Migrating heritage: experiences of cultural networks and cultural dialogue in Europe Perla Innocenti, 2014. Ashgate Publishing Limited ISBN 978-1-4724-2281-1, £63, 332PP, Hardback Emily Mark-FitzGerald
‘Migrating Heritage: Experiences of Cultural Networks and Cultural Dialogue in Europe’ is one of the published outputs of the European Commission-funded project MeLa – European Museums in an Age of Migrations (2011-2015). MeLa is designed as ‘an interdisciplinary programme aimed at analysing the role of museums in the contemporary multi-cultural context, characterized by an augmented migration of people and ideas, and identifying innovative practices and strategies in order to foster their evolution’ (http://www.mela-project.eu). More precisely, the project has posited the concept of migration ‘as a paradigm of the contemporary global and multicultural world. The main objective of the MeLa project is to define innovative museum practices that reflect the challenges of the contemporary processes of globalisation, mobility and migration’ The project has involved the participation of nine European partners – unfortunately (and perhaps surprisingly) none of them Irish – and six research fields: (1) Museums and Identity in History and Contemporaneity; (2) Cultural Memory, Migrating Modernity and Museum Practices; (3) Network of Museums, Libraries and Public Cultural Institutions; (4) Cultural and Artistic Research; (5) Exhibition Design, Technology of Representation and Experimental Actions; and (6) Envisioning
21st Century Museums. The length and extent of the full MeLa project has generated many published proceedings and research outcomes, most of which is freely available from its website. As a consequence, some readers may be disinclined to purchase this edited volume, which is very similar in nature and content, and has been generated from the third research field. undoubtedly the MeLa project has been a major milestone in the study of contemporary museology and cultural heritage, and its research outcomes offer kaleidoscopic perspectives into current European conceptualisations of migration and cultural politics. The intersection of migration and the GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) has attracted significant attention over the past decade, framed by numerous policy initiatives, conferences and symposia at a European level in the domains of cultural heritage, diversity and policy – managed and promoted by uNESCO, Council of Europe, the International Organisation on Migration, and innumerable national and transnational cultural networks. Indeed the metaphor of the ‘network’ functions as a core concept for the collection, which proposes that the ‘network’ offers both a theoretical model better suited to the cross-territorial nature of migration and its heritage, as well as a functional mechanism
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