SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INDUSTRY MUSEUMS: DISSEMINATORS OF HISTORY AND ACTIVISTS OF IDENTITY SPEECH

Abstract

The industrial sector changes according to the requirements and resources of the place that is located; industrial heritage that is preserved in museums of science, technique and industry gets a cultural rehabilitation of the areas affected by the suspension of productive activities. Therefore, the museum conserves the socio-historical-cultural significance of the period to which belonged its exhibition contents.

To understand how these museums operate for identity and memory, I analyze two case studies of museum experience and museum discourse: the Archivo Histórico y Museo de Minería2 in Pachuca, Mexico in virtue of its socioeconomic impact where it is located and the Museo Nacional de Ciencia y Técnica de Cataluña3 in Spain for its internationally recognized network system of preservation and diffusion in museums.

Ethnographic and semiotic method were combined for the reason that the museum spaces presents discourses that affirm the identity generated by the memory. Study their ability to communicate the museum discourse support the analysis of the actions that consolidate them as successful museums of science, technique and industry. Therefore, they achive the function of being popularizers of its subject as well as helpful protectors of memory but above all, they are become speech activists of the identity of their region without forgetting their commitment of being science communicators, promoters of interest in technical concepts and trainers of full understanding of an industrial activity.