Ecomuseums: A Sense of Place (Leicester museum studies)

The concept of ecomuseums, which arose in France in the late 1960s, places museums within the context of community and the environment. Radically different in concept from the traditional museum, the ecomuseum performs its tasks of collecting, preserving and educating within an entirely different framework. It is a dispersed entity consisting of heritage sites, museums, collective memories, and the natural and built environment, with community involvement as the key requisite. The concept has been pursued in some countries, but not in others, and most museum professionals would find it difficult to define what an ecomuseum is. Are ecomuseums something special? Or is the term simply a marketing one? This book, using case studies from a number of countries, looks at the diversity of the ecomuseum and seeks to define its characteristics.