Museums and the crisis of concurrent identity populations

Abstract

Latin America is a continent of people of many origins, indigenous,immigrant and mixtures of all kinds, especially in Argentina. For many years, Latin American history and museums tried to promote unifying myths of nationality. These days, new value is attached to the variety of social and ethnic identities of pueblos de identidad concurrente (here translated as ‘people whose identity flows from many sources’, or perhaps ‘multi‐cultural). The Latin American museum can take the special role of idenity‐revealer in such societies. In an epoch of apparently inexorable mass communication and economic globalisation, the museum, may be able to propose an alternative future.