ISS 25 (1995).pdf - The International Council of Museums

MUSEUMS and COMMUNITIES: a powerful equation ...
Maria de Lourdes Horta
The theme of the 1995 rCOM's General Conference, Museum and
Communities, seems to be as vast and varied as museums and
communities in themselves. From the titles of the keynote speech and of
the four theme related speeches, announced in the programme for the
Stavanger Conference, it is not difficult to trace the main approach
which will govern the discussions: the political nature of the problem
embedded in the subject theme.
The "situation in Europe", as states the introductory text distributed to all
rCOM members, appears to be the most pressing preoccupation, "in
particular need of both reflection and action". While on the one hand
political and chiefly economical agreements are trying to reduce the role
of national boundaries, on the other hand the concept of national state is
breaking up, splitting itself into new "national unities", which base their
claims to existence and recognition on their cultural and historical roots.
These "national unities", claiming their rights on the basis of a feeling of
identity, built upon race, faith, history and traditions, could well be
called "cultural unities", or "cultural communities": people who have
important things "in common", common values, common beliefs,
common social codes, common experiences, common histories, common
ways of life, common expectations for the future. There is nothing more
. "museological" than this field of investigation, or this subject theme. It
is, in fact, the main source of museum's history and of museum's life, and
the only struggle one could find here would be the dispute with
anthropologists and sociologists, and even with social-psychologists, on
who has the biggest slice of the cake. Archaeologists would claim for
themselves the deepest stratum of the field. But we never heard of George
Henry Riviere throwing a bomb at Levi-Strauss' house.
Where is the core of the problem we see now developing in the so-called
"developed" countries, as well as in those not yet so "developed" ones?
Why is it so "striking", as the introductory text to the Conference states,
that "many young nations have adopted a motto stressing national unity"
and why will the Director of the Papua New Guinea National Museum
address the topic on the role of museums in creating a national unity?
Perhaps the answer could be found in the speech of Mr. Ole Henrik
Magga, professor at the University of Oslo, who will talk about
"Museums and cultural diversity: indigenous and dominant cultures". It is
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