Local museums and European identities: heritage as a practice of belonging in Europe

This project argues that the local heritage has an inherent potential to understand the role of heritage in experiences and practices of belonging on many levels: local, national but also and especially European level. Local heritage museums are often grass-roots organizations, run largely on voluntary work, and representative of how citizens with no professional or scholarly interest in the past still engage with historical objects and narratives to shape their own identities and that of their communities. It also helps redefine the publics’ perception of what a ‘museum’ is.