Collecting Moments of Life. Museums and the Intangible Heritage of Migration

Abstract

Over the past three decades, a number of museums of cultural history in Europe have positioned themselves as arenas for debate and for addressing current social and political issues. One of these issues is migration and finding ways of integrating the narratives of immigrants and emigrants into the wider national history and cultural heritage. Migrants’ life stories are among the main recurrent items collected by these museums. These ‘moments of life’ are recorded, archived, edited and put on display both in the exhibition galleries and in online exhibitions. They express a sense of dislocation, exile and prismatic identity. They share a common focus on small details of daily life and memories surrounding processes of departure, arrival and settling down. They retrace the various trajectories of individuals, convey the special knowledge carried by them and provide the basis on which the intangible cultural heritage of migration and diaspora is being shaped. This article posits that in terms of Aleida and Jan Assmann, these narratives pertain to the communicative memory of different migrant groups and diasporas. Communicative memory pertains to episodic memory, and as such, is autobiographical and based on personal experiences. It has a short time span and links three to four generations together. I argue that by recording, safeguarding and displaying the life stories of migrants, museums are gradually transforming them into the intangible heritage of migration and diasporas. In my view, this will not only impact the sustainability of this heritage but also establish museums of cultural history as active agents of social cohesion and mediators of transcultural knowledge.