Contextualization of Cultural Heritage: A Comparative Analysis

What is the Museo Diffuso of Testaccio and how does it compare with the approach to cultural heritage studied in relation to the Forum and the Aqueducts?

Museo Diffuso of Testaccio is a defused museum throughout the neighborhood of Testaccio. It is compared in the way it took a different approach to preserving cultural heritage when compared to the Forum and the Aqueducts. The Museo is a part of the neighborhood, and they preserved cultural artifacts while leaving them in their real context (surroundings that exist around a particular area). When looking at the Forum and Aqueducts, it can be seen that it follows de-contextualization in that it shows the artifacts in isolation from their context.

Why is showing Cultural Heritage in its appropriate context more real and fair with respect to the cultures of a city/nation?

It is important to show cultural heritage in its appropriate context since it is more real and fair with respect to the cultures of the city or nation. The cultural heritage is more realistic around its surroundings. It is in because it helps people connect with the monument or the history as it is a part of the daily lives of people, but when it is isolated and not in context, this connection disappears as it looks more like just art or a monument. This could be seen when looking at the Forum compared to the Testaccio museum.

The issue of contextualization and de-contextualization brings you back to the notion of representation and authority. The way you represent a culture, for example, through its cultural artifacts, can either empower that culture or disempower it. We have seen that when a culture is treated as a series of disconnected objects from their context, you misrepresent it and disempower it. Why? Because you isolate one particular period in history and present it as "the" most important one in a series of different periods? What if, in the process of constructing the Somali National Identity, your culture, family villages, music, literature (that is, the culture that you identify with) is erased, evicted, relocated, destroyed?

Why does bell hooks say that the margin (physical, virtual, cultural, economic, political) can be a site of resistance? Resistance to what?

Understanding marginality as a position and place of resistance is crucial for oppressed, exploited, and colonized people.