Archaeological Site Museums in Latin America. Helaine Silverman, ed. University Press of Florida, 2006. 301 pp.
Reviewed by Greg Borgstede
This
volume represents an important contribution in theorizing a specific
type of museum: that associated with an archaeological site. While this
is a narrow reading of the contributions to this edited volume—the
authors allow for a more expansive definition of “museum”—the
overarching effect of the book is to successfully display the wide
range of functions, procedures, and ideologies of site museums. While
each contributor’s narrow focus on his or her museum of choice may
leave broader comparability in museum process and structure unexplored,
the idiosyncratic nature of the individual chapters is more than
balanced by two excellent discussion chapters at the end of the volume
and by the innovative approaches and ideas presented by the authors.
The
organizational structure of the chapters in the volume is distinctive.
Rather than relying on the traditional approach in volumes on Latin
America, which divide the region geographically or historically, the
editor instead chose to categorize chapters based on the type of site
museum discussed in each contribution. The categories include: museums
at monumental sites/sites with monuments; museums at non-monumental
sites; the city as site museum; and the landscape as museum. There is a
degree of content overlap among these categories. The overlap, however,
works to strengthen the concept of “site museum” through repeated
re-definition by individual contributors. The reader becomes acutely
aware of similarities and differences in how a site museum is
understood and defined as the nuances of contextual differences are
explored. While these nuances are left implicit and for the reader to
develop, the contrasts assist the development of one’s own definition
of site museum. Of broader interest, and the next logical step in the
analysis and theoretical development of site museum studies, is the
definition of the organizational categories—monumental and
non-monumental sites, cities and landscapes as site museums. These are
left under-defined and an intriguing avenue for future research, both
among these categories (for example, what makes a site museum at a
monumental site different from that at a non-monumental site?) and as
broader heuristics for analyzing different geohistorical contexts (a
monumental site in Mexico versus a monumental site in Peru, for
example).
Within
each of these categories, there are a series of case studies written by
practitioners about the site museum project in which they have
participated. For site museums at monumental sites, contributions
include: Teotihuacan (Mexico), San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan (Mexico), Copan
(Honduras), Kuntur Wasi (Peru), Pukara (Peru), Chiripa (Bolivia). For
non-monumental sites, contributions include: Coastal Equador (Museum of
the Lovers of Sumpa; a tourist guide training program) and Peru (San
Jose de Moro). The city as site museum is discussed in detail for
Cusco, Peru, and the landscape as museum is discussed for Ecuador (Agua
Blanca) and Peru (Sican; Cotahuasi Valley). This collection of articles
covers a broad expanse of Latin American countries: Mexico, Honduras,
Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Impressively, the range of backgrounds of
the authors includes national archaeologists as well as foreigners
(Western and Non-Western).
The
range of nations covered in the volume is limited to Latin America. The
decision to discuss only site museums in Latin America, and to
effectively foreground this fact via the title, is unexplored within
any chapter of the volume. While individual authors explore in detail
the definition, construction, and ramifications of site museums within
specific local contexts, very few explore the relationship of the site
museum concept to the Latin American context, specifically. That is,
the narrow focus is on local (and national) issues at the expense of
the international/regional. This is not necessarily a weakness, but
begs the question: why use Latin America as an organizing concept at
all?
By
framing the discussion of archaeological site museums with Latin
America, the volume situates itself within a broader discussion on the
unity and disunity of the history, culture, and geography of the
region. Incorporation into this dialogue may assist in defining the
role of archaeology and history within the nations of Latin America—or
it may not; the issue is not addressed in the volume. The inevitable
question is: do the site museums of Latin America have something in
common that makes them distinct from site museums in other regions? The
decision to include only Latin American examples also has the effect of
limiting the possibility of cross-cultural comparison. The case studies
taken individually or as a whole do not provide a persuasive argument
for the unity of Latin America as an analytic category for site
museums. The reader is left wondering why Latin America? Why not the
developing world? Why not descendant communities? The organization of
the volume itself underscores this—the chapters are organized by museum
type (monumental, non-monumental, etc.) rather than national (Peruvian,
Mexican, etc.) tradition.
The
questioning of underlying assumptions such as these is important not
just for Western academic audiences, but is of wider significance
because these assumptions have broader social and political
implications and effects. The process of defining cultural heritage,
particularly by trained professionals, and the exploration of how that
heritage articulates with local communities in locales such as site
museums, can affect cultural identity as well as political and economic
reality. The assumptions of the authors need to be made explicit. Is
the unity of Latin America in terms of site museums a residue of
colonial occupation? If so, then are site museums somehow postcolonial
constructions or attempts at disassociating from colonial practices? As
Lawrence S. Coben argues in his commentary, many of the contributing
authors suggest that site museums are an attempt, at least implicitly,
at “social justice” or “economic development” within the archaeological
arena. As K. Anne Pyburn argues in her commentary, this type of social
action requires very careful consideration and debate. Hopefully that
debate will develop as archaeological site museums are increasingly
analyzed and theorized. This volume is an excellent step in that
direction, to be read not as a handbook of “best practices” for Latin
America, but as a comparison of the site museum concept across a number
of very different contexts.
A
Research Associate in the American Section of the University of
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Greg Borgstede is
an archaeologist studying the relationship between archaeology and
indigenous communities. He is the co-editor (with Charles W. Golden) of
the volume Continuities and Changes in Maya Archaeology: Perspectives at the Millennium (Routledge, 2004).