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This updated second edition reference work looks at recent developments in the field internationally and in terms of new theories and practices.

Climate change is a reality, and communities around the world are now facing significant environmental problems – rising global temperatures leading to increased risk of flooding, fire, and sea level rise, resulting in the destruction of property and social infrastructure, loss of biodiversity and tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and damage to economies. Little wonder then that the online conference held on 30 September 2021 with the title “Ecomuseums and Climate Action” attracted more than one hundred participants from countries whose communities are facing these problems.This book presents the results of this conference where heritage experts, community activists, curators, politicians and academics from several countries, explored how ecomuseums and community museums are acting as catalysts for transition, renewal, and sustainable development and how they might effectively contribute to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and climate action. How can these organisations best contribute to the debate about the climate crisis and promote local action? Central to those actions are encouraging local people to recognise how important their cultural, natural and intangible cultural heritage is in making places special and giving a sense of belonging, why that heritage should be sustained, and how heritage assets can be used to promote climate action. This book – with its remarkable collection of essays from around the world – demonstrates how small local actions, considered together, can have a dramatic and far-reaching impact. It will be warmly welcomed by anyone interested in climate action, heritage and museum studies, and environmental issues.

This reader provides a starting point and introductory resource for anyone wishing to engage with certain key issues relating to the heritage, museums and galleries sector.

Heritage represents the meanings and representations conveyed in the present day upon artefacts, landscapes, mythologies, memories and traditions from the past. It is a key element in the shaping of identities, particularly in the context of increasingly multicultural societies. This Research Companion brings together an international team of authors to discuss the concepts, ideas and practices that inform the entwining of heritage and identity. They have assembled a wide geographical range of examples and interpret them through a number of disciplinary lenses that include geography, history, museum and heritage studies, archaeology, art history, history, anthropology and media studies. This outstanding companion offers scholars and graduate students a thoroughly up-to-date guide to current thinking and a comprehensive reference to this growing field.

The internationally focused Dictionary of Museology reflects the diversity of cultural and disciplinary approaches to theory and practice in the museum field today. The museum world is changing rapidly, and the characteristics and social roles of the world’s approximately 100,000 existing museums are constantly evolving. In addition to their traditional functions of preservation, research and communication, museums are increasingly addressing issues related to social inclusion, human rights, sustainable development and finances, all of which are explored in this dictionary. Drawing on the support of an international editorial committee, including influential figures from the US, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Spain, Germany, France and the UK, this collaborative work produced by over 100 researchers from around the world provides an overview of this unique field by defining over 1,000 terms relating to museology. The Dictionary of Museology is intended for a broad spectrum of museum professionals, academics, researchers and students. The book will be especially useful to those working with international partners, since a common lexicon that conveys the complex reality of current social and cultural values is particularly vital for those working across borders.

At the center of current debates surrounding the social function of museums, questions concerning museum activities and the participation of both inhabitants and the public arise. In 2019, these questions were the subject of many heated debates at the 34th General Assembly of ICOM in Kyoto, which intended to propose a new definition of the museum. As the representations of the tensions between Universalist and Communitarian approaches are not only largely dependent on the historical and socio-political contexts of the various countries concerned, a generational angle must also be considered. It thus seems totally anachronistic to try to defend a dichotomous vision that is far too simplistic. At the heart of these current events and international issues, this collective work studies, in an international context, the values, actions and discourses advocated for participating in processes such as collection, selection, conservation and interpretation of heritage elements linked to the territories, resources, knowledge and know-how of various communities. The analysis of the tensions and asymmetries of power between various groups of actors – politicians, managers, scientists, visitors, representatives of local or diasporic populations, among others – particularly in the context of decolonization policies of museums, is also a major part of this book.