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Meeting: 05.10. - 14.10.2006 Cordoba in Argentinia  - First Communication
I.C.O.F.O.M.

International Comittee for Museology
International Council of Museums

YEAR 2006
39th ANNUAL MEETING OF ICOFOM – 15th ANNUAL MEETING OF ICOFOM LAM
“MUSEOLOGY AND HISTORY”

In 2006, the ICOFOM (International Committee of Museology of the ICOM) and the ICOFOM LAM (International Committee of Museology for Latin America and the Caribbean) will jointly hold their Annual Conference in Argentina; it will be held between the 5th and the 15th of October, in the cities of Cordoba and Alta Gracia.
The program will include debating sessions, a series of conferences, visits to the city’s most important museums and to the World Heritage Jesuit Estancias in the interior of the province. The visits to these heritage places, together with conferences by specialists, will favour thought which will widen the perspective of these debates. The National University of Cordoba has offered the Hall of Grades of the prestigious house of study, for the Inaugural Act.

The meeting of the Board will be held between the 5th and the 7th of October, as well as the Inaugural Act and the thematic visit to the museums of the city of Cordoba and to the Jesuit Estancias which were declared world heritage. These activities will enrich the material for these debates, to be held between the 8th and the 10th of the same month. The post-conference excursions have been organized as from the 11th to the 15th of October.
In July 2005, at the ICOFOM Annual Conference held in Calgary (Canada), Cordoba (Argentina) was chosen the headquarters of the meeting as it was considered the ideal place to hold the proposed discussion.
In this Argentine province, certain event took place which left a deep impression in the social ad cultural developments of Argentina and South America. Its museums indicate its rich aboriginal past, the influence of Spain, the founding of one of the first American universities, the installation of the first industries, and the resulting social and labour movements of the XXth century. Due to both its university and its industrial condition, both in Argentina and in Latin America, Cordoba is considered a place of high intellectual importance where, during last century, important revolutionary movements took place.
The Meeting will be held at the National Museum “estancia Jesuitica de Alta Gracia”, one of the Jesuit establishments declared World Heritage in recognition of its historical influence (www.museoliniers.org.ar). The work program of this meeting will have as main theme “Museology and History”, with a program that will explore the complex relationships between Museology as a science that studies the relations between man and specific reality: that of a “museumized” heritage; and History, as a science, as an aesthetic representation, as a political representation, always related to the transmission of memory, to social legitimation, etc.

We understand that the subject of Museology and History goes farther than the simple relationship between museology and historical museums. Among the proposed subjects we consider it important to explore the relationship of museology with historiographical reasoning, present in museums of all types. We hope that the work documents will truly reflect the way in which museums have influenced the historical and social development of the different peoples; as also the manner in which museology and museums have presented events, social history, and micro-history.
Museum, whatever their types, confront us with tangible and intangible signs of the past. It is well-known that museums have served to give historical value to different types of sciences according to the cosmovision present in each era. For some reason, we have seen at the end of the XX and beginning of the XXI centuries, the development of museums that centre their concerns on social history and on the use of the past as a prefiguration of the future.
Cordoba, not only rich in history, but also in beautiful landscapes: The quiet cordobés hill with their lakes, rivers and streams, is already making preparations to welcome the members of ICOFOM and ICOFOM LAM. An organizing committee, supervised by the President of ICOFOM LAM, Lic. Nelly Decarolis is preparing all the details and taking the necessary measures in order to receive the visitors from all over the world, of the highest level, planning for the appropriate places to hold the debates, the services of simultaneous translators and a series of guided visits by well-know specialists to places of historical interest.
Also under preparation is the post-conference tour, to the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a true corridor which connects us with the heart of Latinoamerican history.
We especially invite you to start thinking of the proposed subject in order to send your contributions without delay.
At an early date we shall be sending you the provocative papers.
Cordoba awaits you in 2006.
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