“I DON’T WANT MY TOWN TURNED INTO A SPECTACLE”: Community Museums as Tactics

Abstract

AbstractThe former silver mining town of Cobalt, Ontario (pop. 1,128), has four history museums. The museums, created at different times and by different constituencies, reflect citizens’ ongoing efforts to revive the town and imagine its urban future. Over the past 50 years, residents have also engaged in multiple attempts to establish the town as a mining heritage tourism destination and/or to reestablish mining. Although the museums are implicated in both aspirations, we argue that they work to situate the memory work of local history within discrete spaces. While the museums have been recruited to support tourism and heritage efforts, they sit uncomfortably within grander schemes to remake the town as a tourist destination. Indeed, we argue that the museums serve as tactics, per de Certeau, to contain and restrict tourism‐oriented development. As vernacular spaces where residents have recorded local histories, the museums serve as statements about both what the town should be and what it should not be.