Abstract

This paper is written from the perspective of a former French conservator who has had the opportunity to engage into critical research on the social approach of heritage in France. It suggests some new paths of investigation inspired from the present cultural and political context. Even if the concept of eco-museum or community museum was born in France in the seventies, the significant changes in practice and management of cultural material held by museums in other countries in the last 20 years, seem not to have affected French institutions. Thereby conservation remains an unshared decision process based on objects and not on people, supported by the three traditional disciplines, science, technology and art-history. Currently several indicators show the limits of an old system that has to struggle with economic restraints, as well as legislative and social pressures. Beyond these findings, this paper wishes to underline the necessity to reassess cultural heritage in an inclusive perspective, and to question the function of particular cultural heritage in countries of fragile national cohesion.