Abstract
Driven by diverging paradigms, municipal history-oriented museums and public archives in Flanders – many of them once jointly governed by a single administrative department – grew increasingly apart by the end of the 20th century, culminating in a divide between archives and museums. Whereas local museums aligned themselves more with societal-oriented frameworks emphasizing relevance and value, public archives became to prioritize records management, diminishing their cultural roles. Despite the implementation of an integrated heritage policy by the turn of the millennium, which aimed to transcend institutional and disciplinary silos, a stark demarcation in Flemish cultural heritage policy became institutionalized instead, limiting public archives’ inclusion in cultural heritage frameworks. This research examines the extent and implications of the divide between local museums and public archives. Using a mixed-method approach – survey, interviews with practitioners and policymakers, desk research and literature review – it investigates perceptions of similarity, divergence, and potential for collaboration and convergence between these institutions. The findings suggest that smaller institutions and local contexts are more open to interdisciplinary collaboration and to some extent institutional convergence, while larger institutions emphasize institutional profiling, potentially reinforcing the divide. This would suggest that the current ‘one-size-fits-all’ central policy in Flanders should be adjusted with differentiating approaches that reflect institutional particularities. Rather than pursuing institutional convergence, as advocated in theoretical debates on LAM convergence, it is argued that, to move beyond functional collaboration and to overcome the divide, policies should encourage meaningful integration while recognizing and respecting institutional, disciplinary, and scalar differences.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
LAM Convergence, Heritage policy, Collection-based institutions, Interdisciplinarity
