Territorial museology
Introduction
An ecomuseum is a museum center oriented on the identity of a territory, supported by the participation of its inhabitants, created with the aim of increasing the well-being and development of the community.
The concept was introduced by French museologist Hugues de Varine-Bohan" in 1971 with a controversial history. One of the most effective definitions of ecomuseum is the one originally proposed by George-Henri Rivière and Hugues de Varine, which refers to the differences between traditional museums and ecomuseums.
• - Museum >>> Ecomuseum.
• - Collection >>> Heritage.
• - Building >>> Territory.
• - Visitors >>> Community.
Peter Davis places the ecomuseum at the center of three spheres: that relating to the museum, the environment (in its broad sense) and the community. Kazuochi Ohara takes up the concept, while offering an articulated description of the three spheres.
For Maurizio Maggi, the ecomuseum is a museum based on a pact with which a community takes charge of a territory.
• - Pact: A transparent assumption of responsibility that does not necessarily involve legal obligations.
• - Community: The fundamental role of local institutions must be sustained by citizen participation.
• - Take care: A long-term commitment and a vision of the future development of the territory are necessary.
• - Territory: It is not only a physical surface, but also a complex stratification of environmental, cultural and social elements that define a specific local heritage.
The first three elements contribute to defining the so-called local network of the actors, while the fourth approaches the definition of medium. These two concepts are at the center of theoretical and applied reflection, to which, among others, the Italian territorialist school contributes, on local territorial systems.
The European network of ecomuseums, an initiative that a few years ago tried, from below, to build an organization of European ecomuseums, defines it as follows:
An ecomuseum is a dynamic process with which communities preserve, interpret and value their heritage for sustainable development. An ecomuseum is based on an agreement with the community..
It is also worth commenting on the interesting contribution of the Chinese school. Su Donghai has synthesized in the nine principles of Liuzhi the intense work carried out together with Chinese and Norwegian museologists (among them, the late John Aage Gjestrum) since the beginning of the 1990s.
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