Mapping knowledge orders in local museums: an example from Horodnic de Jos, Romania

Abstract

Local museums in Romania are privately-owned, amateur presentations of identity and heritage that aim to preserve the past within the living spaces of their owners. This study identifies and maps several knowledge orders that emerged in one local museum visited in May 2014. Visual analysis and the gendered narratives of museum proprietors are used to reconstruct pathways through the museum in order to reveal orders of knowledge. The poster focuses on space-time arrangements, identifying the symbolic classifications of old/new and inside/outside. The study and interpretation rely on the literature of cultural motion (Greg Urban), and social classifications (Eviatar Zerubavel and Jens-Erik Mai). In Horodnic de Jos, the local museum emerges as an arena for knowledge production, where aggregation, bricolage and classificatory activities renegotiate the connections between past, present and future. This study exposes the local museum as a site of living memory that mediates local/national memory.