UNIRIO: A Model of Evolving Museology Teaching in Brazil

Abstract

For the better part of the 20^th century, the teaching of museology in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was centred in the Curso de Museus (Museums Course), created in 1932 at the Museu Historico Nacional (, National Historical Museum). The course was developed in response to a demand for trained professionals to exclusively staff the after its founding in 1922. Nevertheless, since its first years of existence, the course was also influenced by global ideas and intellectual trends primarily disseminated, from the 1920s onwards, by the Office International des Musées ( International Office of Museums) and by the International Council of Museums () from 1940 to the present day. In a preliminary overview of the teaching of Museology in Brazil, it is fair to assume that the Rio de Janeiro course, which has been held since the 1970s—both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels—at a University rather than in a museum, constitutes the most important model for several new teaching programmes that have emerged all over the country. This paper explores the theoretical emphasis placed on capacity building in Brazilian museology, and particularly in the context of Rio de Janeiro during the final three decades of the 20^th century. From the course, which began with a direct connection to museum practices, the teaching of museology in the country has significantly changed, particularly under the major influence of theories developed by the International Committee for Museology (). These ‘ian’ approaches were taken up by Brazilian scholars aiming to develop the foundations of academic thinking in museology, and who consequently established a teaching tradition that encompasses a specific set of theoretical approaches to museums and heritage in the present.

Notes

1. A lawyer, writer, linguist and historian, García was the director of the MHN between December 1930 and November 1932, when he became Director of the Brazilian National Library.

2. A writer, politician and journalist, Barroso was one of the most active intellectuals in Brazil's regionalist and nationalist movements during the first decades of the 20^th century. He was Director of the MHN between 1922 and 1930 and between 1932 and 1959.

3. The idea of creating an International Office of Museums was initiated by art historian Henri Focillon in 1925. It was conceived as an establishment designed to promote collaborations between museums around the world; an organisation of international exchange aiming to centralise information on museums worldwide. The International Office of Museums (OIM) was the predecessor of ICOM; its main publication, Mouseion, was replaced by Museum International (Mairesse 1998, p.25).

4. Translated by the authors from the Portuguese: ‘Chama‐se Museologia o estudo científico de tudo o que se refere aos Museus, no sentido de organizá‐los, arrumá‐los, conservá‐los, dirigi‐los, classificar e restaurar os seus objetos. […] A Museologia abarca âmbito mais vasto do que a Museografia, que dela faz parte, pois é natural que a simples descrição dos Museus se enquadre nas fronteiras da Ciência dos Museus. Museólogo, portanto, é o técnico ou entendido em Museus’ (Barroso 1946, p. 5).

5. Translated by the authors from the Portuguese.

6. Existing undergraduate courses are offered in different regions of the country: the south (four courses), the south east (five courses), the central west (two courses), the north (one course) and the north east (four courses). These courses are all connected to Brazilian universities, mostly federal ones (See table in the Appendix).

7. According to the Ministry of Education in Brazil, undergraduate courses may result in a Bachelor's degree, a licence to teach or a degree from an undergraduate course in technology. Postgraduate courses are M.A. and Ph.D. programmes or specialisations that require a previous diploma in an undergraduate course for admission. The lato sensu postgraduate course grants certification, while the stricto sensu postgraduate course grants a diploma.

8. In Brazil, the term used to designate a museologist is museólogo, which would later be widely adopted.

9. The meeting for the creation of ICOM, on 16 November, 1946, at the Musée du Louvre, was attended by Brazilian museologist Mário Barata. For a history of ICOM, see Baghli et al., 1998.

10. Translated from the French: ‘M. Barata (Brésil) signale ces différences de programme de l’École de muséographie du Brésil par rapport à l’École du Louvre : a) les programmes sont encyclopédiques ; b) l’étude de la muséographie s’étend sur deux années; c) les programmes obligatoires pour tous comportent cinq matières par an, et ce n'est qu'en troisième année que les étudiants sont appelés à opter entre l'art, l'archéologie et l'histoire’ (ICOM 1948, p. 42‐44).

11. Today, it is called the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro).

12. In his report on the event, Rivière presents three fundamental definitions for the terms ‘museum’, ‘museology’ and ‘museography’ (Rivière 1960). The first definition was drawn from the ICOM statutes adopted at the time, while the other two were inspired by debates held during seminar sessions in Rio de Janeiro.

13. The National Organisation of ICOM (ONICOM), which was later on renamed ICOM‐Brasil, the national committee of ICOM in Brazil, was created in 1948, only two years after the creation of ICOM in Europe. This National Organisation was responsible for the first conferences in the museum field in the country, accordingly to the subjects debated in ICOM related to the local concern regarding the importance and the role of museums.

14. Documents related to this Congress were consulted at the Núcleo de Memória da Museologia no Brasil (Nucleus of the Museology Memory in Brazil). See in particular Costa (1965), Zanini and Meneses (1965), de Carvalho (1965).

15. In 1978, Waldisa Rússio Guarnieri created a postgraduate course lato sensu in Museology at the Foundation School of Sociology and Politics of São Paulo (FESP). In May 1985, the Institute of Museology opened at FESP, remaining active until 1996.

16. Federal Law 7.287, approved in 1984, regulates the profession of museology in Brazil.

17. Most widely known in French as the Mouvement international pour une nouvelle muséologie (MINOM).

18. The term ‘social museology’ (museologia social, in Portuguese), widely used in Brazil and Portugal since the 1990s, refers to a particular branch in the field that has expressed itself in practice as a much more political branch, involving some particular marginalised social groups and creating new museographic narratives. Its main actors, however, are not directly concerned with theoretical reflections, ones central to the New Museology movement of the 1980s.

19. A member of ICOFOM since the 1980s and its President from 1998 to 2001, Tereza Scheiner was the main museologist to adopt these theories, who developed a particular field of studies to investigate the ‘phenomenological face’ of museums (Scheiner 1998). In turn, Scheiner postulates an ontology of the museal and explores different manifestations of the museum phenomenon. This perspective defined her work as Professor at the Course of Museology at UNIRIO, and defined the curricular reforms.

20. The conception of the ‘real’, as it is used by Scheiner in several of her works as well as in the referred Curricular Reformulation, is understood in its philosophical conception as all things that are ontologically different from the subject, or of Man. It can also be interpreted as the diverse social reality in which societies build their relation to musealized heritage. For a critical discussion of this notion, see Brulon‐Soares (2009).

21. Translated from the Portuguese by the authors. ‘1) Museologia como ciência ou disciplina científica, cujo campo de atuação é o Real; 2) Abordagem holista da Museologia – considerando a relação existente entre natureza, Homem, cultura e sociedade; 3) Museu como espaço de saber, como gerador de conhecimentos; 4) Museu e Museologia enquanto processos; 5) Museu como parte integrante dos sistemas de pensamento de cada sociedade, em cada época; 6) Conceito de Patrimônio: Patrimônio integral (natural e cultural)’ (Scheiner and Pantigoso 1995–1996, manuscript unpublished).

22. Director of the School of Museology.

23. This research draws from the Archives of the School of Museology and the Núcleo de Memória da Museologia no Brasil Director of the School of Museology (NUMMUS/UNIRIO).

24. See MUWOP (1980–1981).

25. This influence is evident in at least three different periodic publications. In Rio de Janeiro, the journal Cadernos Museológicos was coordinated by museologist Maria de Lourdes Parreiras Horta (Cadernos Museológicos, Rio de Janeiro, No. 1‐3, 1989–1990). It presented, for the first time in a Brazilian context, translations of papers from ICOFOM authors including Desvallées, Sofka, Van Mensch, Sola and Rússio Guarnieri. In São Paulo, Waldisa Rússio Guarnieri headed the Revista de Museologia, which had only a single published issue in 1989 (Revista de Museologia, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1989); finally, in Belém (state of Pará), Ciências em Museus was published by the Museu Emílio Goeldi from 1989 to 1992 (Ciência em Museus, Belém, Vol. 1‐4, 1989–1992)

26. Several students from the Museology and Heritage postgraduate course at UNIRIO have published scholarly articles in international journals dedicated to the theory of museology (such as the ICOFOM Study Series) and are regular contributors to ICOFOM and ICOFOM LAM.

27. Most of the dissertations and theses undertaken since 2006 by students in the postgraduate programme in Museology and Heritage at UNIRIO have adopted reflexive approaches to subjects related to Museums and Heritage, applying theory to practical cases. Although many students have developed case studies from museums, theoretical reflection on the conception of museology as a field is a prerequisite in the training of new museology researchers (both at Masters and Doctoral levels).

28. As stated in the following works: Carrazzoni 1968; Scheiner 2009; Sá 2013.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bruno Brulon Soares

Bruno Brulon Soares is Professor of Museology at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), Brazil. He holds a Master's in Museology and Heritage and a Ph.D. in Anthropology. He is currently Coordinator of the Research Group Experimental Museology and Image at UNIRIO.

Luciana Menezes de carvalho

Luciana Menezes de Carvalho is a museologist at the Federal University of Alfenas (UNIFAL/MG). She holds a Master's in Museology and Heritage, and is a Ph.D. student at UNIRIO. She is also the Director of UNIFAL/MG's Museum of Memory and Heritage.

Henrique Vasconcelos cruz

Henrique de Vasconcelos Cruz is a museologist at the Museum of North‐Eastern Man at the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation (FUNDAJ), in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. He holds a Master's in Museology and Heritage from UNIRIO.