Industrial museums with Chinese characteristics: theories and practices

 Artículo

Autores: Long, L.; Cano Sanchiz, J.M.

Revista: Museum Management and Curatorship

Páginas: 149 - 168

Número: 39.2

Año: 2024

Traditional and modern printintg technologies displayed in the China Printing Museum (Fig. 11)

ABSTRACT: Industrial museums are experiencing fast development in China, where they play important roles in industrial heritage preservation, the promotion of industrial culture, and nation-building. These uses, together with the particularities of the Chinese industrialisation process, have shaped new models in industrial museography. In this paper, we describe how some Western ideas regarding industrial museums and heritage have been adapted in China, and how the development of such ideas in theory and practice has resulted in different types of museums. In doing so, we use bibliometry, statistics, and quantitative and qualitative analyses to study the factors behind the growth of industrial museums in China, the scientific literature on the topic produced in the country, and basic data about 249 museums. As a result, we delimitate the specificities of the industrial museums with Chinese characteristics, which can enrich the international discussion on the subject with approaches less explored in the West.

KEYWORDS: industrial museums; industrial culture; industrial heritage; uses of the past, People’s Republic of China.

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