collection.

New Museology was a part of museology responsible for enhancing the social function of museums as tools for the development of communities and social transformation. In the present article, this field of knowledge is presented as the working methodology for a territorial space and a concrete community. The paper reflects on the work done in a local municipality, Rivas Vaciamadrid (Madrid, Spain) and citizen voluntarism, channeled through the association, for the recovery and enhancement of the vestiges of the Battle of Jarama during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). This endeavor aimed at building a memory environment able to generate synergies for cultural, social and economic development.

La Nueva Museología fue la parte de la disciplina museológica que se encargó de potenciar la función social de los museos como herramientas para el desarrollo de las comunidades y la transformación social. En este artículo se aborda este campo del conocimiento como la metodología de trabajo para un espacio territorial y una comunidad concreta. Así, se reflejarán los trabajos realizados en un municipio de ámbito local, Rivas Vaciamadrid (Madrid, España) y el voluntarismo ciudadano, canalizado a través del asociacionismo, para la recuperación y puesta en valor de los vestigios de la Batalla del Jarama de la Guerra Civil Española (1936-1939), con la intención de construir un entorno de memoria que sea capaz de generar sinergias para el desarrollo cultural, social y económico.

En este texto presentamos las formas de trabajo colectivas del Museo Comunitario y Club de Lectura de Sierra Hermosa (Zacatecas, México). El museo fue fundado en el año 2000 por el artista Juan Manuel de la Rosa, originario del lugar, a partir de la entrega de 200 libros. Al poco tiempo de iniciarse, esta biblioteca adquirió una personalidad y dinámica propias. La lectura fue el pretexto perfecto para desencadenar una serie de reapropiaciones de espacios y nuevos tipos de diálogo entre lxs habitantes y personajes invitadxs para generar, así, diversas formas de pensar el libro. De esta forma, se incorporaron otros saberes y alternativas de producción y se sumaron talleres textil, de costura y de carpintería, así como una sala de exhibición con una colección de obras que tiene un sistema de rotación entre el poblado, que también dio comienzo a través de donaciones. Revisamos las implicaciones históricas, teóricas y críticas vinculadas a dicho museo. Asimismo, describimos en qué consiste la museología activada en este espacio, organizada en colaboración con el grupo de trabajo Biquini Wax EPS. A través del estudio del contexto de crisis extractiva, migratoria, agrícola y educativa de Zacatecas, exhibimos las formas de producción sensible que lo sostienen.
Palabras clave: museo comunitario, club de lectura, museología dinámica, reportaje plástico, Trópico de Cáncer.

Since 2010, negotiations surrounding the political interpretation of the past in Kenya are taking place within a new constitutional framework. With the implementation of devolution supposed to be at the core of democratisation, socioeconomic and political claims at a county level are increasingly taking shape on an ethno-cultural basis, nurtured by communities’ long-term constructions of memory. Under the guise of preserving and promoting cultural heritage, this article argues that the contemporary emergence of community museums in Kenya illustrates the growing salience of ethnic identities in the political sphere, used as a resource and a category of action both by the state and cultural entrepreneurs. By occupying an intermediary position in negotiations and public decision-making and using a new kind of capital – cultural heritage and its conservation – the latter strengthen their position both as ‘entrepreneurs of themselves’ and ‘entrepreneurs of a collective memory’ or ‘we-entrepreneurs’, here understood as a set of representations of the past shared by a social group. The article will discuss not only what politics do to museums but also how museums impact on political dynamics, drawing on research that centred on a case study of an ethnographic community museum and a mausoleum dedicated to Nandi culture and the ‘hero’ Koitalel Samoei in the Northern Rift Valley. By focusing on the role played by these new cultural actors in the (re)writing of local history, this article explores the use of cultural heritage in the reconfiguration of political competition and the making of land claims at a grassroots level in contemporary Kenya.

The richness and the uniqueness of collection and heritage including underwater heritage in Southeast Asia are well-known throughout the world. One of the efforts to optimise the preservation of collection and underwater heritage in order to remain preserved and sustainable is to encourage the involvement of local communities by way of inspiring and motivating people to set up community museum in their territory that holds existed historical-archaeological-ethnographic remains in the area which also could represent their identity. Moreover, professional museum and relevant institutions should further enhance the engagement of local society in their efforts to research, preserve, utilise or exhibit collection and heritage in the region. The community engagement is in line with the concept of Inclusive and New Museum which stressed that the museum objectives and its basic principles should be relevant and community-oriented. It also meets the idea of public archaeology which highlights the obligation of archaeologists to present the findings of artefacts or sites to the public and arouse public awareness to care and participate in preserving their cultural heritage objects. The New Museum concept also explained that the museum as an educational institution serves to make people more aware, proud, and strengthen their identity. Therefore, the established museum and related organization must play an active role to encourage people to be more involved in their activities. This paper provides an example of the involvement of local communities in Southeast Asia, namely in Indonesia and Thailand, to help in preserving, maintaining, and exhibiting their community assets including moveable collections and historical shipwreck along with its valuable cargoes through setting up a permanent museum or temporary exhibition which is managed by local community. This paper also describes a glimpse of the activities of museums and research or preservation institutions of cultural heritage which actively engage the community in raising their awareness.

Training in pedagogical research is embedded in epistemological and methodological dialectics that are
torn between the homogenization of pedagogical knowledge and its dialogical and reflexive construction. This conjuncture covers the semi-formative tensions (habbildung) in which this formation falls to praxis that articulate the reflexivity underlying the pedagogical practice and its understanding as a place of inquiry and resignification of this knowledge. For its solution, the article appropriates emerging methodologies (collective reconstruction of memory and community museums) as a counterhegemonic response to the instrumentalization of the educational task in pedagogical research in order to protect the emergence of praxis of the same nature that grant new semantics to the pedagogical practice from the subjects and realities together with the opportunities it offers for its intellectual, socio-political and historical emancipation. From a pedagogical episteme whose conceptual substratum is in the critical theory of the Schools of Budapest and Frankfurt, the text legitimizes training in pedagogical research in the same perspective. Considering that their point of departure and arrival is the tension between the pedagogical scenario, its agents and the technocratic disputes that address it, points out the need to address these research methodologies from the pedagogical communities and their socio-political interests to advance the research and pedagogical knowledge and its plurality contrasted to the univocality of the positivist paradigm of science, research and the production of knowledge.

In 2018, two non-profit organizations working for LGBTQ+ communities in Colombia concluded that the legal recognition of rights might not have a significant impact in the decrease of violence against LGBTQ+ populations. In this critical context, Museo Q was founded in 2014: an abnormal, queer museum, without walls and collections, but with the mission of placing the memories and identities of LGBTQ+ people in the Colombian cultural public realm. Although Museo Q does not have a permanent building, the inexistence of an architectural space has enabled the project to enter other territories, through multiple layouts and before different audiences.

This article is about the new museum movement, steered by the author, as Director, IGRMS, Bhopal, between 1994 and 2000. Museum was converted from a 80 hectare, open air display of community art and architecture to a nationwide and global initiative for reaching out to the communities concerned in their habitats. Initiatives, co-directed by communities were undertaken for regeneration of community resource management strategies and structures in management of sacred of groves, local water harvesting structures, food and medicine chain, cultures and knowledge systems in the Himalayas, river valleys, fragile coastal zones and endangered hilly and forested areas rich in bio cultural diversity. Expeditions were undertaken along the river Narmada and Cauvery and in the cold desert areas of the Himalayas. The museum became a center for unmaking homogenization and museumization of community habitats and revitalization of local knowledge systems.

Museums devoted primarily to presenting and promoting the arts, cultures, values, and histories of particular communities are constantly negotiating between the communities they serve and their contexts. They act as mediators between the local and the international, challenging entrenched assumptions about the cultures and the heritage they represent and reinterpreting their collections to make sense of artworks and artifacts in an evolving environment. They are also engaged in a vibrant dialogue between past and present, rewriting traditional narratives in light of contemporary events and thinking about the present while considering their particular heritage. As essential actors in a local and cosmopolitan context, community-based museums question the status quo of Eurocentric cultural institutions and their political and social roles. These roles become even more important when considering the current immigration challenges in the United States and elsewhere. We invite participants to address the institutional, educational, and artistic challenges that such community-based museums face.