Museo, museología y territorio en la era de la desterritorialización

Abstract

A quick look at our current situation leaves us with a bittersweet feeling of the future of civilizations. Social injustices, the continuous violation of human rights or social and war conflicts, are intertwined with movements that call for the visibility of subaltern voices, other narratives and cross-sectoral social inclusion. All of this in an increasingly digitalized world, of frugal and ephemeral messages, where social relationships are, in reality, a simulacrum that hides increasingly nomadic and isolated individuals. Museums are part of this panorama where the notion of belonging to a territory, one in which communities are created, has been lost. Museum stories continue to belong to authorized memory, which further separates them from social concerns and encourages deterritorialization. The objective of this text is to outline a series of reflections on the importance of the idea of territory for museums and museology, and to understand that territory is not something physical and/or geographical, but rather something mental and symbolic; necessary to create communities capable of facing the social challenges of the future.