Ecomuseums: Challenging Temporality through Community Reappropriation

ABSTRACT

The écomusée—the small, local, and community-owned and managed museum—and similar cultural institutions, represent more than a typical museum: they are also community movements in time and space that resist the modern hierarchical practices of the cultural sector. Through four Canadian cases, this article examines the different forms of écomusée resistance by discursively excavating the conditions of their formation, institutional practices, and the resulting effects and implications. The movement's resulting schism in space and time has created local empowerment of underrepresented community groups by reappropriating and challenging the modern cultural landscape with implications for public action and public policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Community participation
• cultural policy
• écomusée
• public policy
• time and space

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jonathan Paquette at the University of Ottawa for his comments and advice, as well as the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version.