The Art of Being a World Culture Museum : Futures and Lifeways of Ethnographic Musuems in Contemporary Europe

With a host of pressures and issues facing them, European ethnographic museums and museums of world cultures are, despite their 19th-century roots, uniquely timely, fully belonging to our present moment in the West.

The Art of Being a World Culture Museum sketches the variety of missions and practices that guide these museums today. Using 10 ethnographic museums in Europe as case studies, and featuring interviews with museum directors and photographs showing the sites, displays, work environments and dynamics of these museums, this book considers the legacy and future of the ethnographic museum in the 21st century. Museums discussed include the National Museum of World Cultures in the Netherlands; the National Museums of World Culture in Stockholm; the Museum of Archaelogy and Anthropology in Cambridge, UK; the Barcelona Enthnological and World Cultures Museum; the Linden-Museum Stuttgart; and the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium.