Emerging Standards
Researching Sustainability in Community-based Museums: A Case Study of Chile’s Los Rios Museum Network
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Karin Weil, Barbara Elmudesi
Since 2012, the Los Rios region in Chile has its own Museum Network, which collaborates sharing experiences, resources, and ideas in order to strengthen, promote, and disseminate in an associative way, the cultural and natural heritage of the Los Rios Region. As part of “EU LAC: Museums and Communities” project--funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and innovation programme, the Museological Office at Universidad Austral de Chile is researching the network’s community-based museums in order to understand their sustainability concepts and practices in areas such as management, collections, staff, and community engagement. This paper both systematize and analyze the results gathered for five museums by an interdisciplinary team, advised by an expert committee, that designed and implemented methodologies and research tools relevant to the diversity of museums involved in the case studies, aiming to be able to make sustainability recommendation useful for community-based small and medium museums.
Heritage Education Multiperspectivity Matrix
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Paul Janssenswillen
This paper discusses an instrument for the screening of program sets for heritage education putting the focus on multiperspectivity. It contributes to the need of a sustainable cooperation between formal education and institutions of heritage education. In a society with increasing diversity it appeals to multiperspectivity by bringing up perspectives of different ethnic-cultural groups, also those of less visible ones. The Heritage Education Multiperspectivity Matrix (HEM-matrix v1.0) is based first of all on the core objectives of history education, in particular historical thinking, and secondly on "Culture in the Mirror" an application of the theory of culture of Barend van Heusden to the Flemish context. Starting from solid theory a blueprint of the matrix was established and critically altered by experts. Further it was tested for screening existing program sets for heritage education. In an next phase the matrix will be validated as a design instrument, that’s why we name the presented version of the matrix v1.0. Opportunities and limitations of the instrument are discussed.
An Alternative Approach to Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Case of the Museu do Fado, Lisbon
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alix Ferrer-Yulfo
It has been argued that since the adoption of UNESCO’s 2003 "Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage" scholars have examined how museums have been integrating ICH into their work, at times through the use of "new museological" approaches. It has also been noted that most of this research has focused on already-established museums and their strategies for adapting their work to accommodate the distinct qualities inherent to ICH. For this reason, it is suggested that examining museums whose “content” is an ICH element by UNESCO standards can illustrate alternative approaches to working with ICH, as well as allow certain expert statements to be contested. This paper addresses part of a larger research project focusing on traditional performing arts museums and the safeguarding of ICH. In this case, the Museu do Fado in Lisbon is examined and presented. The museum is at the centre of Portugal’s safeguarding initiatives and it is responsible for implementing the Safeguarding Plan submitted to UNESCO. Accordingly, the Museum’s strategic points for safeguarding fado will be discussed, revealing the strong relationships between the museum and the fado community and leading us to consider the Museum as representing an additional alternative within "new museological" approaches.
