Memory as desecration and loss: community, heritage and museums in postcolonial contexts

Abstract

In this article I propose a critical reading of the notion of “cultural difference” as a hallmark of authenticity or as an original memory. Based on my fieldwork on Mexican community museums I analyse how “heritage processes” often function I postcolonial contexts as devices to hide local connections of memory. Finally, I work on how the notion of heritage -linked to exhibition and “recovery”- is contested by the social agents with the concept of loss (as dispossession and exclusion).