Paper short abstract:

During the last decades the Ethnographic Museum has transformed from a cultural heritage institution to a social arena. This paper discusses what this transformation has brought about in terms of activities and ideas at these museums.

Paper long abstract:

This paper has two major aims. Firstly, it aims to analyze the discussions on the current transformation of ethnographic museums, especially in Europe and North America and to some extent in Asia. Secondly, it aims at analyzing, at a broad level, what the transformations during the last decades of these museums actually consists of. Since the 1980s there has been a widespread discussion in anthropology and elsewhere on the political and social role of ethnographic museums. The debate started with the "post-colonial turn" in the 1980s. Today, when issues like globalization and concepts such as multiculturalism, new public management and experience economy are added to the debate, it appears once more as if the whole idea of maintaining ethnographic museums is challenged. Nevertheless, the present debate is, in many aspects, a continuation from the 1980s and the 1990s, when observers like James Clifford (1988 & 1997) deconstructed ethnographic museums and challenged the existence of them as such.