Cultural Heritage vs. National Heritage: The Case of the Ethnographic Museum in a Culturally Diverse Society

1. Introduction

Culture is viewed as one of the major variables that build and shape the social system in a particular time-space [1]. However, the term “culture” has been fragmented along theoretical and ideological lines, and thus perceived as both a natural-historical ethnic product that relies on common beliefs, language, symbols, and myths, and an ongoing construction that owes its existence in modern times to the social-political conditions enforced by the rise of nationalism [2]. Whether culture is perceived as a “stable” category or as a “fluid” one, culture and cultural heritage play different roles in the process of sensemaking of different ethnic-national groups. Implicit and explicit ideological forces and power relations are embedded and reflected in these processes. Homogenizing and stabilizing the collective identity of the group in light of the national identity and cultural heritage is one of the most influential forces [3]. Ethnic subcultures can be shaped by the homogeneous forces of the dominant ethnic culture, in order to be included in the national narrative and establish intra-group social solidarity [4, 5]. Ethnic subcultures can also function as a symbolic boundary that demarcates itself as the opposite pole of the dominant ethnic-national culture and heritage, or as a “disturbing” hybrid juncture that combines different ethnic-national cultures [6]. In other words, the processes of constructing the cultural heritages of different ethnic groups that form part of the modern nation state entail a dynamic negotiation that exists in an asymmetrical forcefield.

In light of the ongoing “cultural work” involved in shaping and preserving the ethnic cultural heritage in a national ideological context, this chapter will examine the case study of ethnographic museums representing non-hegemonic Jewish ethnic groups that emigrated to the state of Israel from Arab/Muslim countries (henceforth “Mizrahim”). These waves of immigration turned the state of Israel into a distinct example of multi-ethnic nation state [7]. As opposed to multi-ethnic societies that are characterized by multi-cultural models that ensure representative rights to minorities and strive to integrate the cultures and histories of minority groups within the common national heritage [8, 9] and even create polyphonic-dynamic interconnectedness [10], the Israeli multi-culturalism is portrayed by tension and conflict that stems from the attempt to force one unified ideological-cultural narrative on various ethnic groups [11]. In light of this, I will follow the journey undertaken by Mizrahi ethnic communities to preserve their cultural heritage, as part of the national narrative and cultural heritage shaped by Jewish ethnic groups that emigrated to the state of Israel from Europe (henceforth “Ashkenazim”). As one of the largest immigrant nations in the world and as a state embroiled in constant conflict with Arab/Muslim countries, to trace the processes of constructing ethnographic museums representing the “Arab-Jewish” (Mizrahi) cultural heritage is to trace a Jewish-ethnic “clash of civilizations”, from East and West, operating in the arena of the Zionist national culture. Examining the ways in which non-hegemonic ethnic cultural heritage takes shape in the context of a hegemonic ethnic-national cultural heritage turns the spotlight on the tension between ethnicity and nationality, hegemony and margins, uniformity and multiplicity. The ways in which these tensions clash and are embodied in the shaping of the ethnographic museums are therefore a story about the complex relationships involved in representing cultural heritages that are part of heterogeneous nation states in the late modern era.

2. National heritage as a new cultural heritage

The concepts of national identification and national sentiment have been perceived as the new form of ethnic/racial/religious traditions, which united and unified groups before the modern era [12]. Critical perspectives dismiss the idea of nationality as a construction that evolved on the cultural heritage platform and define cultural heritage instead as a category that owes its existence to the modern process of nationalization itself [13, 14]. The role of nationality in imagining a unifying cultural heritage negates the essentialist aspects of cultural heritage. The strenuous imaginative effort that creates the national heritages is concocted through various means: the map, the stamp, and the emblem that produce the collective cultural codes [3]. The effort to create a unified cultural heritage requires constant upkeep in an attempt to minimize the impacts of social splits and divides. Stoking the sense of national belonging also requires creating awareness and collective consciousness [7]. Diverse social institutions, including schools, libraries, museums, commemorative sites, and the education system, are put “on guard” to sustain the project of national unification. To implement the collective heritage, a unique set of rituals, praxis, and pedagogies are recruited to the mission [15, 16].

As constructed entities, nationality and cultural heritage expose the complicated interactions between the two elements that are supposed to create a sense of belonging and national affiliation. Nationalities can be distinguished on the basis of the role that cultural heritage plays in the shaping of their identity. While a certain kind of cultural heritage can become dominant, a different kind of cultural heritage may be marginalized and even eroded. The incomplete integration of cultural minorities in the hegemonic cultural heritage may create genuine sociopolitical rifts. Hence, nationality may sharply delineate identities of subcultures or blur distinct cultural markers to avoid “third spaces” that challenge the dominant cultural heritage [17]. These collective cultural efforts that build and rebuild the identification and commitment to the nation wish to become a convention and a banal norm [18].

3. Cultural heritage as a national heritage in the multiethnic society/nation

Israel is comprised of diverse ethnic Jewish communities that are divided into two main groups: Jews who emigrated from Christian countries in Europe and North America (Ashkenazim), and Jews who emigrated from Arab and Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa (Mizrahim). Jewish nationality—Zionism—was conceived, mainly, in light of the central-eastern European Ashkenazi ethnic culture [19]. This Ashkenazi group was one of the main contributors to the Zionist national culture and was shaped by the Ashkenazi pioneers before the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 [20]. During the 1950s, Israeli society was diversified by the big waves of migration of Mizrahi communities that left the Arab and Muslim countries due to the 1948 war. The Mizrahi migration coincided with varied interests. First, since the 1948 war, it became unsafe for Jews to live in Arab and Muslim countries. The latter wanted to get rid of the Jewish minority and confiscate their assets. Second, the Israeli state needed a demographic advantage over its Palestinian inhabitants who had not fled the country after the war, as well as faced a growing demand for an unskilled and cheap workforce [21].

Encountering the Zionist Ashkenazi ethnic-national culture, while having their own unique ethnic cultural heritage, formed in relation to and alongside the Arab/Muslim communities, caused a cultural clash between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim. Furthermore, since the Mizrahi heritages were inspired by the Arab/Muslim cultures in which they were cultivated, many Mizrahim identified themselves as “Arab-Jewish” [22]. From the Ashkenazi point of view, this definition was considered a dangerous hybrid transgressing the national unifying efforts [23]. On top of that, each of the Mizrahi ethnic communities—Iraqi Jewish, Persian Jewish, Syrian Jewish, Yemenite Jewish, and so on—had a different social-cultural-political realm. The communities differed from each other in their linguistic, ritualistic, material, and visual culture. The differences also existed within certain Jewish communities themselves. Thus, Jews from the same country were divided along geographical lines; for example, the Moroccan Jews from the Maghreb had different traditions and dialects than the Moroccan Jews from the big cities. Upon arriving in Israel, the Mizrahi Jewish communities were perceived by the Ashkenazim as having a monolithic shared cultural heritage. For this reason, the Ashkenazi Jews living in Israel called the different Mizrahi communities by generalized names: “Jews of Mizrahi extraction” and “Mizrahim” (Hebrew for East/Orient). This forced unification simplified the rich heritage of the “Mizrahi” ethnic groups. Even though these generalizations stemmed from the ignorance of the Ashkenazi Zionist Jews and from their orientalist point of view, they negatively affected the perception of the Mizrahi culture by the hegemonic ethnic-national Ashkenazi group [24].

While rejecting the Mizrahi Jewish-Arab culture, the dominant Ashkenazi Zionist group at the same time adopted the notion of the “melting pot”. The “melting pot” policy wished to re-mark the boundaries of Israeli society by integrating the Mizrahi Jews under one unifying national umbrella. This “umbrella” was shaped by the Zionist European-oriented cultural heritage, which strived to push all the non-national cultural heritages that had evolved in the diaspora to the margins and even erase them [25, 26]. For this reason, folklore did not serve as the unifying glue between the different Jewish subcultures that comprised the Jewish nation, since folklore represented a link to the Jewish cultures in the diaspora and was therefore perceived as a spanner in the wheels of the Zionist movement [27]. This approach relied on a logic that had developed in the nineteenth century that claimed that only ethnic groups that underwent a cultural evolution could succeed in solidifying into a national movement (ibid.).

Despite its aim to blur the cultural differences between the Mizrahi ethnic-Jewish cultural heritage and the national-Zionist one, and the efforts to “elevate” the Mizrahi cultural heritage to prevent the “Arabization” and “Levantinization” of the Israeli culture [28], the melting pot policy was perceived by its founders as colorblind. This led to the adoption of an ambiguous approach. On the one hand, the Mizrahi Jewish groups’ cultural heritage was perceived as a primordial authentic culture through which the Jewish nationality and culture were imagined. On the other hand, the Mizrahi culture, with its resemblance to the Arab/Muslim culture, undermined the validity of the modern Western national narrative and culture of the Ashkenazi ethnic-national culture [29]. The Mizrahim’s failure to adapt to/resistance against the cultural codes and heritage that were created by the Ashkenazi Jewish Zionists positioned them on the margins of the Zionist, European-based cultural heritage. The positioning of the Mizrahi ethnic culture as the dichotomous opposite of the Ashkenazi ethnic-national culture caused disappointment and anger and further described Mizrahim as having a traditional and primitive culture [30]. The de-Arabization process promised the Mizrahi ethnic group full integration into the Israeli national heritage and identity, but at the same time reproduced a sociocultural hierarchy between the Mizrahim and the Zionist culture. These hierarchies and tensions caused simultaneous processes of inclusion and exclusion of the Mizrahi group within the Israeli society and culture [31].

Only after the 1970s did the Ashkenazi hegemonic narrative allow the visibility of a more diverse and multiethnic culture and heritage, and the Mizrachi group gained dominance in the public sphere [32]. One of the main changes happened in the museum sphere. A large number of museums were created in communities of second- and third-generation Mizrahi Jewish immigrants. These museums represent different past legacies and different ethnic-national cultures and heritages, most of them of non-Ashkenazi communities.

4. Ethnographic museums and the national heritage

The museum is a political tool. The national museum and the national art gallery were founded in most Western countries by the middle of the nineteenth century, in order to create unifying and uniting narrative and foci of identification [33].¹ In contrast to the national museum, the ethnographic museum exhibited foreign, remote, and “exotic” cultures. Ethnographic museums that were dedicated to particular ethnic groups that were part of the nation state appeared only sporadically. Museums of this kind mainly popped up when there was fear that a certain ethnic group, which had already been assimilated into the national cultural heritage, would lose its past heritage. The “museumization” of the historical-cultural heritage of a specific group acted as a means of conservation designed to embalm the past, rather than as a means designed to challenge the national culture or broaden its manifestations. The representation of Jewish ethnic groups in the state of Israel was no different. The Jewish ethnic culture that achieved the biggest exposure was the Zionist-pioneering Ashkenazi one, which emigrated to Mandatory Palestine before the founding of the state of Israel. Already during the British Mandate, a few ethnographic museums were built by the members of the Ashkenazi Zionist Aliyot who were documenting and conserving the material and visual culture of the present for the next generations. Among these museums are the Bezalel Museum in Jerusalem (1906), Sturman House in Ein Harod (1941), and Gordon House in Degania Alef (1941). After the founding of the state of Israel, there was an enormous surge in the building of ethnographic museums [35]. In fact, Israel boasts the largest number of historical-ethnographic museums per capita in the Western world [36].

However, representing the Ashkenazi cultural heritage in these museums was not done through the ethnic lens [37]. Ashkenazim were not even described as an “ethnic” group, and the museums did not examine their culture as it had existed in Europe. The Ashkenazi group was represented in the museum solely as a national group, and even as the standard for the renewed nationalism of the Jewish people. The historical-cultural zero point presented in these museums was the time in which the Ashkenazi ethnic groups had emigrated to Mandatory Palestine and located their national home in it. Most of the museums describe the struggle of the Ashkenazi Zionist groups in building the country, “making the desert bloom”, and protecting the Zionist Yishuv [38]. The museums also exhibit the daily routine of the pioneers, as well as the material culture that served them in the nation-building project.

These museums adopted pedagogical practices that create a powerful experience by using expressive methods that stir the viewer’s imaginative and emotional world. This praxis includes testimonies, biographical accounts, role play, simulations, historical reenactments, and discussing dilemmas [39]. However, despite the openness that characterizes this pedagogical praxis, it presents a “closed” narrative. This narrative aspires to convey a coherent and linear story of the nation, that is, a narrative detached from existing power relations between different ethnic groups (pioneers/immigrants; hegemony/margins; Ashkenazim/Mizrahim), and usually praises the hegemonic national culture [40]. This ethnic-national narrative is not open to interpretations or criticism.

Ethnic cultures of “other” Jewish groups, mainly Mizrahi migrants from Arab/Muslim countries, were not included in these museums, since the latter came to Israel close to or after its founding. The only ethnographic museums that were built in the first years of the state of Israel were dedicated to different communities in Europe destroyed in the Holocaust, in order to document an ethnic culture that had ceased to exist [41]. Although Mizrahim’s culture was absent from the national museums, it was integrated into museums that aspired to present the various Jewish communities under a unifying national banner. The Diaspora Museum, founded in 1978,² is an example of this model [42]. To emphasize the “ingathering of the exiles” and “melting pot” ideal, the Mizrahi ethnic groups were presented mainly in a partial and fragmented way. Some of the exhibits were even taken out of their context. Other exhibits were presented in a generalized way or flattened in order to adapt them to the unifying national narrative [43].³

Only a small number of bodies and associations attempted to document and preserve the culture of the Jewish ethnic groups that immigrated from Arab/Muslim countries in the first decade after the state of Israel’s founding. Among these associations were the Alliance of the Moroccan Exodus, founded in 1967 to collect and conserve the cultural heritage of Moroccan Jews [45]; the National Organization of Jews from Kurdistan in Israel, founded in 1971 and engaged in researching the tradition and cultural heritage of the community; the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, founded in 1973 with the aim of preserving the history and cultural heritage of Iraqi Jews; the World Organization of Libyan Jews, founded in 1984 and serving as an umbrella organization of associations engaged in preserving material and spiritual culture; the Marrakesh Jewish Association in Israel, founded in 1985 by David Vaknin Keinan with the aim of holding annual conferences in which a replica of the Jewish neighborhood in Marrakesh (the Mellah) was reconstructed [46].

In the area of education, the situation was no better as well. Only in 1974 was the cultural heritage of Mizrahi Jews integrated into the school curriculum. Pressure from Mizrahi members of the Knesset, and in particular MK Haviv Shimoni from the Mapai party who had immigrated to Israel from Kurdistan, led to the establishment of the Center for Integrating Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage. Haviv called from the Knesset podium for “urgent action to save the heritage of Mizrahi Jewry”, and chaired a committee that established the subject of heritage studies [47]. The center engaged with Jewish communities in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, India, Bukhara, Georgia, Ethiopia, Syria, and Lebanon. But the subject of heritage did not become part of the Core Studies program and remained an elected subject. These moves did not make Israeli society more pluralistic [48].

Alongside the unsatisfactory representation of Mizrahi communities through independent research and conservation associations and through the national curriculum, the state continued to make attempts to control the Mizrahi ethnic narrative and its modes of representation. In 1993, the Culture Administration proposed building a large “Ethnic” museum that would bring together all the communities/museums of Eastern Jewry under a uniting national narrative, but this proposal was not implemented. In 2005 a proposal in this vein was even made by the Israeli government. It intended to establish “a national authority for the heritage of all the Jewish ethnic groups” [49], in which all the different ethnic groups would be represented. But this process of “nationalization” did not materialize either.

5. Mizrahi ethnographic museums

The first ethnographic museums dedicated to one ethnic group were a product of the political change that occurred in 1977. In this year, the ruling party of Mapai, which represented mainly the established Zionist Yishuv of European descent, was deposed for the first time.⁴ The political turnover was preceded by increasing discontent between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim, and between immigrants and established citizens. The surging intra-Jewish ethnic tension had manifested itself in extensive protests that had already broken out in 1971, by Mizrahi youngsters who were living in poor frontier neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Under the name The Black Panthers, thousands took to the streets to protest against the discrimination and social, cultural, and economic deprivation of people in Israel originating from Arab and Muslim countries [50]. In this period, the myth of national unity was broken, together with the wish to create a “melting pot” of “the ingathering of the exiles”. This led to groups that sought to found museums that would describe the cultural heritage and daily lives of Jews in the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa. The result was the establishment of many museums dedicated to various communities. Among them are the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Museum (1988), the Cochin Jewry Heritage Center (1996), the David Amar World Center for North African Jewish Heritage (2011), the Museum of Libyan Jews (2003), and the Turkey Jewry Heritage Center (2005).⁵

Other museums dealing with Jewish communities from Arab and Muslim countries are in various stages of planning and fundraising, including the Tunis Jewry Museum, the Caucasian Jewry Museum, and the Georgia Jewry Museum. The museums already operating differ in size, status, and scope of activity. Some museums are very modest, struggling to fund their activities, and recognized only by the local authority where they are located. Other museums are large, more established, meeting the strict criteria stipulated by the Museum Law, and enjoying official recognition from the Ministry of Education.

Although the museums were established in a period in which the national narrative was broadened and became more pluralistic, the museums dedicated to various Mizrahi communities conducted themselves ambivalently for fear of being perceived as “separating themselves” from both the Jewish and the Zionist world. As a result, many museums wished to stress that they were part of the Jewish identity that had consolidated in the state of Israel. In the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Museum, the founders claimed that “Babylonian heritage” was not only the heritage of Iraqi Jews but of all Jews [21]. The historical context presented in the World Center for North African Jewish Heritage focuses on and highlights the connection with the Jewry in the state of Israel [52]. The Museum of Libyan Jews mentions the race laws enforced on the community during the Italian occupation and the Holocaust of Libyan Jews. At the same time, the museum ignores the pogroms perpetrated by the Muslims on the community’s Jews before the Second World War, thus linking the history of Libyan Jews with the history of European Jews, which is the dominant narrative in the state of Israel. Turkey Jewry Heritage Center presents the community’s life as centering around its activities at the synagogue, in order to magnify the weight of Jewishness over “Turkishness” in the community’s identity.

These museums also stress that they are part of the Zionist identity that has consolidated in the state of Israel. Thus, for example, at the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Museum, the term “Babylonian Jewry” was chosen instead of the term “Iraqi Jews”, to distinguish the Jews from the (Muslim) Iraqis and emphasize their belonging to the Zionist movement [53]. Next to the museum was inaugurated a monument dedicated to Yosef Basri and Shalom Salah, who were hanged for their Zionist activities in Iraq. At the Cochin Jewry Heritage Center, an extensive part of the museum is dedicated to the community’s contribution to the army and the state [54]. In its historical narrative, the Museum of Libyan Jews stresses the collaboration between the community and the Zionist movement, and the fulfillment of the Zionist vision [55]. The history of Libyan Jewry is presented as intertwined with the Zionist history. The exhibition space reconstructs the myths originating in the Zionist-pioneering settlement, and not necessarily related to the community of Libyan Jews and its heritage.

An unusual example, though not without problems [56], is Museum in a Suitcase, created by the artist Alemu Eshetie and dedicated to the community of Ethiopian Jews. Eshetie created, in 2009, a mobile museum contained in a suitcase, with which he “performs” in many public institutions: schools, universities and colleges, museums, and so on. The museum is housed in a wooden suitcase (30/80/40 cm). The suitcase contains Eshetie’s personal story and the story and characteristics of the Ethiopian Jewish community. The community’s cultural heritage is represented through various kinds of items that had been brought from Ethiopia, including traditional pieces of clothing (“neTela”), the Amharic alphabet (“Fidel”), traditional earthenware for coffee making, musical instruments, and art objects. The material culture functions in this context both as an “authentic testimony” representing the story of the community and as a visual aide to conduct a dialog with the participants. Thus, material culture does not function only as objects for observation that decorate the narrative of the exhibition, but also as artifacts that aim to activate conversation with the viewers. This approach acts as a discursive space that holds a promise to voice different kinds of knowledge, points of view, and narratives during the exhibition.

These processes neither settle for a historical story about a cultural heritage originating in the past nor are committed to a specific ideological narrative in the present. As such, they might yield variable, open-for-discussion narratives, such as are usually not heard when it comes to the cultural heritage of disadvantaged ethnic groups.

6. Cultural heritage of non-hegemonic ethnic groups: Is it a different voice? Is there a “right” voice it?

Cultural heritage is combined in the modern state with the national narrative and its political agendas. Nationality actively participates in the construction of cultural heritage by using practices of negotiation, selection, classification, assimilation, and exclusion. It seems that for the time being, the ties between nationality and ethnic cultural heritage are becoming even stronger in nation states that are embedded in ongoing national conflicts that threaten their existence.

From its foundation, heritage-making in Israel has evolved in between the poles created by ethnicity and nationality. Basing the demand for national sovereignty on the existence of a unified ethnic-Jewish cultural heritage made it possible to challenge the various Jewish-Arab hybrids and amalgams. In this trade-off, the Arab-Jews (Mizrahim) were given a national identity because of their Jewishness, while their ethnic Jewish-Arab cultural characteristics were restricted. Even though the national culture in its Ashkenazi-ethnic-group version has reconstructed the ethnic cultural heritage of non-Ashkenazi Jews to unify all the ethnic groups under one national narrative/heritage, Mizrahi heritage centers and museums have evolved over the years.

How do these museums navigate between the national culture (in its Ashkenazi-ethnic version) and the Arab-Jewish ethnic culture, and how do they influence the shaping of the cultural heritage in Israel?

Museums that represent and exhibit non-European Jewish ethnic heritage are without a doubt broadening and challenging the narrative of the national-Zionist culture. Despite this, these museums are encountering several ideological-political challenges. Firstly, the “Mizrahi” museums are devoted to presenting “popular culture” and daily life, which are perceived as an inferior genre on the margins of the cultural canon. Although museums for the history of the Zionist settlement similarly emphasized the popular culture and daily life of the Ashkenazi pioneers, the latter are perceived in the Israeli culture as representing the cultural canon. The reason is that the museums for the history of the settlement do not perceive themselves as representing “popular culture” or folklore but as tellers of a heroic and agreed-upon national narrative. Secondly, the “Mizrahi” museums are perceived as describing a specific geo-cultural context and are therefore perceived as representing particular and partial events. Museums for the history of the Zionist settlement are also embedded in a specific geopolitical context, but this context is perceived as representing general events that encompass all parts of the nation. Thirdly, the Arab/Muslim cultural context in which the cultural heritage of the Mizrahi communities is presented has embodied an integration between Jews and Arabs that has created a dissonance on the national level.

The solution of the museums presenting the Mizrahi ethnic cultural heritage to these ideological-political challenges was to construct historical continuums that began in the Arab/Muslim countries and ended in the Zionist Jewish world, and even in the Zionist cultural heritage created by the Ashkenazi Jews. As the museums constantly move between the “ethnic” past and the ethno-national present, the Mizrahi cultural heritage, in its various forms, represented its uniqueness in a new way. This movement between ethnicity and nationality leads to a reimagination of the Mizrahi cultural heritage. The result certainly does not represent a symbolic expression of an ethnic entity that is replacing the national as the locus of primary, as Nissimi claims [57]. The result also does not represent polyphonic forms of multiculturalism that acknowledge cultural heritages as flux and dynamic entities that are not committed to one ideological-cultural narrative [58]. Other possibilities of exhibiting and acting, as in the case of Museum in a Suitcase, are still on the margins of the museal-ethnographic space in Israel as well. Only a few museums are engaging with the cultural heritage of their communities by creating an inter-group dialog/space for discussing and (re)thinking about culture and heritage in the past and present days [59].⁶

So how the new cultural assemblage created by the ethnographic museums of Mizrahi Jews can be understood? Critical reading of this assemblage might blame the museums/communities for adopting a “false cultural consciousness”. But this claim represents a hegemonic reading in itself since it is downplaying the discursive agency of the museums/communities. The same goes for imposing on the ethnographic Mizrahi museum models of shared practices, such as research-based projects that engage the viewers and the community. Even though the current literature suggests that this mode of representation is ideal and even moral since it extracts the museums’ discourse from the power relations/structures in which it is trapped [60], the case of the ethnographic Mizrahi museums suggests a different path of interpretation. Democratizing the museum’s discourse does not always coincide with the interests and needs of non-hegemonic communities. In the case of the ethnographic Mizrahi museums, the need to frame old-new cultural heritages by using the Jewish and national narratives was more important than the need to imply shared praxis. This conclusion blurs the sharp distinction that the shared praxis model is drawing between representation (of a cultural heritage) and action (about the cultural heritage). Ethnographic museums do not have to become an open arena of negotiation. Understanding and acknowledging the museum’s interests and needs might be the “right” ethical lens through which we should interpret Other peoples’ cultural heritage in the heterogeneous nation states in the late modern era.