Museum Development and Cultural Policy: Aims, Prospects and Challenges

The article below was prepared by Museum entirely on the basis of contributions requested from Marta Arjona, Director of the Cultural Heritage, Cuba; Frances Kay Brinkley, a volunteer museologist in the eastern Caribbean; Fernanda de Camargo-Moro, Director-General of Museums, State of Rio de Janeiro; Roderick C. Ebanks, Director of the Museums and Archaeological Division, Institute of Jamaica; Manuel Espinoza, Director of the National Art Gallery, Caracas, Venezuela; Felipe Lacouture, Director of the National Museum of History, Mexico City; Luis G. Lumbreras, archaeologist and former Director of the National Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, Lima, Peru; Aloisio Magalhaes, Secretary of State for Culture, Brazil; and Grete Mostny, Director of the National Museum of Natural History, Santiago de Chile. The various contributions were sent to the UNDP/Unesco Regional Project for the Cultural Heritage at Lima, Peru, where Miss Juana Truel, a linguist and specialist in comparative literature associated with the project, prepared an initial synthesis. The contributing authors have been in the forefront of the museum movement in Latin America and the Caribbean; many of them are already well known to professional colleagues. Because of the role they play today—whether locally, regionally or internationally—in museum curatorship, management and exchange or in the formulation and execution of national heritage protection policies, Museum asked each of these specialists to send us a few pages on the ‘state of the art’ on the Latin American and Caribbean museum scene. In view of the forthcoming World Conference on Cultural Policies (Mexico City, 26 July–5 August 1982) we asked these authors to explore the problems of museums with particular reference to cultural policies in their countries. Each replied in his or her own terms. The synthesis that follows is neither a thorough objective survey of the situation as it is today nor a blueprint for the future. We hope, however, that it captures the pulse of museological life in the region, whose museums face challenges that are similar to those found throughout the Third World.