Museums and archaeological collections: practices around the communication of the indigenous past of Buenos Aires

Abstract

Museum institutions with indigenous archaeological collections on display currently make up one of the main ways that intervene in society's apprehension of the pre-Hispanic past. It is considered that are inserted in the dialectic of the production of meanings and social representations and, therefore, they must be analyzed based on the communicative relations they generate. This work discusses the archaeological communication strategies developed at the Museo Ignacio Balvidares of Puan, a public institution in the Buenos Aires municipality of Puan, Argentina. For these purposes, a synthesis of the analysis of institutional communication practices and the participatory links established between the museum, professional archaeologists and the local community is presented, in pursuit of the collective construction of regional archaeological knowledge. This work contributes to the analysis of the possible insertions and interventions of the archaeological disciplinary field in the territory. Likewise, it provides elements for reflection on the functions and possibilities offered by museum institutions as spaces for dialogue between different actors linked to archaeological heritage, interpreters of archaeological collections and builders of social representations of the indigenous past.