The enriched knowledge economy

Ecomusées, regional development and French anthropology, 1960-1980

Bibliographic Data

ID4516173
AuthorsNiki Rhyner (0009-0005-2480-4315, Humboldt-University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Pages1-19
Publication date2025-09-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience in Context (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0269889725100720
PMID41017524
OpenAlexW4414614465
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited20

Argument This article investigates how anthropological knowledge about regions with economic difficulties became part of regional development in France during the pivotal decade of the 1970s. It argues that ethnological fieldwork in French peripheries in the 1960s provided knowledge about regional culture and practices for its maintenance that became the core of a new development tool, the Ecomusée. It was via this tool that French anthropologists sought to intervene in regional development. By analyzing one of the first French ecomuseums, we gain an understanding of how anthropological practices and knowledge nurtured the shift to cultural development politics associated with the "enrichment economy." Fieldwork in the 1960s, aimed at a professionalized Ethnologie de France, problematized interaction with the local population and produced knowledge about regional culture that identified a region with its economic past. The practices of documentation and participation established during these fieldwork projects shaped the enrichment economy

Cultural Identity and Heritage · French Urban and Social Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access